Friday

September 3, 2008- by Monique




It is the second week of school, and everything is going great. In writing we learned about Analogies. An Analogy is something like this: Blue is to ocean as brown is to mud. They get easier when you get the hang of them. We also did our D.O.L, which stands for Daily Oral Language. Afterwards, we switched to Math. We learned about Place Value, Expanded Notation, and we had a Math Test, which had only 20 problems. It was divided into four pages, which probably intimidated some people in the room. When we are done with our Math Test, Mr.Kootman lets us get a book from his library, which has a lot of classic choices. We corrected our Math Test after everybody was finished, and almost EVERYBODY had some mistakes in their seemingly corrected test. It was pretty funny. A few minutes later, we went to recess. Some of us went to the picnic tables to eat, while some of us went up to the blacktop to run around. However, we only got 15 minutes. All of us rushed to our lines as fast a rabbit could run. Mr.Kootman picked us up at the blacktop where we were quietly waiting for him.

When we entered the room, Mr.Kootman told us to take out our reading books to talk about and read the story, "Toto." The story was about a boy and a baby elephant named Toto. Toto had lost his mom by wandering off too far. A trap caught Toto's foot, and the boy frees him. However, Toto does not leave the boy alone, so the boy had to lead Toto back to his habitat. The whole thing took place in the grassy plains in Africa. We talked about it for so long that we only heard 47 seconds of the story. Then it was time for lunch. The whole class lined up on the railing, and the WHOLE line took up almost half of the elevated concrete, and it was confusing to find what side the end was.

The cafeteria was very crowded, and loud too. It was as if we were being crammed into a box with a bunch of barking dogs. The benches were small as well, it was hard to find a spot, but everybody found one, eventually. After about 15 minutes, our table was dismissed, and we went to Lunch Recess. I spent my time just walking around, but the others, they ran and played on the swings; they went everywhere. Time just flew by without us knowing. The bell rang, and we had to go back to our lines. As soon as we sat down at our desks, we finished off "Toto", then read a chapter of Room One. Ted brought food to April, who has no money, and lives with her mom and brother. Ted had bought a ton of bizarre food to give to them. We couldn't see why they would want to eat that daily. Mr.Kootman closed the book, and turned on the projector, which showed a Brainpop page. He clicked on the hand, and the video froze. He had to restart the computer ALL over again. It took quite a while to get it working right.

The first video we saw on Brainpop was about Presidential Elections. We learned that every four years we pick a new president to be in charge of our country. You have to be at least 18 to vote, and you have to be at least 35 to run for president, you also have to be naturally born in the United States to run. There are two Major Political Parties: The Democratic Party, and the Republican party. Each Political party has their own symbol to represent them. For the Democrats, they have a Donkey as their symbol, and the Republicans have an Elephant as their symbol. These are known as the Democratic Donkey and the Republican Elephant. There are lesser parties, but they never win Presidential Elections. They may win Mayor, though. The race starts with tons of people who want to be president. The people who win move on, but the others lose. Then it all comes down to two candidates. One Republican, and one Democrat. The two candidates battle it out in a series of speeches. The one who wins that struggle gets to be president. Voting can be hard for some people because its hard to choose between the candidates. Some people are nervous to see how it turns out, while some people are confident in the people they voted for.

The second video we saw was about Synonyms, Homonyms, and Antonyms. A Synonym is a word that means the same thing. For example: Beautiful=Pretty. The list goes on. A Homonym is a word that is spelled the same as another, but means something else. An Antonym is a word that is the opposite of a word. For example: Up=Down. At the end of the day we had drawings. About half of us won something. Finally, we took a Spelling Pretest, and then we went home.

Image Credits: http://www.wordgames.de/Bilder/advanced/synonyms.jpg,
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/animals/images/primary/african-elephant2.jpg

Wednesday

August 30, 2008 by Kaylee



WOW!!!!!!! It's already the 4th day of school in 4th grade!!! Today we started off with math 1.5. That is problem solving on expanded notation and place value. We also did a review test. Some of it was hard while other poroblems were very easy. But, since I like math for me it was easy!!!! But some of the questions were a little hard.

