Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

The Imagination Station
By Maddy and Charlie

Every year, our school does a program called the Imagination Station. Grades 1-5 can participate. Each year they have a different theme. This year’s theme is the jungle. There are parents who volunteer to help.

This is how it works. Kids write stories and take them to the Imagination Station to get published. Once you get there, you choose a cover for your book, or you can color your own. There are sports covers, patterns, and much more to choose from.

After you choose your cover, a volunteer comes and reads through your story with you. Then you get to decide how much writing you would like on each page. You also get to decide how many pages for illustration(s) you would like. After you decide how many pages you want, you can choose if you would like special pages. These pages include dedication, meet the author, reader’s comments, and other books by this author. Then, you choose a sticker, you write your book’s title and your name on the sticker, and then place the sticker on the cover or inside cover of your book.

After you’re done you fill out a paper shaped banana. On the banana you write your name, and then you stick the banana under your teacher’s name. Now you are finally finished with your story. But one more thing – you get a monkey bookmark as a prize!

All of the kids at Richards School love the Imagination Station. It is also a great opportunity to express your writing in a fun way!

Fun at Guidance
By Zack and Emma

Do you like guidance? Well, we do! Our teacher’s name is Ms. Ramsey. She teaches us so much about guidance. We enjoy guidance because it’s so much fun!

We have guidance once every month. We have guidance in our classroom. Guidance is usually between 45 min. to1 hour.

In guidance we do different activities during every class. We learn how to set goals. We also learn how to control our self-esteem. In guidance we usually do projects, such as making our own report cards.

When our 45 min. to 1 hour of guidance is ending we are all sad. That’s usually our typical guidance. We can’t wait till next guidance!

Library
By Jordan, Josef, and Davis

Do you like books? We do! Monday is on of our favorite days because we have Library! Too bad Library is only one day a week!

We walk into Library filled with books. We take our seats at the tables. Once we sit down its time to be silent “Shhh!”

The Library teacher, Mrs.Roberts tells us our project for the day, like making slideshows or doing research. Our slideshow is on an animal we learned about from a magazine. We look at the magazine and jot down notes. Then, we make them neater on a different piece of paper. Eventually we put them on the computer.

When we’re done with the slideshows, we go pick out books. We can pick from “ everybody books”, paperback books, poems, biographies, and non-fiction! They’re so many books to choose from! Sometimes we leave empty-handed because we can only choose 3 books each time!

We love library but it’s way too short! If we could design the school’s schedule we would make Library at least 2 hours long!

P.E.
By Emma and Partner

At our school we have a special called P.E. which stands for Physical Education. If you go to school you may call P.E. Gym. In P.E. we play games, do gymnastics, and also do teamwork activities. The school has two P.E. teachers. All the classes are split in two, and one of the teachers has half of the class and the other teacher has the other half.

During P.E. we practice for Festival of Lights. Festival of Lights is a concert that we do every December when we sing songs, do dances, and have parades. Everybody gets ready for their dances and parades in P.E. Some dances we do are square dancing, the Mexican hat dance, and a lot of other dances. We do them for about three weeks.

In P.E. we play a lot of games. For example, we play Wizards and Gelflings, Crazy Pin Guard, Battle Ship, and Witch Doctor. Wizards and Gelflings is a game where you pick three wizards (who are very mad and mean). The gelflings are the rest of the people, who are very happy. Then the wizards chase the and try to tag them. Crazy Pin Guard is a game where everybody gets a bowling pin except for a few people who stand in a line waiting for someone to get their pin knocked down. The people who are in try to guard their pins and knock out other people’s pins with squishy balls. If their pin gets knocked down then they hand their pin to the next person in line, and get in the back of the line. We play a lot of games in P.E., but we don’t have enough time to tell them all to you!

In P.E. we have a unit called teamwork where we have to work together to do all these activites. One of the activites called Whale Watch is where we have to try to get everyone to get on this big teeter totter and have it not hit the ground, but stand on one side. Then we have to get it so even that it is straight across and not tilted to one or the other side. Do you have a teamwork unit in your P.E. or gym? We think P.E. rocks!

Music Class
By Brooks and Katie

Do like music class? We love music class! Music class is located in the lower lever of our school. Our music teacher is Mrs. Riebau. Mrs. Riebau has all of the instruments that we use during class. She also has a piano and guitur. When we sing we stand and sometimes sit on the lofty risers.

During music class we sing songs like O Desay O and Feelin’ Free and Miracle. We accompany the singers with rhythm stick and drums.

The usual music class consists of these main things: we sing three or four songs, we learn and practice instruments and sometimes learn or practice a dance.

