Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

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. 

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!

Remember that Reading Log pages can be downloaded from the class blog so students can type their reading log entries each week. A great way to practice keyboarding skills!

Over the next few weeks, fourth graders will be finishing up their keyboarding lessons using “Type to Learn.” As the year goes on, they will have the opportunity to word process some of their class assignments, so the keyboarding practice will come in handy!

World Series

If you are a baseball fan, you’ll want to visit mlb.com – the official site of Major League Baseball – to follow all of the action!

This week students are learning how to post articles to their personal blogs on the 4K @ Richards Class Blogmeister blog in school. They can post articles at home, so in today’s Friday folder there is an identical copy of the directions to keep and use at home.

To see work by 4K students from the past 2 years, click on the links for 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 for the 4K@ Richards blog under Blogroll from the class blog page.

Please vote for your favorite color this week on JP’s blog – just click on the comment link at the bottom of the article and vote. He will share the results of his poll at the end of the week. Thank you!

JP’s Blog — Class of 2008-2009

In honor of the first day of October, visit this site to practice carving your pumpkins for Halloween.

Halloween and pumpkins are a very big deal in Whitefish Bay, WI!

Virtual Pumpkin Carving

Photo taken by Ms. Kreul in Schoolhouse Park in WFB. October 2008.

Visible Earth – A catalog of NASA images and animations of the Earth – very cool

Hubble Telescope –  Hubble history, news, and amazing photos

The ClustrMaps Visitors Map which tracked hits to this class blog from May 31, 2008 to June 1, 2009 was recently archived. Wow – lots of people have read the 4K Blog over the past year!

Download the list of Summer Web Sites 2009. Enjoy!

Summer Web Sites 2009

Annie and Sam took photos of signs of spring seen on the front playground of Richards on May 12, 2009. Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Here is the link to 4K’s May observations for the A Room With a View telecollaborative Internet project. Thanks to Annie and Sam for taking the photo and jotting down their observations this afternoon.
May 2009

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

4K has celebrated spring by participating in several baseball activities during April. They read the wonderful anthology selection Lou Gehring: The Luckiest Man, the biography of the well-loved NY Yankee baseball player.

Students went to the computer lab to go on a virtual field trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame to research famous Hall of Famers. Many students were able to view videos and photos of the players, along with other primary source documents available on the site.

Have you ever seen the comedy duo of Abbott and Costello perform their famous routine called “Whos’ on First?” Fourth graders practiced their fluency – and comedy skills – as they read the script of this hilarious baseball routine with partners.

4K’s current read-aloud book is titled In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, written by Bette Bao Lord. It’s a story set in the 1940s about a girl named Shirley Temple Wong who moves from China to America. Shirley doesn’t speak English and has trouble making friends in her new school until she discovers that she loves to play stickball. She also finds a hero in Brooklyn Dodger baseball superstar Jackie Robinson. Ask your fourth grader to share this wonderful story with you.

We also shared several read-aloud books about baseball, including Mama Played Baseball by David Adler, a story about the All-American Girls” Professional Baseball League, The Babe and I, a tale of a Depression Era boy and his father and Babe Ruth, and Teammates, which tells about the friendship between Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese during a challenging time in American baseball history.

These activities have combined reading, listening, social studies, math, research, and technology skills – and baseball! Not a bad way to spend a few days in the spring!

Fourth graders had the opportunity to tour our beautiful Wisconsin state capitol in Madison this week. They learned a bit about Wisconsin’s history and government in Madison and will be learning more in social studies in a few weeks. For now, your family can take a virtual tour of the capital via the official web site: Wisconsin State Capitol

Mr. Mac’s Class, here are our answers to the questions you asked.

Our class has been blogging since Oct. 2008. We blog at least once a week in school and also make comments to blogs from other classes. Some of us also blog after school or on the weekends from home.

There are 21 students in our class.

There are 726 students and 85 teachers and staff at our school.

The time difference between Adelaide, Australia and Whitefish Bay (Milwaukee) in Wisconsin is 15 hours and 30 minutes. So if it is 6:00AM here it would be 9:30PM there. Do you know that when we are all asleep, you are all awake? If it was March 27 here in Wisconsin, it would be March 28 in Australia. When there is a sunrise in Wisconsin, there is a sunset in Australia. We participate in Daylight Savings Time, do you?

Our weather here right now – on March 27 – is chilly but sunny. The temperature is around 30 degrees F but can get to about 40-45 on a nice day. Spring has just started here but it can still snow sometimes!

We have heard of these Aussie slang words – mate, boot, brumbies, barbie, lift, petrol, boot, and mob

We call our sports/fitness lessons Physical Education or Phy Ed or PE. We play basketball, run the pacer to see how fast you can go, do gymnastics, and play floor hockey. Next month we have two weeks of roller skating in Phy Ed class.

We have a sports day for 4th and 5th graders. For our sports day you do track and field. We do the 100 yard dash, 150 yard dash, and 400 yard dash. We do high hurdles and low hurdles. Do you have a sports day? If so, what do you do?

We emailed Mr. Mac a list of questions that we have for you. We looked at your blog and especially enjoyed looking at the photos of your class at Pt Noarlunga Beach. Looked like lots of fun – and warm!

An award winning web site that can be used for learning and practicing spelling words is called Spelling City. Try it out and let us know how it works for you!
SpellingCity.com

Podcast for Readers’ Theater “Click Clack Moo Cows That Type”
Written by Doreen Cronin
Adapted by Dina Braccio and Allyson Williams
March 10, 2009

Presented by Elle, De’Ana, Jacob, Andrew Annie, Hailey, Curtis, AlisonH, Ethan, and Xavier

Cows That Type 2