Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

Make a Smilebox slideshow

For this Art Class lesson, students were instructed to complete one self portrait in the style of 3 major artists as well as their own.

For 3 class periods, students were introduced to and worked in the manner of Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, and Paul Klee as well as their own!

Students were introduced to the different movements that each artist was connected to, their goals, and what role each artist played in the Art World.

We hope you enjoy viewing 4K’s 4 Part Portraits!

Fourth grade homework includes reading for at least 20 minutes daily and completing a thoughtful reading log entry four days a week. Reading logs should include a variety of quality responses that demonstrate the reading strategies fourth graders are learning and practicing in class.

Students should also be studying spelling words for 5-10 minutes in order to learn the spelling pattern or rule, as well as the week’s word list.

Math homework reviews the day’s lesson and should take from 5-15 minutes depending on the assignment.

Students are alerted at least one week ahead for science or social studies tests, and should review for a short time each day leading up to the test date.

Fourth graders are responsible for completing all homework written in assignment notebooks throughout the day. Homework assignments notebooks are reviewed at 8:10 and 3:00 with the teacher and with partners.

Please ask to see the assignment notebook as you talk to your fourth grader about what he or she did in school that day and what short term or long term homework has been assigned.

Poll closed – thanks for voting!

2.1.09 @ 2:00PM

Jacob’s Problem
I am thinking of a number. If you multiply it by 6, the answer is 48. What is the mystery number?

Evangeline’s Problem
I am thinking of a number. If I multiply it by 5, the answer is 40. What is the mystery number?

Bennett’s Problem
I am thinking of a number. If I multiply 6 by a number, I get 36. What is the mystery number?

Ethan’s Problem
I am thinking of a number. If I multiply it by 4, I get 36. What is the mystery number?

Hailey’s Problem
I am thinking of a number. If I multiply 8 by a number, I get 72. What is the mystery number?

Andrew’s Problem
I am thinking of a mystery number. If I multiply it by 8, the answer is 40. What is the mystery number?

Xavier’s Problem
I am thinking of a mystery number. If you multiply me by 5, I equal 30. What is the number?

AlisonH’s Problem
If I multiplied a number by itself, I get 81. What is the number?

Dylan’s Problem
I am thinking of a number. If you multiply 3 times something it equals 18. What is the mystery number?

Joseph’s Problem
I am thinking of a mystery number. To find me do 100/4 or 5 times itself. I am the value of a quarter. What is the mystery number?

De’Ana’s Problem
I am thinking of a mystery number. If I multiply by 7, I get 77. What is the mystery number?

Vlada’s Problem
I am thinking of a mystery number. If I multiply it by 6, the answer is 48. What is the mystery number?

Curtis’ Problem
I am thinking of a mystery number. If you multiply this number times itself, you get 25. What is the mystery number?

Tommy’s Problem
I am thinking of a mystery number. If you multiply it by 4, you get 16. What is the mystery number?

Lizzie’s Problem
I am thinking of a mystery number. If I multiply it by 7, my answer is 28. What is the mystery number?

Fantastic Phy. Ed. (Physical Education)
By Zack and Jordan

Running, jumping, catching, throwing, playing, and having fun! That’s everything we do in Mr. Genthe’s Phy. Ed. Class!

One of the things we do in Mr. Genthe’s Phy. Ed class is Mat Car Racing. Mat Car Racing is where you take a mat and four scooter boards. Then you and your team race against other Mat Car Teams. Mr. Genthe said, “It is NASCAR rules!”

Some of the rules in Phy. Ed. class are wear proper P.E. shoes (tennis shoes), play by the rules, 1 put down=2 put ups, and Have Fun!

Running and jumping and racing! We have so much fun in Mr. Genthe‘s P.E. class!

Orchestra
By Jieun and Nathan

Are you ever inspired by the way string instruments are played? Here at Richards School, we get to play string instruments in our orchestra program. Our orchestra teacher, Mr. Brodie, teaches violin, viola, and cello to fourth and fifth grade students. The fifth graders can also play the bass.

In orchestra, we learn what fingers or finger you put down on strings to make certain notes. Based on what you know about notes, it helps you read music. Such as what notes look like, flats and sharps, which make notes higher or lower. Also what flats and sharps look like on a music staff. Another concept we learn is how long to hold a particular note. For example, a whole note is hold for four beats. When we’ve learned all our notes and fingers, we do finger patterns, exercises, and boxes. Boxes are when there are eight boxes and you pick one note to play from each box. There are usually three notes in each box.

Some fun reasons you should do orchestra are that you get to be part of a concert with your friends. It also makes you proud that you can play an instrument. Best of all, it’s a fun experience to play with your fellow students.

We are fortunate to have such a fantastic orchestra teacher and program. Orchestra is a special opportunity for schools to have because you can learn to how to play an instrument!

