Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

On Monday, May 11, fourth graders traveled back in time to Wisconsin in the 1860s when they visited Wade House in Greenbush. Now they are taking on the roles of people who lived, worked, or visited Wade House during that period in history, and writing essays about their lives.

Students took notes, made sketches, and worked on related worksheets before, during, and after the trip, and are using these materials to help them create their Wade House essays.

This writing project follows lessons focused on writing with the traits of ideas, voice, word choice, and sentence fluency, and takes students to the next level - writing with from the perspective of a person (real or fictional) who was connected with Wade House in the 1860s.

Students will also focus on the steps of the writing process during this project - prewriting, drafting, editing and revising, and writing - then typing - their final draft.

Wade House essays will be posted on the class web page in the next few weeks – so stay tuned!

4K, today I received this message from a teacher in South Africa. Please read her message, check out her class’ blog, then consider blogging about your grandparents for the project.

Remember to include your blog URL so her students can respond to your blog. Thank you!

This is Fiona Beal from Cape town (specifically Fish Hoek which is a part of Cape Town) South Africa. I have been looking at and enjoying your blog. I am the computer teacher at Fish Hoek Primary and I have done a Senior Citizens/Grandparents project with one of my Gr 4/5 classes. I wondered if your students could write in my class individual blogs and tell us something about their grandparents. We would love the connection and information.

Please view our blog at
http://fionabeal.edublogs.org

Fourth graders worked hard this week on their WKCE tests. They had a lot of tests to take this year – Reading, Writing, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science – but each student did his or her best to “show what you know.”  Good job, 4K!

Friday, Sept. 12 is the last day to hand in summer reading program sheets. Where – and what - did you read this summer??

Be an Expert at Music By Jordan and Zack

Do you want to know how to become an expert at music to impress your friends? Here are some tips to make you an expert!

1. Have fun!
2. Notice all the music notes and how they sound
3. Adjust your voice to the right sound level
4. Try to memorize the music
5. Listen to the way your music teacher sings the notes so you know how it is suppose to sound
6. Think outside of the box when thinking of melodies and music notes
7. Don’t make other noises when people are singin
8. Know the music notes
9. Improve the music, by suggesting ways to make it artistic
10. Not only sing, but also play an instrument

By Jordan and Zack

Do you want to know how to become an expert at music to impress your friends? Here are some tips to make you an expert!

1. Have fun!
2. Notice all the music notes and how they sound
3. Adjust your voice to the right sound level
4. Try to memorize the music
5. Listen to the way your music teacher sings the notes so you know how it is suppose to sound.
6. Think outside of the box when thinking of melodies and music notes.
7. Don’t make other noises when people are singing.
8. Know the music notes.
9. Improve the music, by suggesting ways to make it artistic
10. Not only sing, but also play an instrument

By Garrett and Josef

Here are our top 10 ways to become an Amazing artist.

1. Have fun
2. Don’t brag
3. Practice, practice, practice
4. Do art everywhere
5. Doodle a lot  
6. See art in everyday things
7. Doodle a lot
8. Do different things, not just one
9. Take some art classes
10. Go to art museums

By Alec and Jieun

Bonjour! Have you ever wanted to study the French language? Here are some spectacular ways to start!

• Study French before your teacher comes into the room.
• Pay attention to your teacher.
• Study French at home.
• Learn the French alphabet.
• Learn how to say numbers in French.
• Write small French paragraphs.
• Speak French at home.
• Read French passages to other people.
• Play French games.
• Sing French songs.

By Chris, Davis, and Caroline

Here are the top 10 ways to be an expert at science -

• Ask questions to clarify your understanding
• Try things in different ways
• Never give up
• Get deeply involved don’t be lazy
• Be daring to investigate
• Don’t get frustrated if the experiment doesn’t work
• Think outside the box
• Try things that might not work
• Be safe
• Have fun but don’t go to overboard

By Katie and Maddy

Here’s 10 tips on how to make your writing magnificent. Follow these 10 ways wisely to write your next story!

1. Imagination
2. Personal voice
3. Extravagent word choice
4. Sequential organization while writing
5. Very exciting and interesting topics
6. Sentence fluency is an important key
7. Every little convention counts in your piece
8. Expressing your feelings on paper helps your writing
9. Picking genres is just as signifigant as the text
10. You need tremendous amounts of patience to write well

By Emma, and Charlie

In our school we call our gym class Physical Education!
Here are the ways we think you can become an expert at Physical Education!

1. Have fun!
2. If you have an idea, say it
3. Play fairly
4. Play by the rules
5. Cooperate with others
6. Be safe
7. Be yourself
8. Listen when the instructor is talking
9. Do your best
10. It is easier to be athletic

By Emma and John

If you want a 100% percent on all your spelling tests, these are the top 10 ways to get it!

• Practice every day
• Study the difficult words
• Think the words through
• Do a practice test at home
• Study the grammar of the words
• Sound out the syllables
• Make sure you know what the word means
• Break the words into parts
• Look at the spelling list
• Challenge yourself with difficult words

By Spencer and Kaitlyn

Do you struggle in reading class? Well, lots of us do. But there are a lot of things you have to remember like….