After that it was already recess. At recess I played with Miranda,Jodie, and Jaclyn. We all played tag, but during the game I never got tagged.
When the bell rang, it was time to line up and go back to class. When we came back,we started to read Mrs.Frisby and the Crow in our OPpen Court book. In the story, Mrs.Frisby goes out to find Timothy (her son) some medicine. On her way back to where she lives she finds a crow that is tied to a fence and is pecking at a string constantly. She decided to help him and they esccaped from the sharp-toothed cat.

By the time we were almost done, it was time for lunch. For lunch I had a sandwich, juice and a couple of Oreos. At lunch recess I played with just Jodie. All we did was walk around. The bell rang so we went to the line and went back to work when we got to class.

We had no time to read our class chapter book, so we finished up the Open Court Reading book. For the rest of the day we learned all of the nouns and described all of them. A noun is a person, place, thing or idea. The bell rang so it was time to pack up and go home. And that was the great 4th day of school.

Photo credits:
http://www.freewebs.com/nimhster/C_0689710682.jpg http://www.enchantedlearning.com/math/decimals/placevalue/gifs/ex.GIF

Friday

August 29, 2008

Today we met our new student teacher, Miss Kepley, for the first time. She said she will be here once every Thursday for eight weeks and then every day for eight weeks after that.
To start our day, we did DOL and math. In DOL, we did correcting sentences and synonyms. In math, we star
ted with our Daily Routines, which is just review work.

After our morning work, we opened our math book to lesson 1.4, which was on expanded notation. Expanded notation is when you take a number like 10,523 and make it 10,000 + 500 + 20 + 3.

Throughout the day, we took notes for this blog. This is the prewriting stage of the writing process. Mr. Kootman says that the better the notes you take, the easier it is to write the blog the next day.

D
uring lunch, Tyler got hurt and went home. Boo hoo! After lunch, we read Room One. In this chapter, Ted brought food to April, who is homeless and has little money.

Then, we learned about SLANT, which reminds us to sit up, listen, and focus on the teacher. Lastly, we learned how to properly throw a tennis ball. One thing we have to remember is to face sideways from where we want to throw, also we need to lean back and shift our weight. Mr.
Kootman challenged us to hit him from far away and two of us did! That was the end of our fourth day of fourth grade.

image credits:
http://pro.corbis.com/images/RF243349.jpg?size=572&uid=%7B9EEB98A6-8010-4D2A-8A7F-643AE22C01B7%7D
http://www.kwiznet.com/images/questions/grade4/expanded_notation.gif

Wednesday

August 25, 2008- First Day of School!



Oh man! Summer is over and today is the first day of school. Mr. Kootman greeted us at the door and we found our nametags on the floor. We learned that every student will have his or her own number in our class. When everyone was ready, Mr. Kootman explained that some things in the classroom are tools and some are toys. We have a really cool Smartboard, which is like an electronic white board. This is definitely a tool!

After that, we learned about being responsible and taking ownership in the “Above the Line Chart.” Then we had a break where we played Autograph Bingo. Autograph Bingo is when people sign your paper if they have done certain things, such as having a dog.

All of a sudden, it began to rain for the first time in months! Luckily, we still got to go to recess. After recess, we learned about our new class blog and took notes. Then we talked about our homework and received a lot of papers for our parents to sign.

Next, we went to lunch where they served corndogs and quesadillas. At 1:05 we read Room One, by Andrew Clements. This book is about a boy named Ted who likes to solve mysteries.

Finally, we switched in to math mode, where we studied place value. We learned there are three ways to write a number: word form, standard form and expanded form. At last, we got our bags and headed out.

Photo credits: http://www.saynotocrack.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/rain.jpg

http://testimonials.epromos.com/school-bus-resized.jpg

June 10, 2008- by Devin P.

Wow! It is already the end of the school year! Hi my name is Devin and I am typing a blog during a Tuesday in the last week of school. The first thing we did today was our morning work, our morning work is D.O.L and a page in our math book. D.O.L is a worksheet that has different activities, like correcting sentences and other grammar work. D.O.L stands for Daily Oral Language. The math page that we did was math test review, which is about fractions.

