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. 

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.

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!

The Imagination Station will be opening soon! 4K’s publishing day is scheduled for Wednesday, December 16, 2009. Only student work that is completely done in school is eligible for publication in the Imagination Station.

When 4K has independent writing workshop time during the next few weeks, students will be busy planning and writing stories, poems, biographies, reports, and many other genres of writing, with the goal of publishing their very best work in the Imagination Station this year.

Update – 4K will be publishing on two days – December 2 and December 16 – due to a change to our schedule.

By Migsy

Chicago has lots of stuff to do. I’ll start with my favorite, which is the CARNIVAL!

The big wheel is my favorite. I like the big wheel because it’s very, very high, and it’s a historical landmark. That tells you that you’re definitely in Chicago.

My second favorite thing is all the goodies to eat! Yummm! There’s also ice cream.

If you love all that stuff that I just told it’s all on the Navy Pier in Chicago! All of the Navy Pier is outside, and it’s really fun and it’s really pretty. If you don’t like that there’s probably indoor stuff to do too!

By BreBre

In the winter this is what I like to do. I like to have snowball fights, drink hot chocolate, play with friends, made snow angels, play with my brother, make snowmen eat hot hot pizza with my family ,and down hills. When  the slide is frozen, my brother and I  like to slide  bide down on it. We  skates, an b roll snowball  into  big big balls, and then my brother and I jump on ti and fall down and we laugh like crazy. My dad  made an ice sculpture  and it sailor names. We liked it a lot . That’s why I like winter so much because I get to do cool things.

By Larry

In football all most people see are wins losses, and big plays but if you actually play the game, the ball is hiked. You see someone open over the heavy rush you jump back and throw the ball at the same time. It’s deep and the man open catches it! He jukes out a guy and scores! Touchdown!!!!! See, all that stuff you just react to, you don’t ever think. Catching you know how to do it so your body just reacts naturally. Throwing your never going to be a good quarterback if you think just react . Pretty much everything in football you use your instincts. You don’t think just react. Well that’s all I have to say about not thinking , use my advice football fans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Betsy

Fall is by far my favorite season. There are two main holidays. They are Halloween and Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving because of the Macy’s Day Parade on television. Also, we have lots of family over for a big feast with pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, turkey, carrots, and much more! Just enough to make your mouth water! Yumm!

I really like Halloween because there is “trick-or-treating” with friends. It’s fun and (sometimes) scary. Yikes! One of my favorite things to do in fall is going for walks. I just love the way the trees look with all the colors! The smell of fall air makes me want to fly into the distance!

When the leaves fall and it is time for yard work, my friends and I rake them all up into one big pile, rake that to the end of a slide, zoom down the slide, and, crinckle! All of the leaves break into a zillion pieces! It is a ton of fun!

It is pumpkin picking time! We drive for about thirty minutes to the apple and pumpkin farm. When we find our favorite pumpkins, we race to the apple orchard. We fill a lot of bags with apples! When we are done picking out our gourds and small pumpkins, it is time to carve our pumpkins. It is a mushy and gushy job, but it is worth it when you see four glowing pumpkins outside of our house!

By Allison

The Statue of Liberty is in New York .The Statue of Liberty stands for freedom. The Statue of Liberty is located by Ellis Island. So when immigrants are coming to America they know we have a sign of freedom.

It took two years two build the Statue of Liberty. It was finished in 1882. That is why many immigrants come to America. Now people take tours inside the Statue of Liberty. They also learn everything they need to know about it.

By J.J.

Today football is a very popular sport! Football was invented in the eighteen hundreds by a man named Walter B. Camp.

Here are some of the rules: The object of the game is to get as many touchdowns as possible in four downs or four plays. You can get a first down by going ten yards, but if you don’t get a first down or a touchdown then it’s a turnover

If you get a touchdown it’s worth six points then you kick a field goal and that is worth one point. But if you don’t get a touchdown and make a field goal it’s worth three points. If you tackle someone in their end zone it’s called a safety and that is worth two points.

There is something called a penalty it’s like breaking a rule in football. Here are some penalties: a face mask, holding, off sides, and pass interference.

Here are some of the positions: safety, lineman, running back, quarterback, tight end, linebacker, and wide receiver. Each position has a different job.

Every year there is a Super Bowl for the NFL, and the Rose Bowl for college.

That is pretty much all you need to know about football!

By Joslin

Over the summer I went to the lake on Mercer Island with our friends who live there. When we got to the lake we set up the picnic table for dinner. Then we got our swimsuits on so that we could go to the raft in the middle of the lake.