• Have a book to read
• Don’t always read because you’re told to.
• Read for fun
• Don’t get distracted
• Have schema about the book you’re reading
• Make connections, have questions, etc.
• Make sure the book is just right for you
• Make sure you can visulize all the ideas
• Make sure you know what’s happening in the book
• Be able to read the book, and finish it.

By Nathan and Susan

Do you know how to become an expert at math? We do! Here are our top 10 ways to be the masters of math!

• Study the difficult facts
• Do math in your spare moments
• Listen to others ideas
• Estimate on hard problems
• Make your answers accurate and specific
• Practice the math methods
• Help other people
• Have all your materials before you start
• Proofread your work
• Do your best!

Writing in 4K
By Maddy, Katie

In our class everyone looks forward to writing. 4K writing is very amusing, contenting, and fun. We have free choice, assigned, and Write Traits during this time of the day. You can choose to write with a partner or by yourself. We can use our Write Traits book to help us with free choice writing, and we can put our free choice writing on our student blog. Lets keep learning about writing in 4K.

In 4K we are incredibly lucky to have two blogs that we are able to write for. One of the blogs is a student blog, where we can write by ourselves and decide on our own topics. Our second blog is a class blog, where we are assigned topics that we sometimes write with a partner or alone. The difference between the class and student blog is people can�t comment on the class blog but, can on the student blog.

When we write free choice, our creative side shows. We can choose any topic we would like to write about. We put all of our imaginative and suspenseful ideas in our black writing notebook. You have an option whether you want to put your free choice writing on the student blog or not. To have more ideas on what to write, our teacher runs off copies with awesome topics that we can use to write about.

Lastly, we have a curriculum book to teach and fill our minds with writing strategies. These strategies help us with the traits of good writing. This curriculum book is called Write Traits. In our Write Traits lessons we learn about using voice, word choice, and organization. Our teacher, Ms. Kreul, teaches the lessons in the book. Overall, our Write Traits book really helps us become much better writers.

Writing is without a question our favorite part of the day. The writing we do now will help us for the rest of our lives. Writing in 4K definitely rocks!

TFK
By: Garrett and Josef

Have you ever read Time For Kids [TFK for short]? If you haven�t we think you should because it�s full of information and current events. It is also extremely interesting. If you are interested you should ask your teacher about it.

When we get a new issue of TFK we browse through it. Then are teacher, Ms. Kreul reads the main article to us. After the main article we do the comprehension sheet the next day. In TFK there is more than the main article. Some other articles are top five, or things that are sports related or something called �spotlight� were TFK interviews somebody. After we read all the articles in the issue, we sometimes read the main article.

TFK is important because it informs kids about current events like what candidates are winning the race. It also teaches kids how to read pie charts, venn-diagrams, bar graphs, and so much more. It can even teach you some math. Sometimes it shows fractions and really big numbers plus other big numbers.

After we read the whole TFK, we fill in a 12-question sheet. The last one asks for a sentence, but the rest are multiple-choice. Sometimes we do another sheet like a time-lapse sheet or a chart. If you don�t get TFK now we think you should go to www.TFK.com.

Techno-School
By Kaitlyn and Spencer

Have you ever gone blogging? If you haven�t, a blog is a program where you can post articles about anything! After you posted an article, you may receive comments from people around he world. Also on the blog, it tells you how many people have visited the blog with a Culstr map. The bigger the dots, the more people have visited the blog. When you post an article, it has to be approved by our teacher. On this new blog, we can make podcasts or slideshows. The blog can translate in to different languages. French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Russian.

Our class has two blogs. This one is only for our class. The newer one, www.classblogmeister.com, is for anyone wants to do it. This blog let�s students access their homework. We can also visit cool sites and look at photos. If you would like to know what a day in 4K is like, it will tell you on the blog! With our blog we can see our previous writing form before. Our class has a newsletter and posted on the blog regularly.

These blogs have a lot of similarities and differences like the new one is more �high-Tec� and this one is more �old school�. On the newest one articles ore optional, you can write about mostly anything, but the other one is more school related with our homework assignments and A Day in 4K.On the classblogmeister you kind of have your own file and on this one it is for the whole class. Classblogmeister articles have to be checked online by our teacher and this blog it has to be checked at school.

The blogs aren�t the only technology that we use. At the beginning of the year we star a program called Type To Learn it improves our typing skills and sees how fast and how well we type, the higher the score, the faster we complete the level. We have to complete 15 levels in order to pass. Our class has 11 computers, 1 laptop, and 1 computer and laptop for the teacher. The 11 computers re used for typing and games when we have indoor recess. We can�t wait until we do technology in 4K!

Super Science
By: Jieun and Alec

Boom! Uh-oh! There goes our solution! Oh well, we guess our solution didn�t work; at least we followed our plan. Richards School is so fortunate to have all kinds of supplies for fun projects in class. Here are some materials, we have use in science: filters, screens, funnels, syringes, some chemicals, and more! We also use, small animals in some of our experiments. Some animals are Brine Shrimp and insects.

