Park Specialists' Newsletter
Fourth Grade Edition - First Trimester
First Trimester Recap
From Park's Art Instructor - Mrs. Ovadje
For the first trimester, students from Mrs. Kegley, Mrs. Heidebrink, Mrs. Weisenberger, and Mrs. Hoag's respective classes attended art.
Half of the fourth grade classrooms visit the art classroom every other day. In January, my art students will go to STEM and I will get to meet the rest of the fourth grade students!
In art, we explore many materials and create numerous projects each year. Students work with a variety of materials, including markers, crayons, watercolor paint, tempera paint, collage, pastels, oil pastels, paint sticks and clay. While making art, students explore line, shape, color, texture and space.
Projects completed this trimester:
Modern Mona Lisa, a spoof of the famous painting by Da Vinci
Action Paintings inspired by Jackson Pollock
One-Point Perspective City Drawings
Clay Leaves
Sunflower Still-Lifes using only tints and shades of yellow (click here to watch a short video of students in action!)
Students are keeping their artwork in a portfolio. At the end of January, students will bring their portfolios home. Some of the fabulous art pieces will be kept for the art show in the spring and then returned to their creator.
Works of Art
Works of Art
Work of Art
From Park's Librarian - Ms. Shadis
In the Library:
Fourth grade reviewed proper book care and focused on literacy standards relating to Native Americans through enjoying some different books (a couple novels are pictured right).
Minnesota Student Book Choice Award
Students who have read at least three of the Minnesota Student Book Choice titles will be able to vote for their favorite book at the end of March. The votes from Park Elementary will be tallied and sent into the state headquarters for compilation with all of the other student votes around the state. The student choice book award recipient will be announced on April 25. Encourage your child to participate. The nominated books are pictured below the article.
Considering giving your child a special book for the holidays?
Here are some resources that can help:
http://bccb.ischool.illinois.edu/files/2017/11/GBGB2017.pdf
http://www.readingrockets.org/books/buyingguide/
http://www.scholastic.com/parents/
Check out Park Elementary's FREE e-books!
Below are two resources for students to access that work on any internet-connected device:
- http://www.tbcjr.com/ This website contains longer books for advanced readers. Login information is: Username: park423. Password: login
- http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/ (grades K-3) Students can listen to books while following along with the text at a variety of levels. Check it out! Login information is the same as mentioned above: Username: park423. Password: login
Need Anything Further?
You are also very welcome to contact our Teacher-Librarian, Ms. Shadis, 320-234-2616 for personalized recommendations. Thank you for encouraging the children you know and love to read -- it's an important lifelong skill!
Electronic Library of Minnesota.
Tumble Book Library
Come to Park Elementary's Book Fair! When: Thursday, Jan. 17, from 3:30-8:00 PM; Friday, Jan. 18, from 8 AM-3:00 PM. Location: Park Elementary Foyer
From Park's Technology Integration Instructor - Mr. Durheim
The first trimester of TechTime was filled with fun, challenges, and learning for fourth graders. We focused on three main topics.
Computational Thinking - How do we think when we try to solve a problem? That’s computational thinking! We worked on challenges which helped us learn more about our thinking strengthened problem solving skills.
Online Safety - Each year we build student knowledge about being safe online. This fall we reviewed the NetSmartz online safety rules and learned a new rule (online is forever!) with Timon and Pumbaa. We will continue to review online safety throughout the year.
G-Suite for Education (formerly Google Apps for Education) - Students learned about organizing their Google Drive by creating folders. Students also learned about tools used to effectively share information using Google Slides.
UP NEXT: During the month of December students will participate in the Hour of Code and learn about being a responsible consumer by analyzing advertising gimmicks in our Media Literacy unit.
Please visit the TechTime website to learn more about specific activities, websites, and learning goals.
Fourth grade classes are currently recording the Daily Announcements for Park Elementary. By the end of the second trimester all fourth grade students will have the opportunity to record Park’s multimedia Daily Announcements. These videos are available on Park’s website.
Keyboarding Skills
We are in our second year of keyboarding as a part of the specialist rotation schedule. The program is self-paced and students progress at their own speed. Classes meet for 30 minutes every four school days.
This year, students are learning keyboarding skills using a new program called Typing Quest. This program teaches students to type on a computer keyboard and builds their skills so they can more efficiently use a computer. Students began with “TypeTastic!” games which help students to learn where keys are located on the keyboard and also develop fine-motor mousing skills. Next, students moved to “Keyboarding Kickstart” games that introduced using proper keyboarding position (home row keys). After completing all of these games, students move into the “Typing Quest” lessons which teach proper finger movements and help students to memorize key location through practice and fun games.
Some Typing Quest lessons and games are available free to home users at typingquest.com/personal. Many other typing games are available online for extra practice outside of school. A favorite of many students is DanceMatTyping.
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. The, students participate in an age-appropriate game using the skill(s) practiced in that lesson.
Units covered during the first trimester:
- soccer skills
- football skills
- fitness tests
- volleyball
- bowling
Sportsmanship:
Students discussed and demonstrated good sportsmanship during Physical Education and evaluated their own sportsmanship. To continue this throughout the year, a traveling sportsmanship trophy will be awarded each month to a class that demonstrates good sportsmanship.