Music
By: Gracie and Garrett

Have you ever played an Autoharp? Well, we have in music! An Autoharp is a stringed instrument that you press buttons like a piano and strum like a guitar. We also play other instruments and sing, too! Our music teacher’s name is Mrs. Riebau and she is super, super nice!

We also have something called Choir and in Choir we sing with all the fourth graders. In Choir we have special folders that we often use and they hold most of are songs. Some of the songs we sing are Rock ‘n Robin, Beatles Medley, Simple Melody, Feeling Free, and many more.

In music, we use most of the same songs that we use in choir. But we use two times the instruments that we use in choir, including drums, xylophones, autoharps, symbols, and glockenspiels or also known as orchestra bells. The difference between music and choir is we have choir once a week for twenty-five minutes and we have music three times a week for again twenty-five minutes! Lots of time for lots of music!

For music our advice is have a lot of fun and do the best you can. We hope you love music as much as we do but you don’t have to, it’s all about what you like!

Literature Circles
By: Chris and Emma

We just got done with some magnificent biographies! They were called Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, Helen Keller, and Sitting Bull. Davy Crockett was about a man named Davy who fought in the war and then ran for president who had got (eventually) killed. In Helen Keller, Helen learned to keep on going even if something bad happened to her.

Before we read the biographies, we read some books from these genres: realistic fiction and historical fiction. Our next literature circle genre will be mysteries.

In literature circles after we read we discuss what we read. We also get to discuss what we wrote after reading. Some groups do sticky notes. On the sticky notes we write a questions and put them on the page where we have our questions.

If you were wanting to read one of these books we would recommend these 4 books to 3rd – 6th graders. We can’t wait to go to literature circles again!

Library
By Charlie, Maddy, and Alec

Shhh … we’re in the library. At Richards School we have activities called “Specials”. Specials are mostly out-of-the- room activities called like Physical Education, or in our case, Library. Here at our school the students and faculty are very fortunate to have an in-school library. In our class we have Library once a week on Mondays, each class for 30 minutes. Library is taught by the wonderful and amazing Ms. Roberts. We’re all wondering what will happen in the next thrilling class of Library!

During Library we do many activities before we check out our books. One of the activities we do in fourth grade is learning how to make slideshows on laptop computers. We also, during our years at Richards School, learn how to use our library’s online card catalog called Destiny. Lastly in our previous grades we learned about different genres of books and where they might be found in the library. For example, folktales have a code of 398.2.

The last 10 minutes of library responds on checking out books out or looking for them. One of the special things about library is at the school meeting (where school gets together) Ms. Roberts recommends books to us that have won medals. She also reads books to us in class.

As you’ve seen and heard, we do many things in library class. We are grateful and happy to have an extraordinary library teacher and library.

Guidance
By Brooks and Davis

Our guidance councilor Miss Ramsey listens to our concerns, and helps us deal with problems we are facing.

During the past few guidance classes we have been working on ways to stop and prevent Bullying, we agree that bullying is very vile and needs to stop. Faculty, students, and parents of Richards School signed an anti-bullying pledge.

A typical Guidance class starts out with a warm welcome from Miss Ramsy, our guidance councilor. Sometimes we get to dive into fun filled movies that teach us about bullying and harassment and ways to stop it. Our guidance class teaches us a lot about the lessons of life, which we will never forget.

French
By Katie and John

We really enjoy French class. One of the most magnificent parts of French is our teacher Madame Jacque. In French class we do a lot of fun activities to learn the French language. Madam Jacque is a kind and caring teacher. We have a great time learning French with our classmates.

So far in French we are making wanted posters and watching “Finding Nemo” in French to help us understand the language. While we are watching the movie, we write down words we recognize. At the beginning of French class we sing a hello song in French and when we are finished with French class we sing a French good-bye song!

The best part of French is when we get to play fun games! Our favorite game is around he world. In around the world two people stand up while Madame Jacque holds up a card and who ever says that thing on the card in French first wins, and that person keeps advancing to the next person till they’re beaten. It is so exciting being able to learn another language.

At end of each French class we hesitate to stop. When we have to stop we put our stuff away slowly because we have to stop. We have French class twice a week for half a hour, but we wish it is longer. Au revoir!

Book Buddies
By: Susan and Caroline

Do you have book buddies in your school or when you were kids? We go down to Mrs. Kubicki’s kindergarten class every Wednesday. It makes us feel good to help younger kids to read. Book buddies is when younger and older kids get together in school to read. Sometimes we get the kindergarteners to predict, find things in the pictures, and much more!

We help the younger students because we want them to learn to read, predict, count, and other things they need to learn for school. We try to keep our book buddies on task by pointing at the pictures and making the book seem more interesting than it is. We think being younger kids’ book buddies helps them learn, this makes us feel great!

Our book buddies like to pick books about legends, fiction, fairy tales, magic, books with numbers, and books with hidden pictures they have to find. Sometimes we do projects. For an example in the past we made snow scenes. It’s super fun.