After we did our morning work we went to yoga. During yoga it was so quiet while we were doing our stretches. We were so quiet because Mr. Kootman told us to be quiet or else we owe him a lap around the track. After yoga we went back to class and took our math test. The math test was so easy because we only had 16 problems on the test.

Then we went to recess where I played basketball with my friends, Conner, Hunter, Cyphrus, Christian L. and Kianna; we played half court shooting. Half court shooting is were you go half court and try to make the basket by throwing the ball with one hand. So Hunter, Cyphrus, and I are the only ones that made it so far.

After recess we watched two science video that were on Electro-Magnets and regular magnets. The first video that we saw was about how magnets have two sides, one side is the south side and the other side is the north. If you put the north side to the south side they will attract and if you put the same side to each other the magnets will be forced to not touch the other magnet. The vocab word for this is repel.

The second video was about energy volts and you should never go in a generator room with metal on you. It even told us a lot of experiments to do and we did two experiments. One of the experiments was rip off a bottom of a plastic cup and put water in it and a little wire in the middle then it will be like a compass. Then we tried an experiment that you have to have a magnet, wire, paper clip and a cup of water. Then you take the wire and Try to pick up a paper clip but it won't pick up a paper clip, so then you rub the wire on the magnet and it gets electric so the wire can pick up the paper clip and we tried to pick up a paper clip and it worked. This is called a temporary magnet.

Then we went to lunch, I had a hot dog for lunch with Pringles, Gatorade and hot Cheetos. Once we got dismissed from eating lunch we went up top to play; I played handball with Sam, Christian, Austin and Matthew. We played elimination handball .

After lunch recess we read our classroom book named No Talking. The chapter was about when they are not talking but they can only say three words. Then we read a lesson in our science book and we watched a movie about hybrid cars. At that point, I got signed out because I had to go to an orthodontist appointment for my braces.

So that is the end of my blog!

Image credits:

www.hilaroad.com/camp/projects/electromagnetism/electromagnet_battery.jpg

image.versiontracker.com/scrnsht/6084/165026/921adding%20three

%20fraction%20screen%20shot.png

June 6, 2008- by Devin D.

UH OHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! We're starting a new math lesson today! Mr.Kootman's class is on chapter 4 this week,"Add Unlike Fractions" . We have to do fractions like 3 6/7 + 4 2/7= 8 1/7. Some people still need help on some stuff in our math packet. The chapter that were on is " Chapter 18 Add and Subtract Fractions and Mixed Numbers ".

It was Thursday, the last day reading "Going West" in our Open Court book. Some people did not know what song was at the beginning and the end of the story, but Jackson ( a very intelligent kid) knew the answer. Mr.Kootman asked Devin Diaz (me) to see if he knows it. The story was 8 pages long.(522-529)

After reading, our class did our C.L.A.S. Book. We did page 208-209 on "Understanding and Combining Sentences". We had to write down BIG words like ,interrogative, imperative, declarative, and exclamatory. On the second page we had to combine sentences together,or make the words capitalized. We also learned a lot about run-on sentences during class. Run-on sentences are like sentences with and or but (sometimes commas) that seem to keep going on and on forever.

The next thing we did was read No Talking. The girls were winning the no talking contest by a couple points. Mostly the fifth-graders are called the "Unshushables". The girls were sometimes laughing at the boys, because they were losing. Sometimes the boys forgot that they were playing a quiet game. One girl thought that "um" was a word, but no. The teachers were astonished by their good behavior.

Near the end of the day we did an art project on a volcano. First, we started with a black permanent marker to draw the main part of the volcano. Second, we pointed out were the ash, lava, magma,and lava holes are. Last, we did patterns and lava with whatever color pencil we received. The focus was on creating patterns within the volcano.

