Park Specialists' Newsletter
Fourth Grade Edition - Second Trimester
Second Trimester Recap
From Park's Art Instructor - Mrs. Ovadje
Half of the 4th grade at Park Elementary switched from ART to STEM specialist in January, and vise-versa. In art, we explore many materials and students work hands-on with a variety of materials including markers, crayons, watercolor paint, tempera paint, collage, chalk pastels, oil pastels, printmaking, paint sticks and clay. While making art, we also explore line, shape, color, texture, value, form, and space.
Projects we have completed:
Modern Mona Lisa, a spoof of the famous painting by Da Vinci
Clay Leaves - going in the kiln over spring break!
Next up:
One-Point Perspective City Drawings
Jackson Pollock Action Paintings
Pop Art Candy Prints using styrofoam printing plates and block printing ink
Sunflower Still-Lifes using only tints and shades of yellow
Students are keeping their artwork in their portfolio as a collection. Students will bring home their portfolios at the end of January.
I will be keeping some fabulous art pieces for the art show in the spring. Also, look for more information from your classroom teacher regarding Arts & Academics! Thank you PTO for making it happen every year!
The ART room is looking for donations:
Glue sticks
Clear/wide book tape (3M)
Thank you for your consideration, Mrs. Ovadje
Einstein Lisa, Swimmer Lisa, Super Star Lisa, Sgt. Lisa, Popular Lisa, Leonardo Lisa, Pikachu Lisa, Horse Lover Lisa, Tiger Lisa
From Park's Librarian - Ms. Shadis
Search strategies
Fourth grade has spent most of second trimester interacting with print and online reference sources, including Kids InfoBits, Brittanica and Almanacs. To benefit from these costly databases, FREE to you, visit www.elm4you.org.
New Books!
The library’s new books were celebrated in class. Students heard book talks about select titles of interest to 4th grade (see sample of high interest series below) and walked around to preview even more choices. Check out the list of new books online: destiny.isd423.org. Click on “Resource Lists” Select “2019 New Books.”
Book Coopertition
Fourth grade students wrote 267 book responses for the Book Coopertition contest. In many classrooms, there were special Drop Everything and Read times as well opportunities to recommend books to classmates. Many students have and will receive a prize book rewarding their efforts.
Book Madness
February 5-March 6, students are voting in class for the Book Madness tournament. The library has multiple copies of each book pictured below. Check one out and enjoy together!
Looking ahead…
April 12: Buy One Get One FREE book fair in the library in conjunction with Arts & Academics
April 30-May 28: PTO’s Reading Tree: When students read 5 hours outside school, they earn a free prize book.
From Park's Technology Integration Instructor - Mr. Durheim
The second trimester of TechTime was filled with fun, challenges, and learning for fourth graders. We focused on these main topics:
Media Literacy - Advertising is all around us. Fourth graders learned about gimmicks advertisers use in malls and stores through a fun game called “You Are Here."
Computational Thinking, Coding, & Robotics - Fourth graders have continued to be challenged to use their computational thinking (problem solving) skills. Students were introduced to Ozobots--small robots which use light sensors to follow color-coded lines. They used the robots to follow code and created their own coded maps. Thank you to the ISD423 Foundation for providing a grant to purchase these little robots that help us to do BIG THINKING!
Students also participated in the Hour of Code and are currently exploring four different types of coding as we rotate through coding stations.Online Safety - We focus on online safety throughout the whole year. Conversations in TechTime connect to the learning students are doing in their homerooms, especially with the use of Chromebooks.
UP NEXT: During the third trimester, fourth graders will continue to learn about different types of coding through our coding station rotations and we will spend several Library and TechTime classes learning to code in Scratch.
Please visit the TechTime website to learn more about specific activities, websites, and learning goals.
Fourth graders have all had the opportunity to record the multimedia Daily Announcements for Park Elementary. These videos are available on Park’s website.
Type to Learn Keyboarding - A New Specialist Class Offering!
Students continue to have keyboarding lesson time once every four school days. We use an online program called Type to Learn which tracks individual student progress and sets individualized goals. Learning to type on a keyboard is very similar to learning to play a musical instrument. It takes a lot of hard work, practice, and determination. Students are finding that a positive attitude and focus are very helpful in making progress.
From Park's Phy Ed Educators - Mrs. Hahn & Ms. Mueller
A typical day in the Physical Education class begins with a fitness warm-up activity. These activities vary from cardiovascular, muscular strength/endurance, and/or flexibility. The purpose of these activities is to increase the students’ awareness and level of fitness. After the warm-up, students have a lesson that focuses on the skills that will help them to be successful in the games in a unit. Then, students participate in an age-appropriate game using the skill(s) practiced in that lesson.
Jump Rope For Heart:
Thanks for all your help with Jump Rope for Heart. Our students collected $4155 to give to the American Heart Association to help fight heart disease and strokes. Excellent work!
Walk for Hunger Recap:
In December, our students participated in the “Walk for Hunger Food Shelf Drive”. This event combined wellness and community service for our students. We donated 1,393 pounds of food to the McLeod County Food Shelf! Thanks to all the families that donated and helped make this event a success!
Units covered during second trimester:
1. Basketball
2. Cooperatives- large and small group activities (see below for a short video of some small group exercises practiced during P.E.)
