Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

A wonderful holiday project for your family – Holiday Mail for Heroes sponsored by the Red Cross

Holiday Mail For Heroes is here again! This year, we are teaming up with our friends at Pitney Bowes for the third time to send holiday cards to service members, veterans, and their families. This is a great way to give back this holiday season – by sharing your kind words and thanks with those who have given a great deal to their country. All cards must be received no later than Monday, December 7th.

It’s so exciting to see 4K students starting to publish work on their individual blogs from home. The class will be going to the computer lab for 2 more sessions of keyboarding using Type to Learn, then they will have more time in school to practice their writing and word processing skills as they write articles to publish online.

Please share your fourth grader’s blog address with families and friends and ask them to post comments. Thank you!

In the last newsletter you learned that Mr. Burgos, a fourth grade teacher from Cumberland, is developing an amazing social studies website to accompany the fourth grade social studies curriculum.

The URL for his website has changed to:
http://web.me.com/ferminburgos/Social_ Studies_Alive/Welcome.html

Mr. Burgos has also invited fourth graders and their families to contribute travel information to the social studies site.
If your family is planning to travel to one of the locations mentioned on the web site, please contact Mr. Burgos at
adan.burgos@wfbschools.com to find how your family can become world famous traveling correspondents.

Students are working hard on planning, drafting, editing, revising, and writing the final copies of their Imagination Station pieces. 4K students are scheduled to publish on either Dec. 2 or Dec. 16. They are very excited about this opportunity to publish their writing.

Do you like reading and writing? Are you in grades 2-8? Would a parent like to join you at an exciting one day conference in Milwaukee, WI on February 6, 2010?

Check out the Wisconsin State Reading Association’s Author Festival!

Print out the brochure here – Authors Festival 2010.

4A and 4K alumni who have attended the Authors Festival in the past have given the conference a two thumbs up!

By Haley

If you like winter or it’s just your third favorite season, please read this. Even though winter isn’t my favorite season I still like winter. Every time it snows and stops snowing I look out the window. The pile of the snow looks like this huge, I mean huge blanket of snow, so it would look like a fluffy, white blanket that everyone could go in, The one thing I hate about winter is that it is so cold and it can get slippery from the ice. But that doesn’t bother me. Winter is the perfect weather to have some hot chocolate. For some reason my little brother loves to suck on ice. I have no clue why he does it, but he likes it. I have to say that snowballs do look like huge marshmallows because one time my little brother thought it was a marshmallow witch I thought it was kind of cool. I don’t know why, but every time in the winter and its cold out I just love to see my breath. It’s just so addicting that I can’t stop, same thing with my brother. Another thing I like to do is go on my swing and jump in the fluffy snow. I don’t know why I do it I just think everyone should do it because it’s so much fun! So those are some reasons I want to tell you why winter is so much fun!

Amazing Jakes
By KM

This place in Phoenix, Arizona called Amazing Jakes had some disgusting food but I loved the laser tag area. We had to where these big heavy vests with targets on them also if somebody catches you your vest and your laser gun will turn off. Also these older kids nobody knew jumped over the posts to skip people in line, but the man who was at that area didn’t say anything. They had very strict rules like no jumping, diving, pushing. Also they said no running. Doesn’t want to run over them. They also had rock music on to help you concentrate.

By Ali

My last soccer game was good. We only lost by one. On are team we have good goalies. I always play forward. I am good at it. I also play defence. I am not good at it though!

At our last game I almost scored. The team we were playing was rough. My friend got pushed and I was hit. You are allowed to push a little, but you cannot jump in to the person. You can not kick or hit to. If you accidentally kick it is ok. That is why we were shinguards.

By Nicko

When I go up north for the summer I go to a resort and play. Most of the time we head uot to the floating trampoline. I crawl out to the launcher and tell dad ‘ready’ and he starts counting down “3…2…1” and he jumps onto the launcher. It feels like a millennium before he hits the launcher and…fwomp! I’m up in the air!

It feels like I’m up in space being so weightless. It is all over in the blink of an eye. Then I feel gravity start to take its toll and I start to fall.

If I can angle myself right when I hit the water I feel breathless or winded because of the impact. Sometimes I go to the bottom of the lake and see clams that we catch.

If I’m lucky I can reach out and grab a clam as I’m swimming up to show my brother. Then I’m out to the launcher to launch again!

By Matt

Hey!!!   Ready for your tour of Lego city?  Lets get started.

We’ll start in the Police station.  These guys are always working hard day and night to keep us safe.

Next is the fire station. Oh sorry they’re not here.  They’re probably out fighting a forest fire.  We have lots of them around here.

So moving on here is Vador Village.  Lord Vador has a very tight schedule but he said he will fit us in.

THE REBELS ARE COMING THE REBELS ARE COMING!!!!!!

Maybe we should get the heck out of here, RUN!!!!!! Before our heads blasted off!!!!!!  Close one!!!

So now that we’re out of that death trap, lets go to Dead Mans Cove.  AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

It’s all right, there is just some old dead guys and the legend says that they will come back to life on this very day.  So shhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Oh my gosh!!!!!!  You woke them up RUN!!!!!!

AHHHHHH!!!!!!

Ready to go to Lego space academy?  Y-y-y-e-e-e-s-s-s!

General can we borrow the space ship? Yes sir!!!  Wow, this is so cool.  Yep she’s a beauty .  Lets blast off to Midevil Island!!!  3, 2,1 BLAST   OFF!!!!!!  Hey, watch it buddy, you almost sliced my head off!!!!!!  Well, that the famous Lego City!!!!!!

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!