Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

A wonderful holiday project for your family – Holiday Mail for Heroes sponsored by the Red Cross

Holiday Mail For Heroes is here again! This year, we are teaming up with our friends at Pitney Bowes for the third time to send holiday cards to service members, veterans, and their families. This is a great way to give back this holiday season – by sharing your kind words and thanks with those who have given a great deal to their country. All cards must be received no later than Monday, December 7th.

4K, remember to write these dates on your calendar…

Nov. 23 Guidance Lesson
Nov. 23 Art for Youth
Nov. 26 Thanksgiving
Nov. 25-20 Vacation
Nov. 30 School Resumes
Dec. 2 Imagination Station Publishing Day 1
Dec. 3 Fun Lunch
Dec. 9 Late Start 9:05
Dec. 16 Imagination Station Publishing Day 2
Dec. 18 Festival of Lights
Dec. 18 Trimester 1 Report Cards Sent Home
Dec. 21 Guidance Lesson
Dec. 22 Winter Party
Dec. 23-Jan. 3 Winter Break
Jan. 3 School Resumes

*Parents and students should check Assignment Notebooks together every evening
*Students are responsible for completing schoolwork any time they are absent
*Dress appropriately for our Wisconsin weather
*Water bottles help keep you hydrated and healthy
*Healthy, easy to eat morning snacks help your brain work better

It’s so exciting to see 4K students starting to publish work on their individual blogs from home. The class will be going to the computer lab for 2 more sessions of keyboarding using Type to Learn, then they will have more time in school to practice their writing and word processing skills as they write articles to publish online.

Please share your fourth grader’s blog address with families and friends and ask them to post comments. Thank you!

In the last newsletter you learned that Mr. Burgos, a fourth grade teacher from Cumberland, is developing an amazing social studies website to accompany the fourth grade social studies curriculum.

The URL for his website has changed to:
http://web.me.com/ferminburgos/Social_ Studies_Alive/Welcome.html

Mr. Burgos has also invited fourth graders and their families to contribute travel information to the social studies site.
If your family is planning to travel to one of the locations mentioned on the web site, please contact Mr. Burgos at
adan.burgos@wfbschools.com to find how your family can become world famous traveling correspondents.

4K will be starting an on-line class being offered by the Health Education Center in conjunction with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in December. It is a Drug Defense program targeting fourth and fifth graders. This interactive program explains different drugs and the effects these drugs have on the body, beginning at the cellular level. Students learn about the consequences of using drugs and the impact the media plays on decision-making. The course is six to eight class periods long and will be completed during the Science and Social Studies block in the computer lab.

Students are working hard on planning, drafting, editing, revising, and writing the final copies of their Imagination Station pieces. 4K students are scheduled to publish on either Dec. 2 or Dec. 16. They are very excited about this opportunity to publish their writing.

Fourth graders are currently participating in literature circles, using a series of books that is connected to our social studies study of the regions of the United States. This realistic fiction series, called Challenge and Change, is published by National Geographic.

The four books that lit circle groups are reading are Blown Away, Finding Home Again, Big Sky Country, and The Big Catch. The books tell the story of children from the Southeast, Northeast, Southwest, and Northwest who face big challenges in their lives and how they cope with the challenges with help from family and friends.

Do you like reading and writing? Are you in grades 2-8? Would a parent like to join you at an exciting one day conference in Milwaukee, WI on February 6, 2010?

Check out the Wisconsin State Reading Association’s Author Festival!

Print out the brochure here – Authors Festival 2010.

4A and 4K alumni who have attended the Authors Festival in the past have given the conference a two thumbs up!

By Haley

If you like winter or it’s just your third favorite season, please read this. Even though winter isn’t my favorite season I still like winter. Every time it snows and stops snowing I look out the window. The pile of the snow looks like this huge, I mean huge blanket of snow, so it would look like a fluffy, white blanket that everyone could go in, The one thing I hate about winter is that it is so cold and it can get slippery from the ice. But that doesn’t bother me. Winter is the perfect weather to have some hot chocolate. For some reason my little brother loves to suck on ice. I have no clue why he does it, but he likes it. I have to say that snowballs do look like huge marshmallows because one time my little brother thought it was a marshmallow witch I thought it was kind of cool. I don’t know why, but every time in the winter and its cold out I just love to see my breath. It’s just so addicting that I can’t stop, same thing with my brother. Another thing I like to do is go on my swing and jump in the fluffy snow. I don’t know why I do it I just think everyone should do it because it’s so much fun! So those are some reasons I want to tell you why winter is so much fun!

Amazing Jakes
By KM

This place in Phoenix, Arizona called Amazing Jakes had some disgusting food but I loved the laser tag area. We had to where these big heavy vests with targets on them also if somebody catches you your vest and your laser gun will turn off. Also these older kids nobody knew jumped over the posts to skip people in line, but the man who was at that area didn’t say anything. They had very strict rules like no jumping, diving, pushing. Also they said no running. Doesn’t want to run over them. They also had rock music on to help you concentrate.