The water was freezing but we went into the cold gray water anyway. You could jump off the raft that was covered in seaweed and go to the bottom. It was only four feet deep so it wasn’t too far down. At the bottom there was slimy seaweed covering the little tiny clams. You could sometimes open them to “sea” if there was anything inside if not we would throw the clam as far out into the lake as possible!

When it got dark and quite cold we all ate dinner together. Then all of the kids on the swirly green playground. After that everyone said their goodbyes and one of our friends took us to our hotel.

By David

When I went to Ride School in Colorado. I was waiting for people to get ready. It took forever! At last I met my teacher and his name was Smitty. Once we met the students and them what we were allergic to. One person said I am allergic to chocolate and meat.

We did some warm up slopes with s turns. After that we did the real slopes. When we got to the top, Smutty   said, to stop at the  slow down sign .Since  I was  the first one down. Smitty was going full speed, did a quick stop and snow went flying in my face! At lunch the person who was allergic to meat ate all of her pepperoni and sausage off her pizza. Well that is how I spent my morning.

By Kenadee

Today was my first horse back riding competition ever! When I got on my horse I was positively terrified! They were giving us directions on which way to go and what to do while we were riding. My horse went ballistic, she was jumping and running around! I tried to get her under control. You would have never guessed but I got her calmed her down and kept on riding, doing what they told me to do. Finally I was done and my trainer gave us our ribbons! I won first place! Then my trainer gave me a carrot to give to my horse! It was funny watching her eat the carrot with her tongue liking it! It was the happiest day of my life!

By David

Washington .D.C is a very neat city Washington .D.C has a lot of monuments. Here are some examples. The Jefferson Memorial has the Declaration of Independence in it and has a dome on top. The Washington monument is a very small and skinny building. You can climb up there on stairs or take the elevator. There are windows on top that you can see through. The Lincoln Memorial has a huge statue of Abe Lincoln on a chair. There are pillars in front of the memorial.

In Washington .D.C they have a bunch of museums like the Natural History museum and the Air and space Museum. My favorite is the Air and Space Museum because I like airplanes and spaceships.

In Washington .D.C they have the Capitol and the White House. The White House is the home of the president. The current president is Barack Obama. The Capitol is where the Senate and Congress work. In the Capitol they make laws. That’s what I want to share with you about Washington .D.C.

By Alice

When family and I went to the beach in California my brother and I took the boogie board into the places where the water comes most often .We stood on the boogie board and when the water came it would lift us up , and we would fall off . It is much more easy when I was doing it alone. But one time the wave was to big so I fell on Robert . When I was doing it alone I fell over and the boogie board fell on top of me , but luckily no wave was coming . after a while I started really boogie boarding .One time the wave was not big yet , and I jumped on and hurt my chest. After that we started jumping in the waves . It reminded me of when I went in the wave pool at Noah’s ark because one of the waves knocked me down . We wanted to make a sand castle , but we forgot to bring the toys so we built a sand mountain of sand and named it mount brown ( with a stick on top ) . then w played some more on the water some more then we went home.

By Matthew

Do you like to play football. If you do you will like this paper. Now a days football is a popular sport for forth graders. Most people play at recess, play junior Blue Dukes or 7 on 7. If you play junior Blue Dukes you play 11 on 11 and it is for fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. If you play junior Blue Dukes you will play teams like Cedarburg, Grafton, Menomonee Falls, Port Washington and other teams. If you play 7 on 7 you have 7 people on the field at all times. For myself I play 7 on 7. My last game is tonight. I am looking forward to playing my friends tonight. Wish me luck.

The Carbon Dioxide Experiment

Reported by David, Betsy, and Eve

Our experiment in science was to prove that fish exhale carbon dioxide.

We did this by placing a goldfish in a cup of water, then we added BTB which indicates carbon dioxide.

BTB starts as a shade of blue. When BTB interacts with carbon dioxide, it turns to a shade of yellow, depending on how much BTB was put in the water.

After about an hour, we looked at the cup with BTB, water, and the goldfish. Believe it or not, our experiment worked! The water was now a bright yellow!

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.

Looking for math challenges?

Leave a comment with the web site and URL if you know of any others!

Houghton Mifflin Math Expressions

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

Figure This! Math Challenges

Brain Boosters

4K fourth graders are beginning to review the traits that good writers use in their writing.

Writing by fourth graders…

• has fluent sentences – your writing flows well
  
• has voice – it sounds like you
  
• stays on topic – you stick to the subject
  
• makes a picture in your mind – you use sensory words to help visualize
  
• has pizzazz – you show excitement, fear, or other strong emotions
  
• is organized – you have made your piece easy to read
  
• has interesting word choice – you have added many descriptive details
  
• has correct conventions – you have used correct capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and spelling
  
• grabs the reader’s attention – you have made your reader want to start reading – then keep reading!