We get to show parents what we are learning twice a year during the Festival of Lights and Spring sing. This is how it works, each grade sings something different. For Festival of Lights this year we are doing Chinese New Year. In the Spring Sing we sing summary songs. We dance too. Our moms and dads videotape us. It’s so much fun!

Art
By Susan and Spencer

In art we do amazing fun things. These amazing things are on Thursdays. Mrs. Miller teaches this special. One of our favorites is painting. The week of November 22, 2007 our class painted rhythm sticks for the Festival of Lights. We also paint things our class sculpts with clay.

Sculpting is terrific because our class uses different types of skills and clay. The different types of clay our class uses is Model Magic and regular modeling clay. We can usually make whatever we want to. After Art class is over Mrs. Miller puts our models or sculptures in her clay-baking oven. When they are done baking and if she has time, Mrs. Miller will bring our art pieces to our classroom.

If we finish early sometimes Mrs. Miller has another project for us, but usually she doesn’t. If she doesn’t have another art piece for us, then we can draw or sketch in our sketchbooks. Every year our sketchbook cover is different and unique.

Almost every year at our school, one fourth grade class gets to carve pumpkins with partners. In Art we can carve double-sided pumpkins with a design on each side. Mrs. Miller cuts off the tops for us, so we can get the insides out. Then we can carve our pumpkins with a awesome design. Art is fantastic!

5th Grade Math
By Nick

Would you like to know what is going on in 5G math now that we have finished all our units? Well, if you do, you’ll find out now!

In 5G math, we have just finished Unit 12, a unit mainly focused on probability and factor trees. In probability, we used real-life examples like choosing cafeteria foods, going in and out stadium doors, and choosing pants to wear to deepen our understanding of the subject. We also played a percent circle memory game where we tried to match up each number story with its correct percent circle. Probability may seem easy, but when you look at it through 5th grade eyes, it’s a bit confusing!

Early in the unit, we used factor trees to find the prime factorization of a number. A prime factorization is the longest string of prime numbers whose product will equal the original number. Then, at the very end of the unit, we learned how to use prime factorizations to find the greatest common factor and the least common multiple between two numbers.

Even though we are done with all our units, that doesn’t mean we don’t have any more work to do. In fact, we are doing 6th grade math! For homework, we do 6th grade math boxes and study links. In class, we are working on the first 6th grade unit, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals. The class mainly consists of correcting homework, working on slates, and continuing our lesson.

As if that isn’t enough, we are also working on a big 5th grade project. It’s called the Million Dollar Project, and it’s used to teach kids how much a million dollars is. Don’t be fooled-a 10-day trip to Florida for 9 people isn’t going to cut it. You must spend a million dollars on one thing, such as a waterpark or a vacation. It should be a very fun project!

I hope you learned a lot about 5th grade math!

Edited by author

Music

By Jack and Ellen

Music is a class that goes 3 times a week. Music is taught by Mrs. Riebau. Mrs. Riebau makes music a lot more enjoyable then it is supposed to be. If miss Riebau didn’t teach music then it would be really boring.

We play games in music when we have a substitute teacher most of the games include tic TAC toe, hangman and music trivia. We play tic tack toe by having the teacher ask certain questions about music. If you get the question right you get to add ether an x or o to the board. If you get the question wrong then it is the other teams turn to answer the question.

Next we will tell you about the songs we sing. Most of them tell storys like: The wreck of Edmond fitzjerald, the old carrion crow, one-tin solder and many more! Most of the songs we sing are slow paced but sometimes we will pick up the tempo a bit.

A we come to any last details I think we will say goodbye!

Edited by authors and peer partners

Terrific Human Growth and development

By Karen, Hannah, and Grant

HG and D is short for human Growth and Develment. We have it every Friday. Our teacher is Mr. Genthe. We usually have HG and D at 2:30. We sometimes watch a video that goes with what we are learning about.

We have a learning log. We have to get it signed every week. When we get it signed we talk with our parents about the subject. When we meet Mr. Genthe checks them to make sure we got the paper signed. At the end of the year if you have eight signatures you get a piece of candy.

When we have HG and D Mr. Genthe comes to our classroom. Mr. Genthe walks around the room to keep our attention. Mr. Genthe calls on you weather you have your hand up or not. So you have a 50,50 chance of being called on.

All together we had 8 lessons. We had our last lesson last week. We did an end of the year quiz. We had 2 different quizzes. One was a vocal the other was a written quiz. Net year we will have HG and D again!

Edited by authors and peer partners

Guidance in 4K
By Emily and Paul

Responsibility, harassment, and people you trust are 3 of the things we learned in guidance. Let us tell you about them.