Reminder:
With the coming of snow and the need for boots, please help your child to remember to bring his/her tennis shoes on days that they have Phy Ed.
Sculpture Stroll Recap:
A big thank you for all your help in making the "Sculpture Stroll" a success! It was great to see students and families get out and explore our community through a healthy does of exercise. "Slices of Heaven" was selected as the students' favorite sculpture. The bulletin board is looking awesome! It is pictured below.
Walking for a Good Cause:
We will once again be doing the "Walk for Hunger" Food Shelf Drive on December 13-14.
This event combines wellness and community service for our students. All items must be brought to school by the event date so that we can get items to the McLeod County Food Shelf in time for the holidays. Last year, our students collected 2,068 pounds of food. We will be needing volunteers once again this year. Please contact us if you are able to help at 320-587-2837 or email us at bonnie.hahn@isd423.org or maggie.mueller@isd423.org
Healthy Tips:
1. Never use food as a reward. This could create weight problems later in life. Instead, reward your child(ren) with something physical and fun - - perhaps, a trip to the park or a quick game of catch.
2. Sit down to family dinners at night. If this is not a tradition in your home, make it one. Research shows that children who eat dinners, at the table, and with their parents, have better nutrition. Additionally, they are less likely to get in trouble as teenagers. Don't know how to begin? Start with one night a week, and then work up to at least three or four nights so that you can gradually build the habit.
3. Prepare plates in the kitchen. You can put the right portion of each item on everyone's dinner plate, instead of offering up a food buffet or serve-yourself style. This way, your children will learn to recognize healthy portion sizes. If adjusting to healthier portion sizes means smaller portions for your family, help make the switch seem less shocking by using smaller plates.
From Park's Music Teachers - Ms. Hauth & Mrs. Hoeft
This first trimester in fourth grade music we have focused on our singing voice and matching pitch. We reviewed the solfege syllables Do Re Mi So La, and High Do and Low So. We learned about Fa and Ti in the song Great Big Building and practiced singing and playing using the Boomwacker instruments (plastic tubes of different lengths that play different pitches). We have also learned about harmony by singing rounds and ostinatos. The Seasons Song, Make New Friends, On Halloween, and America, America were fun songs to develop these singing skills. In addition to America, America, we enjoyed singing other patriotic songs including This Land Is Your Land, America (My Country Tis of Thee), Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, Armed Forces Medley (for our All-School Veterans Day Program), and Fifty Nifty United States. For rhythm work, students reviewed the notes learned in third grade and added a new rhythm called sixteenth notes. The students practiced the new rhythm using body percussion and recorders and had fun making up their own patterns.
The highlight of our trimester has been learning to play the recorder. The students started by learning to read and play the notes B, A, and G. Everyone practiced first on various rhythmic patterns, then played the song Hot Cross Buns using correct posture, hand position, articulation and soft blowing. (Click here to watch a video of Mrs. Thode’s class playing Hot Cross Buns on recorder). Our new note is C, which we learned while playing rhythms using names of capital cities. Our goal is to have every child learn to read music and be able to play an instrument on their own.
Besides recorder, instrumental work this trimester included playing various percussion instruments and large drums. The students especially enjoyed adding many percussion instruments to the song Skeleton Stomp and performing for their teacher. Students also enjoyed making up their own melodies on the Orff instruments for the song You’re So Wise. We have a full set of Orff instruments, including xylophones, metallophones and glockenspiels, in each room so every child can participate as we play together. Other songs that used the Orff instruments included Make New Friends and Land of the Silver Birch, a Native American song from Canada.
Click play on the video below to see students from Mrs. Smith's class performing "Seasons Songs" as a round.
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!
Clay Boats!
Fourth grade STEM students spent the first month of school 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 would sink or float when placed in water. Students also discussed the terms buoyancy and density to explain what was happening to each item. They came to the conclusion that if an item is less dense than water and floats, 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 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!
Flood Barriers!
Moving forward into October, students began their next project. They were asked to build a barrier around a paper doghouse that would stop or slow down the flow of water. This project brought on a whole new “real-life” challenge; students had to stick to a budget of $10.00 when selecting what items they wanted to purchase to build this barrier. Before building, they were allowed to test some of the supplies by seeing how absorbent they were. They first recorded, then entered their absorbency data into a spreadsheet. As a class they analyzed the data to figure out which items were the most absorbent, thus providing them with a better idea of what they wanted to purchase. We had some pretty good looking barriers and had both successes and fails. Regardless, all students were great sports about the challenge and had amazing discussions of what worked, why it worked and what didn’t. They were also able to relate this entire activity to how communities respond to real-life flooding situations.
Playdough!
Currently fourth grade students are working on creating the “world’s best play dough…” or should I say “Park Elementary’s.” At the beginning of November, they started the process of discussing and learning about the following terms: chemistry, chemical engineer, matter, solid, liquid, gas, properties, mixture, solution, solvent and solute. After several discussions and hands-on activities that involved them making different solutions using water, flour, cornstarch, salt and baking soda, they recorded observations of what they noticed and used this information to help them come up with the perfect play dough recipe. All students will get the opportunity to score/judge each groups play dough based on a scale system that takes consistency, texture and moldability into account. We are all looking forward to seeing everyone’s recipes!
STEM Challenge
STEM Challenge
STEM Challenge
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