Lastly, we were about to go to P.E, but some people were too loud. So we went back inside and read until school was out.

photo from: cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=72249&rendTypeId=35

Thursday

June 3, 2008- by Megan

Oh, man I'm moving tomorrow, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Waaaaaaaah...sniff. But,forget about that.Today we started off with our morning work,I'm guessing that it was easy but how am I supposed to know? I was on the computer doing a photostory on static electricity with Katarina, Deisha,and Kianna. Then we did "Subtract Like Fractions" in our math book, that lesson was quite easy because it was almost the same as the lesson we did yesterday called "Add Like Fractions." We were almost finished when yoga came along, so we went to yoga. When that was done and over with we FINALLY went to recess...it was fun.

At 10:45, we finished math,then we did the Trimester Test Writing Prompt. It was sooo easy,and fun...to me. I'm sure that everyone did really well. When we finished that 12:20 happened to be the time,so we went to lunch,YUM. After lunch we went music and learned about Dutch music and how they live, we also listened to a song from the 60's called "Spinning Wheel." Next,we did our spelling words, it was soooooooo boring!!! Afterwards,we read our story called "Going West". Along with that we practiced our vocabulary some more.

This was the last thing we today. OMG!!! we didn't do Social Studies or read our chapter book!!! Well thats not ok. I really like reading our chapter book,and today is my last time to read it!!! Well,thats it.

June 2- by Cyphrus


Finally two more weeks of schoooool! We just started a new lesson on adding and subtracting fractions. When you add or subtract fractions you first have to add yourdenominator then you look at your numerator then you get your answer . After that we went out to recess and I played kick ball. When that was over we went inside and read "Going West" its about how people traveled to the west.

After reading, we had our second writing test for the trimester. The writing prompt was response to literature. We read a short story about three brothers who learned a lesson from their father. Afterwards we went to lunch. For lunch we had corndogs. When the fourth,fifth, and six graders were done all the kids went out to lunch recess. I played soccer with the fifth graders and made four goals. Hunter made five goals so did Devin D. Once recess was over we went to music; it was our last time in music, except for the people in band.

After music, we went back to class and we were making our own questions for a Jeopardy game that Mr. Kootman made. When that was over the class went out and played Kickball -basketball with Mrs.Moore. It was blazing hot outside and I was wearing a sweater. I did not know what the score was but I think it was a tie. When that was over, school got out and everyone went home.

Tuesday

May 27, by Connor

Tests!!! Tests!!!! We had tests!!!!! Today we started the day with morning work. We did DOL. DOL means daily orally language. We did math for ten minutes. After that we went outside to the Don Dornan Games practice. I'm not in them, but I had fun anyway. When we came in we did fifteen minutes more of math. Then we had to go back out into the blazing hot sun!!! Then we came back in people were acting like they were going to die. Then we did our math packet.

After math we went jumped right into '' Language arts." We had to take a trimester test. We had to do thirty-six problems!!!!! When we went to lunch we ate and talked, and talked so much we had to stay in a little. After we finally got out we went to the top of the playground. Everyone ran to go join in with their friends. When we came in we read ''No Talking''. In the book, a boy tried not to talk all day but he doesn't manage.

After that we did our Open Court book. We did a little bit of acting!!!! Then we thought we were going outside but we had to clean up the room. After that we left . Beep!!!! Beep!!!!!!!! That's the bell! Well got to go!

May 22, 2008, by Isabella


Three and a half more weeks of school WOW! The year seamed to go by in a flash. Today we read "Pocahonts." Pocahonts was not her real name. Her real name is Mataoaka. Many people do not know much about Mataoaka's life as a child. A part of her life that we do know about is when she is near the thirteen colony's. The word Pocahontas means "the playful one." Mataoaka means "little snow feather." She died when she was 22! That is young!

We mostly we go to recess at 10:30 and lunch at 12:20. We read our class chapter book after lunch. Our class chapter book is called Patty Reeds Doll.The book is awesome! We finished it today. I loved that book because it had California history and it was exciting too. The book Patty Reeds Doll is about a girl, her family and two or three more families. It was a hard journey for their party because they did not have enough water in the desert and did not have enough food in the mountains. In the desert, they lose their oxen when the drivers tried to take them to the river. In the mountains they get stuck in their cabin because it is so cold. When a rescue team comes they scream with joy.

After we reviewed what we learned today, we did Don Dornan practice. Don Dornan is like track and field events for students. Then I got on the bus and went home.