Responsibility is to not break a promise and to stick with what you said you would do. People trust you if you are responsible for your actions. An example of responsibility is if you have a chore to mow the lawn after school, but a friend asks you to go to the movies with them after school you turn them down and mow the lawn instead.

Harassment is making fun of people physically and/or emotionally. Also, harassment can be someone doing over and over again. Even after you tell them to stop. For example, if someone calls you a name and you tell him or her to stop, but they don’t, instead, they keep doing it. That’s harassment.

The last thing we learned about was people you trust. You can talk about almost anything with people you trust. It is important to trust your family and friends because they care for you.

Edited by authors and peer partners

Phy-ed Fun
By Joey and Brianna

What did you do in phy-ed today? Well we played some of our favorite games that are wizards and gelflings, Jurassic park tag, and crazy pin guard. But it wasn’t nearly as fun as the past weeks we’ve had so much fun doing these outdoor activities.

These activities include baseball. We throw the ball back and forth to a partner. Then we hit off the tee. We do running long jumps. We do sprints also. One more thing for 4th and 5th graders we have a track meet. We can run the 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, standing long jump, and softball throw. So that’s all you will need to know about what we do in phy-ed.

Now it’s time to get serious. Another thing we do in P.E. is a physical test. It tests how many laps we can go back and forth in the gym it is called the pacer. The test also tests something called curl-ups with a maximum of 75. Curl-ups are the same thing as sit-ups but you keep your arms down. We also do trunk lifts. How high can your chin the maximum is 12in. Mr.Genthey weighs and measures you in height.

Edited by authors and peer partners

Awesome Art
By Elise and Ali

Give me an A, Give me an R, Give me a T. What does that spell ART! We have art once a week on Tuesday. But our art teacher (Mrs. Miller) always has something planed that makes it our favorite subject.

A few weeks ago we did still art where we drew by hand a free drawing of a clarinet, French horn, and a cello. We thought it would be quite easy but we were wrong. It was hard we had to do the details but the big shapes where easy to draw.

Our second project we did with Mrs. Miller drawing an elevator. Inside could be anything we’d like, like a modern day bedroom or an alien mother ship. The project mostly was about expressing your self. My friend drew her brother in a superman suite because he inspired her. I liked the project because you could be creative and draw what you want.

These days in art we are working on mazes but we only have one day left because we already used up 1 day. You could pick out a big or a small piece of paper, the big one was 10-8 in and the other was 5-8 most people took the smaller. My friend did squiggly lines that some how made a path and I drew one that had to do with comics!

Edited by authors and peer partners

4k Guidance
By Robby

If you want to find out about 4K Guidance you’re about to find out.

I’m going to tell you about the topics lately in guidance. One of the topics we’ve been talking about is harassment. There are different types of harassment. One is teasing like name-calling and other mean and hurtful words. There is also talking about stuff behind people’s backs or spreading rumors. Another, taking some ones possessions and playing keep away. Another thing is appearance. No matter what someone’s skin color, no matter their height we’re all people just like on another. Finally we learned about physical harassment like pushing hitting or any kind of violence. That’s what we learned a bout in harassment.

This is all thanks to our teacher Ms. Ramsey

Edited by author and peer partner

Terrific technology
by Gigi and Spencer

In the computer we do lots of amazing things such as e-math. We use this for practicing our math skills. We also use graph club to organize our math data. That is how we practice our math skills on the computer.

In the computer lab we have several sites that help us with math, and typing. One of the sites that help us with typing is type to learn. Type to learn is a website that teaches us not to look at the keyboard, but at the screen when typing. We also use these skills too do big projects like, such as Wisconsin biographies, and key pal letters. A key pal letter is when we write a letter to our key pal which we were assigned at the being of the year.

In Library we also do projects on the computer/ laptop. Some of the projects are; China and Tibet slide, on power point with a partner. Also if we can’t find a book we can do a library search n three granres: keyword, author, and title. For example let’s say I want to look for Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse. I would have three options. I could do keyword and type in Lily. I could do author and type in Kevin Hankes. Or I could do title and type in Lily’s purple plastic purse. Catch ya’ later on the web.

Edited by authors and peer partners

Full of Fun French
By Maggie and Mike

Did you know 8 cities in Wisconsin are French names? We learned that in French class from our teacher Madame Jacques. She teaches grades 1 through 5. At this point in the year we’ve been learning to speak and write French. Its lots of hard work but it all pays off if you ever go to France.

One way we practice writing and speaking French was, we had to write directions from the school to our house. We had to write everything in French execept for the names of the streets. We also did right and left (gauche and drought) and drew a map. On that assignment we needed at least 5 directions. Some of the people even had to go around blocks a couple times because they live so close.