Recently in Science class with our super science teacher� Miss Green, we have been learning about, and experimenting with mixtures, and solutions. A mixture is 2 or more substances put together that con easily be separated. On the other hand, a solution is 2 or more substances put together and cannot easily be separated. Mixture and solutions are made up of liquids and solids. Other properties of matter are gas and plasma (what stars are made up of). A recent experiment we have done was mixing salt, gravel, and powder in water. Then trying to separate them. What we did to separate them, was using a funnel and screen to separate the gravel from the water, a funnel and filter to separate the powder because the salt had dissolved. Last of all we evaporated the water, so salt crystals would be left on the bottom of the cup.

A special science event we do at Richards is the Learning Fair. In the Learning Fair, you make a science project. You make a hypothesis (or prediction), on your project. You experiment this topic. You can do your project with a partner, or alone. You then write your process and put it on a poster board. Lots of people take pictures of their experiment as they go. After you�ve finished with your project, it is put on display in the main hall for everyone to see. We do the Learning Fair because it gives you a chance to be creative without being graded. Also, it is fun and messy!

Some experiments we have done in the past have been out of this world! One experiment was about density currents. We put a hot rock and a cold rock in a tub of water on opposite sides. We put a red liquid and a blue liquid in the water. The blue liquid sank and the red liquid stayed at the surface of the water. When the blue liquid touched the hot rock, it shot beck up to the surface and started to sink again. The other experiment we did, was making our own terrariums. We raised barley, peas, corn, radish, and clover. It was very fun watching the plants grow! So you see, science can be fun, messy, and interesting, especially at Richards School! �Go science!�

Remarkable Reading
By: Charlie and Emma

We just finished reading two breath-taking stories! The first story was Amazing Alice. In Amazing Alice a woman named Minna, describes her 4-month journey from New Jersey, to San Francisco, California, in the form of a diary. Will Alice be the first woman to drive across the country in less than 60 days? You will have to find out yourself!

The second story we wanted to talk about is John Henry. In this story a boy named John Henry hits his growth spurt in the first 5 minutes of his life! He grows to be about 8�7� and he�s stronger than dynamite. His hammers he got, were aluminum. His handles were made of whalebone. So he thinks he can out-hammer a machine, and he can. He hammered 1 and a half miles and the machine only hammered half a mile. Sadly, at the end, John Henry�s heart bursts, and he dies. In the end of the story somebody says, �Dying ain�t important. Everybody does that. What matters is how well you do your living�!

A while ago we finished our 3rd literature circles book! We finished biographies! The biographies were: Helen Keller, Davy Crockett, Lewis and Clark, and Sitting Bull! Now we are about to start our 4th literature circles books! But this time we are doing series, of mysteries! The series will be: Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, A to Z Mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown, and History Mysteries! There are so many interesting things in mysteries. We wonder what will happen in these?

In our classroom we have a huge white chart! On the white chart we get to recommend books we just finished reading. We write what the title is, some comments about it, and 3,2,or1 stars depending how good you think the book is. For example: the BFG, a must read, and three stars. So the title is the BFG, the comment is a must read, and they gave it three stars.

During the year we do a program called, �Read 100 books for Scholastic�� so we figured that you understand that the idea is to read 100 books for Scholastic. After we read a book we go to a chart and mark our initials on a heart and on that heart, there�s a number and which ever number you mark that�s how many books we�ve read. Once we get to 100 books that�s how many we donate to Scholastic. The other Scholastic program is ��Book Fair��, book fair is when you go to the gymnasium and look at books, but don�t check any out. But at night, after school you can come back to get a book.

Read-alouds and SSR
By; John and Emma

Do you know how to pick a just right book? Well, if you don�t, we will tell you! If you want to pick a just right book, you would have to read a couple of pages and think, did you get most of the ideas and most of the words? Well if you did that�s a just right book! If you�re reading a book that you get all the ideas and all of the words, then that book is just too easy for you!

Do you know what SSR means? We will tell you! It means sustained silent reading. When our teacher Ms. Kreul says time for SSR we get out our books and read. We read all kinds
Of books like mysteries, fiction, nonfiction, biographies, and autobiographies etc.

About every month, we check fluency with our teacher, we read her a couple pages
Of our book. But first we talk about what the book is about, what your going to
Ead next, and what your reading at home! We our always looking forward to what
We�re reading!

We have reading logs at home and at school. Reading logs are logs that you write about your book. At school when we are finished with our reading logs we share them with our classmates. At home our reading logs are due on Friday. We have to write five entries for our reading logs!

In read aloud we are reading a great book called Coast to Coast With Alice. Read alouds are when our teacher reads to us, and about every two chapters she usually will stop and ask us questions or predictions! After she�s done reading we chat with our table group about the book and what you think will happen next! We always love read alouds and SSR, that�s one of the things we are always looking forward to do each and every day!