By Ali

My last soccer game was good. We only lost by one. On are team we have good goalies. I always play forward. I am good at it. I also play defence. I am not good at it though!

At our last game I almost scored. The team we were playing was rough. My friend got pushed and I was hit. You are allowed to push a little, but you cannot jump in to the person. You can not kick or hit to. If you accidentally kick it is ok. That is why we were shinguards.

By Nicko

When I go up north for the summer I go to a resort and play. Most of the time we head uot to the floating trampoline. I crawl out to the launcher and tell dad ‘ready’ and he starts counting down “3…2…1” and he jumps onto the launcher. It feels like a millennium before he hits the launcher and…fwomp! I’m up in the air!

It feels like I’m up in space being so weightless. It is all over in the blink of an eye. Then I feel gravity start to take its toll and I start to fall.

If I can angle myself right when I hit the water I feel breathless or winded because of the impact. Sometimes I go to the bottom of the lake and see clams that we catch.

If I’m lucky I can reach out and grab a clam as I’m swimming up to show my brother. Then I’m out to the launcher to launch again!

By Matt

Hey!!!   Ready for your tour of Lego city?  Lets get started.

We’ll start in the Police station.  These guys are always working hard day and night to keep us safe.

Next is the fire station. Oh sorry they’re not here.  They’re probably out fighting a forest fire.  We have lots of them around here.

So moving on here is Vador Village.  Lord Vador has a very tight schedule but he said he will fit us in.

THE REBELS ARE COMING THE REBELS ARE COMING!!!!!!

Maybe we should get the heck out of here, RUN!!!!!! Before our heads blasted off!!!!!!  Close one!!!

So now that we’re out of that death trap, lets go to Dead Mans Cove.  AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

It’s all right, there is just some old dead guys and the legend says that they will come back to life on this very day.  So shhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Oh my gosh!!!!!!  You woke them up RUN!!!!!!

AHHHHHH!!!!!!

Ready to go to Lego space academy?  Y-y-y-e-e-e-s-s-s!

General can we borrow the space ship? Yes sir!!!  Wow, this is so cool.  Yep she’s a beauty .  Lets blast off to Midevil Island!!!  3, 2,1 BLAST   OFF!!!!!!  Hey, watch it buddy, you almost sliced my head off!!!!!!  Well, that the famous Lego City!!!!!!

Story Starters

Here’s a quick writing activity to try every day. First, generate a creative story starter. Pick a format: notebook, letter, newspaper, or postcard. Print your story for a surprise.

This looks like lots of fun, fourth graders. If you try this writing activity, write your review and post as a comment. 

By Eve

My family dog Simon is very funny, and he always runs around. Simon loves to play with his toys outside, and he likes to play fetch with them. Simon barks a lot at the mailman. I think the mailman. I think the mailman gets scared.

He barks so viciously at basically every one that comes near our house. But once you get to know him he turns out to be very nice. Simon is a soft, cute, and very lovable dog, and he is the dog I love.

KidRex — a cool search engine for kids recommended by Kent Stahlman, WFB Drector of Technology…

This search engine is designed specifically for children’s interests, homing in on popular content that appeals to young Web viewers while filtering out potentially harmful sites. KidRex works like a Google search engine, but it also has some kid-friendly design features, including a giant image of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Parents and teachers may find the site to be a reliable resource as well, with its regularly updated content added to the custom-search option. A parents’ page includes information about Web safety with recommendations about how to protect children while they surf the Internet.

Try it out and leave a comment letting us know what you think!

By Grace

If you like to travel then listen up! Here’s a cool city you should go to. It’s called San Francisco and it will blow you away! When I went they had cool things that are beautiful that no other city has. They have curvy steep streets. It felt like I was going to fall when we were going down them.

The most interesting thing was the Golden Gate Bridge. It is orange and super long. If you drive or even it takes forever. Another cool thing is it was finished being built in 1937. Isn’t that cool? Here is another something about the bridge. There is a park named after it called Golden Gate Park. It has a huge rope pyramid that I climbed to the top of. I was scared!

The last thing you should know about San Francisco is China town. You can get anything there! Those are the main things you should know about San Francisco. So stop by and take a trip to San Francisco!

Nov. 9 Veterans’ Day School Meeting 2:20
Nov. 10 Friday Schedule
Nov.10 and12 Evening Conferences
Nov. 13 Morning Conferences
Nov. 13 No School
Nov. 19 Fun Lunch
Nov. 23 Guidance Lesson
Nov. 23 Art for Youth
Nov. 26 Thanksgiving
Nov. 25-20 Vacation
Nov. 30 School Resumes