For practice we also made wanted posters. Of course we had to use complete sentences. In the complete sentences we had to describe their hair color, height, heritage, eye color, name, and birthday. When we finished that we got together in-group and read ours aloud to them and we listened to theirs. When we listened to theirs we took notes on their name, age, eye color, hair color, and birthday.

Those 8 cities are Butte des Morts, Lac du Flambeau, Fond du Lac, La Crosse, Prairie du Chien, Eau Claire, Marquette, and Portage. We also learned about the Indians. The Indians had 15 tribes. They also had 18 forts, one was Boston.

We sure do learn a lot about French all these years!

Edited by authors and peer partners

Here’s another Specials piece ….. see below

Fabulous French
By Elise and Paul

These days in French with Madam Jacque we have been learning about Sea Animals. We are learning how to say swim, walk, float, and many other things that have to do with different sea animals and how they live in French. Along with that we picked a sea animal and wrote a short paragraph about the animal that we choose. Some of the things we wrote about were what color they are, what physical adaptations they have, their size, and if they are aggressive or not.

In French we are learning about eye color and hair color. We would start by asking what hair and eye color different classmates have. We also got sticks with hair color words written in French. We sat in a circle and would start with the first person in the circle. They read what is on their stick – roux, bruns, noir, or blond. Then the second person would read the first person’s stick then his or her own stick. But when you come to the last person, he or she has to name all of the sticks without looking.

Mardi Gras is a French holiday celebrated in The New Orleans 47 days before Easter. They celebrate Mardi Gras by having parades with big floats and flashing lights. Everyone wears costumes with masks. It is against the law to take your mask off during the celebration if you’re on a float. Everyone on the float throws beaded necklaces to people on the ground. Some people will even spend $8,000.00 on green, yellow, and purple necklaces. Green, yellow and purple are the colors of the holiday like red and green are the colors on Christmas. Most people eat pancakes called crepes. Crepes are thinner than pancakes and deep-fried. People put toppings on their crepes like jelly or whipped cream.

That is what we are learning in French!

This month fourth graders put together all the pieces of the writing process – as they worked with spelling partners – to write about specials classes.

The steps of the writing process are -
Prewriting – creating a web, list, or other plan for your topic
Drafting – using the prewriting plan to write a first copy on your topic
Revising – deciding how to make your draft better by changing words, phrases, paragraphs, and so on — the “big stuff”
Editing – using resources to check and correct for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization — the “little stuff”
Publishing – sharing your writing with an audience

This is the first set of blog entries for 2006-2007 entirely written, proofread, and word processed by students.

Orchestra
By Hannah and Kathryn

In 4K we do orchestra. Our teacher’s name is Mr. Brodie. We have 11 students in our 4K orchestra. We have orchestra right after lunch on Tuesdays at 12:35. We have our lessons in Mrs. Lewis’ first grade music room. Mr. Brodie accompanies us on the piano while we play our instruments. Our lessons are about 40 minutes long. After orchestra we go out to recess.

We play 3 different instruments: they are cello, viola, and violin. They are all part of the string family and they are all played with a bow. The cello sits while the viola and violin stand. Cello and violas have the same strings CGDA, however violins have different strings. They are GDAE.

Right now in orchestra we are learning how to read notes Mr. Brodie projects the songs on the overhead. The song we are working on right now is Les Buffons. All of the instruments have different music because of the different strings.

Now you know what kids in 4K do in orchestra!

Library
By Mike and Ellen

In library we just celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Every year Ms. Roberts picks a name. Whoever wins gets a big bucket of Swedish fish for there class. We wish our class would have won them because they would be so good.

We get to check out three books and one magazine. Sometimes Ms. Roberts our teacher will read us a good book to us. We also use a library search on the computers to find our books.

We are working on Chinese slide shows. At the end we get to watch them and eat popcorn. We go to Library on Wednesdays. We work on laptops and computers.

That is what is we are learning about in the cool time library class!

Majestic Art
By Isaiah, Ali, and Karen

Have you ever heard of Art For Youth? Art For Youth is a fun filled experience for a fourth class. Some children in our class have mothers that show and explain a piece of artwork to us. We talk about what colors we see or if anyone has seen the artwork before. We pay attention to the small details and talk about them.

One of the famous sculptures that we studied was the Spoon and the Cherry. The sculpture is in Minneapolis. It has a fountain and there is a small pond around it! We guessed how big or small it was in its original place and that it was painted and sculpted.

We also talk about the artist or the person who sculpted the artwork and where they live(d). We talk about the different styles of paint the artist used.