We think it’s really fun to do book buddies because it’s nice to meet with younger children. It’s also super fun to help younger students to learn, count, and read. We think other schools should really try this out and get young and older children together so they can learn. We hope you have learned a lot about book buddies and we think you should try book buddies! Do you think it will be fun?

Art
By Spencer and Emma

Yippee! It’s Thursday, and that means art today! The whole class is ready for a fun-filling art class. Our art teacher, Mrs. Miller, has found a great student teacher named Mr. Beck!

We have been working on some magnificent art projects! Our favorite type of art is portraits. After we finished our Portraits, we cut them out and mounted them on our optical Illusion pieces. We made another copy of our portraits and outlined them in wire material.

Swish, Swish, the sound of my paintbrush making stokes on my paper. This is painting. There are a lot of materials we need to make our masterpieces. Some of them are: Paintbrushes, smocks, and paper. But we need skinny and thick brushes for different painting projects. Mrs. Miller supplies us with all of these materials. But we need to bring our own T-shirt smocks.

When we are done with all of our projects, we get to draw in our sketch books. The greatest thing about drawing in our sketchbooks are we can draw anything we want! When art is over you see our frowns, but we can’t wait until art
next week for more fun!

4K’s New Blog
by Josef and Kaitlyn

Have you ever wanted to have your own blog were you can type mostly anything? A blog is just like a notebook on the Internet where you can type stories or poems anytime you want. Anything you write has to be approved, though.

On the blog you need to have a user-name and a password that you make yourself! Also other people can comment on your articles. There are more than fifty other classes located on the blog! You never know if a different country can visit. That’s what makes the blog fun!

If you would like to comment on someone’s articles just go to 4K’s @ Richards Blog http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=150372
Don’t forget to put the code in to make sure you’re a human! (Ha Ha Ha!)
We like the blog especially because we can type whenever we want and the blog has really cool backgrounds!

There are so many exciting things you can do on the blog like type and comment and people from all over the world can visit. Why don’t you come visit yourself?

French Class
By Kaitlyn and John

Bonjour and comment ca va? In French that means “Hello” and “How are you doing?” Our class has French class on Monday and Friday afternoons. When our class’ French teacher comes in, we sing a greeting song. When we are done with class, we sing a goodbye. When we are in French class we practically speak French most of the time.

We are learning how to write sentences in French. We play games like Cootie Catcher and All Around the World, which is a good way to get or minds ready and have fun.

In our next French class we will have an hour-long class. Mme. Jacque (our teacher) will find out how much we learn in French class. Now that will be fun.

Our teacher uses action to help us, for example, when our teacher says get out your pencil then she will act it out. Most of the time we figure it out by ourselves but we may need help.

Au revoir! (means good-bye in French).

Choir
By Chris and Gracie

Do you like choir? Then this is the thing for you! Every week on Tuesday we have choir from 1:10 to1; 35

Choir is where all of the 4th graders get together in the Music room with Mrs. Riebau and sing songs. We have songs called “O’ desayo ” ‘Oh it’s great to be living’ and our favorite Miracle.

Our amazing song is called Miracle and we get to use rhythm sticks for Miracle. Miracle is a Chinese because 4th graders get to do Chinese New Year for the Festival of Lights. Festival of Lights is a mini concert when all the grades, K4 through 5th celebrate, dance, or act it out.

Choir is more fun than it sounds. You should start one! You could start one with your church, school, and any other group of people you could think of. Wait to learn more songs. Choir is great!!

Orchestra
By Alec and Jieun

Have you ever wanted to play the violin? Well, that’s what we do at Richards. But there is more than one instrument you can play. You can play the cello (chello) viola, violin, and bass.

We have Orchestra on Monday, from 10:55 to 11:40. Our Orchestra teacher is Mr. Brodie. We have an orchestra book that we learn from. One of the songs we play is called “Mary Lee”. It is also called “Mary had a little Lamb.” We have also played “Ode to Joy”.

We learn by playing scales and doing boxes. Boxes are where Mr. Brodie makes boxes with three notes in the boxes, You have to play a note three times. A scale is a set of notes that go up and down the strings.

Sounds hard doesn’t it? Well, it’s not as hard as it seems. But as authors say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Book Buddies
By Nathan and Caroline

Every Wednesday we go to our book buddies’ room and read to them. They are four-year-old kindergarteners. We usually help them pick out fun books.

Sometimes they have books for the holidays, like Halloween books, Christmas books, Valentine books, and even Chinese New Year books.

We figured out that they like to read the same books, or books in a series. To make reading interesting for them, we show them cool pictures and ask them questions so they don’t just look at their friends or listen to somebody else read.

We probably read thirty-five different books to them a year. Also we stop them in different parts of the book and ask them what some of words mean. They also love books about animals.

Book buddies is a very fun thing to do. Sometimes we do activate with them, like signing songs. Do you have book buddies? We did when we were little. If you don’t, ask your teacher so you can have them too!