Fantabulous Fourth Graders
This is our 4th grade crew during Field Day 2012, striking a pose!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Our Field Trip to ASU!
There are not words to describe how amazing our field trip was to Arizona State University. Day in and day out, I am always telling my students how the study skills they are learning in 4th grade will help them throughout high-school and college. We always discuss goals for each of them to be successful by getting a college education. Many of our students have NO IDEA what college is all about. So, to give our students the true college experience, we took the entire 4th grade to Arizona State University so that they could discover what the life of a college student is like.
When we arrived on campus, the kids were in awe of how enormous it is. They had never seen a school campus with so many buildings and students. First, we learned the famous ASU pitchfork hand-signal, which is used at ASU games to promote school spirit. Then, we saw real-life scientists working on moon rocks and studying Mars. Our day ended at Sun Devil Stadium, where we chatted with two student athletes who described what their lives are like as ASU students and athletes. Through their discussions, the 4th graders felt college was attainable and were inspired to study hard in school so they can be future Sun Devils. After meeting the student athletes, we explored Sun Devil Stadium and had the honor of running out the Tillman Tunnel onto the football field, just like the ASU football players do.
It was an amazing experience for all of us. Below are some pictures from our day.
When we arrived on campus, the kids were in awe of how enormous it is. They had never seen a school campus with so many buildings and students. First, we learned the famous ASU pitchfork hand-signal, which is used at ASU games to promote school spirit. Then, we saw real-life scientists working on moon rocks and studying Mars. Our day ended at Sun Devil Stadium, where we chatted with two student athletes who described what their lives are like as ASU students and athletes. Through their discussions, the 4th graders felt college was attainable and were inspired to study hard in school so they can be future Sun Devils. After meeting the student athletes, we explored Sun Devil Stadium and had the honor of running out the Tillman Tunnel onto the football field, just like the ASU football players do.
It was an amazing experience for all of us. Below are some pictures from our day.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Dr. Seuss was an excellent author who has inspired me, and many others, to be live-long readers. I remember learning to read with most of his classics, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. He not only inspired me to read, but his fun style of using rhyme scheme to tell his stories invited me into the world of writing. As a child, I would spend hours in my journals or at my family computer creating my own stories similar to those I was reading.
Dr. Seuss has touched so many lives with his work, that our whole country celebrates him with Read Across America Week. We honored this amazing author at our school by celebrating literacy. We had contests between our homeroom classes to see who could read the most pages throughout the week, we played a Dr. Seuss trivia game each morning, we dressed up like many of his books all week. For example, we were wearing crazy socks for his classic Fox in Sox and T-shirts of places we have visited for Oh, The Places You'll Go.
During this week, each class also entered the Dr. Seuss door decorating contest. My very clever 4th graders came up with an idea that represented the book The Lorax. We used the famous furry mustache of the Lorax to display ways that each student can actively help save trees. We had ideas from using technology more, to not loosing their homework (so extra copies are not made!), to reusing all parts of our paper. Our design did not earn us a prize, but we applied the theme of The Lorax's to our own lives and actions, a characteristic of a fantastic reader.
Dr. Seuss has touched so many lives with his work, that our whole country celebrates him with Read Across America Week. We honored this amazing author at our school by celebrating literacy. We had contests between our homeroom classes to see who could read the most pages throughout the week, we played a Dr. Seuss trivia game each morning, we dressed up like many of his books all week. For example, we were wearing crazy socks for his classic Fox in Sox and T-shirts of places we have visited for Oh, The Places You'll Go.
During this week, each class also entered the Dr. Seuss door decorating contest. My very clever 4th graders came up with an idea that represented the book The Lorax. We used the famous furry mustache of the Lorax to display ways that each student can actively help save trees. We had ideas from using technology more, to not loosing their homework (so extra copies are not made!), to reusing all parts of our paper. Our design did not earn us a prize, but we applied the theme of The Lorax's to our own lives and actions, a characteristic of a fantastic reader.
Monday, February 11, 2013
In class, we are learning to become "Grammar Ninjas" by applying our proof-reading marks to revise and edit silly sentences that I (Mrs. Stines) writes. We have almost reached our "Ninja" status because we are now finding grammatical errors in all kinds of things that we are reading! One student in our class heard about a new invention called a Grammar Correcting Pen on the news and shared it with the class. This pen vibrates when a student writes a grammatical error on their paper. Oh, how easy it would be to become a "Grammar Ninja" if we all had these pens!
http://techland.time.com/2013/02/06/tech-meets-handwriting-lernstift-pen-buzzes-to-correct-your-spelling-grammar-and-penmanship/
http://techland.time.com/2013/02/06/tech-meets-handwriting-lernstift-pen-buzzes-to-correct-your-spelling-grammar-and-penmanship/
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Who Are We?
Welcome to our classroom blog! Although this blog is a long time coming, (thanks Mr. Lane for giving me that extra push I needed...) I am so excited to share all the experiences my fantabulous fourth graders have had so far this year and to continue to post about all the learning and fun we are having in fourth grade. My class this year is a really special group. Their big ideas and thirst for knowledge is contagious. If that isn't enough to make a teacher happy, their positive attitudes and good humor keep a permanent smile on my face and make me love my job even more than I already do.
During our first month together, our class decided to adopt our class mission statement from my favorite college football team, Notre Dame. Notre Dame's motto is to "Play Like a Champion Today," and we liked the message that their motto sent encouraging everyone to always give their best effort, like a champion does. We wanted our mission statement to reflect our jobs as students and teachers in the classroom so we changed it to "Learn Like a Champion Today" and decided that this meant we were going to work hard to be champion learners by challenging ourselves, trying our best, learning from our mistakes and having fun! Having this "Champion" mentality the first half of this year has made us become...
rockstar readers,
marvelous mathematicians,
whimsical writers and
stellar scientists.
All of our success the first half of this year is also attributed to our classroom social contract, which we all created together the first week of school. We wanted a set of expectations that our entire class could agree to so that our classroom was welcoming to everyone who walked through its doors. After a lengthy discussion, we all pledged to treat each other like a "family" by following the expectations we found near and dear to our hearts. These are listed on our contract below.
Thank you for stopping by our blog. Stay tuned for updates on what is happening in our class. I'd love to hear what you are thinking too, so feel free to drop me a comment if you find something relatable, helpful, confusing or amusing. :)
-Mrs. Stines
During our first month together, our class decided to adopt our class mission statement from my favorite college football team, Notre Dame. Notre Dame's motto is to "Play Like a Champion Today," and we liked the message that their motto sent encouraging everyone to always give their best effort, like a champion does. We wanted our mission statement to reflect our jobs as students and teachers in the classroom so we changed it to "Learn Like a Champion Today" and decided that this meant we were going to work hard to be champion learners by challenging ourselves, trying our best, learning from our mistakes and having fun! Having this "Champion" mentality the first half of this year has made us become...
rockstar readers,
marvelous mathematicians,
whimsical writers and
stellar scientists.
All of our success the first half of this year is also attributed to our classroom social contract, which we all created together the first week of school. We wanted a set of expectations that our entire class could agree to so that our classroom was welcoming to everyone who walked through its doors. After a lengthy discussion, we all pledged to treat each other like a "family" by following the expectations we found near and dear to our hearts. These are listed on our contract below.
Thank you for stopping by our blog. Stay tuned for updates on what is happening in our class. I'd love to hear what you are thinking too, so feel free to drop me a comment if you find something relatable, helpful, confusing or amusing. :)
-Mrs. Stines
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