3. Multicultural games
4. Jumping activities- ropes and Chinese jump ropes
5. Table tennis
6. Components of fitness- Fitness Wheel and identification activities of components.
Simple steps for making a real difference in children’s lives and helping build healthy habits for life:
- Keep fresh fruit in a bowl within your child’s reach to grab as a quick snack.
- Take a walk with your family after dinner.
- Drinking just one can of soda a day increases a child's risk of obesity by 60%. Restrict your child's soft drink consumption.
- Turn off the TV during meals and share some family time.
From Park's Music Teachers - Ms. Hauth & Mrs. Hoeft
We continue to work on our pitch matching abilities and reading music by singing melodies using the notes in the solfege scale. Students have been practicing using Do Re Mi Fa So La and high Do and low So. The students first echo and sign patterns using these pitches, then decode and read patterns and songs on the music staff. They are also working on their note-reading skills as they learn the letter names of the notes on the staff and play their recorders. So far the students have learned to read the notes B, A, G, C and D. They have played songs from their recorder book and also composed their own melodies using these notes and the rhythms of chants and songs. During the holidays, students learned “The World Says Merry Christmas” and played jingle bells along with their recorders. They are off to a good start and will continue to read more songs and learn new notes on the recorder in the third trimester. See the above picture of Mrs. Thode’s class playing recorder.
Our rhythm work this trimester has focused on reading and playing sixteenth notes. Students enjoyed playing the game X-ray Eyes, where they had to remember a rhythm pattern using sixteenth notes and say it correctly. The students worked hard to play sixteenth note patterns and songs using rhythm sticks while playing along to Rockin’ Rhythm Raps. Another activity used words from the song Jingle at the Window. Students worked in groups to create and play a 12-beat jingle composition on tambourines. In a similar activity, students worked in groups to create 16-beat “pie” compositions and played them on tubano drums. Students paired up with a partner to create measures of 4 beats using Measure Packets, then practiced counting their rhythms. Students have also practiced playing sixteenth note patterns on their recorders, using the notes they know.
During November, fourth graders learned several patriotic songs including This Land is Your Land, Fifty Nifty United States, America the Beautiful, My Country Tis of Thee, and the Star Spangled Banner. Students enjoy singing about their country and learning about the history of our National Anthem. Students also enjoy singing songs from other countries. Multi-cultural music learned this trimester included the Native American song Land of the Silver Birch, and the Hebrew song Hava Nagila. After learning the song, students practiced dancing the Israeli folk dance called the Hora.
During the December holiday season, we enjoyed watching The Nutcracker, a story by E.T.A. Hoffman, which was interpreted in music composed by Peter Tchaikovsky and in dance (ballet) choreographed by Marius Petipa. We read the story, listened to the music, and watched scenes from the ballet on video. The students gained an understanding of how stories can be told through dance and music, and without words.
From Park's Science Specialist - Mrs. McDowell
Throughout all of the STEM projects students are continually following the Engineering Design Process to ask questions, plan, create, make observations and improve their designs along the way. Check out what your child/student has been up to these last couple of months in STEM!
Magnetism and Electricity! To conclude their STEM school year before moving onto Art in January, 4th grade STEM students were engaged with a series of lessons that dealt with magnetism and electricity! After exploring 6 different hands-on magnetic stations that were set up throughout the room, students learned:
1) That magnets do not require air/gas to work and can work through a solid, as well as in a liquid
2) Magnets do not attract to ALL metals
3) Magnets and planet Earth both have magnetic fields, which is how compasses work
4) That north and south poles attract and like-poles repel
Being electricity and magnetism go hand-in-hand, the opportunity was used to discuss the terms “conductor” and “insulator,” through the use of creating simple circuits and testing items to see if they could successfully complete a circuit and light up a lightbulb. Students soon figured out that all metals can be considered conductors, and that things like (newer) paint, plastic and rubber are insulators.
Following all of these discoveries, students had a mission to create a boat that could not only float, but was also powered by the attract or repel feature of magnets. 4th graders definitely faced many challenges during this project, which included having to work with a budget to buy supplies, as well as the challenge of steering/guiding their boat depending on if they used the power of attraction or repel. All in all, they agreed they had fun and learned many new things about magnets!
A “new” STEM year began on January 22nd for the classes of Mrs. Weisenberger, Mrs. Kegley, Mrs. Heidebrink and Mrs. Hoag. Up until this point, they had been seeing Mrs. Ovadje for Art. It was a bittersweet change as many of the students were going to miss Art, but were also anxiously awaiting their very 1st STEM challenge of the school year!
Clay Boats! 4th grade STEM students spent the last part of the trimester creating a clay boat that could not only float, but hold the most pennies in it as well. In order to be more successful in their mission, they explored whether items sank or float when placed in water. They also discussed the terms buoyancy and density to explain what was happening to each item. They came to the conclusion that an item is less dense than water, and floats, if the water being displaced has less mass than the object itself (also known as Archimedes Principle.) Confusing I know! However, they were able to use this information to determine that if they thinned out their clay by rolling it out, their boat would become less dense than the water, have more surface area/volume and be able to float. The thinner they made their boat, the less dense it was, the better it floated and the more money it could hold!
A group of 4th graders observe the connection between magnets and compasses
4th graders testing their clay boats to see what types of improvements they can make
4th graders testing their clay boats to see what types of improvements they can make
Park Elementary School
Email: dan.olberg@isd423.org
Website: isd423.org/park-elementary/
Location: 100 Glen Street Southwest, Hutchinson, MN, United States
Phone: (320) 587-2837
Twitter: @parkelem