December 20- by Kianna

Yesterday, Mr. Kootman called in sick. Everybody thought he made an excuse just to get away from us kids. So Mr. Kootman asked our student teacher ( Ms. Sarina) to take over for the day. Right now Mr. Kootman wants to see how fast I am by doing a blog in one day. I started taking notes yesterday.... and I think I'm going to succeed on it. Because we have a lot of fast typers in my class. But he chose me because he had pride in me. Let's stop talking about this and go into the real world.

In math we took a multiplication test. Some of the problems were: 9x4;9x9;5x3; and some other stuff. My class's average is 85%. last time we had 83%. After the test we opened our math book and we're on 11.5. The lesson was called Solving Simpler Problems. It was like: 96x31. Instead of doing 96x31... it's going' to be much harder with that math on your paper. We rounded the factors just did 100x30. We had to do those types of problems on our white boards.

Afterwards, we read Sewed up his Heart. Sewed up his Heart is about a man named Mr. Cornish getting stabbed in the heart. He went straight to the hospital to get sewed up. A Dr. named Dr. Dan decided he'll operate because he faced a challenge. Then, Ms Sarina picked a stick . My number is 24 when she said " Kianna, what is the story about?" And guess what I said? Murder. Where did I get the word murder from? No one was murdered.

After, Mr. Kootman & Ms. Sarina decided that we have to draw Dr. Dan out of words. He told us to draw him lightly and then on the lines write who Dr. Dan was about. When that was over we did apostrophes. For my class and I, apostrophes were like review to us. The two places we need to remember apostrophes are for contractions and for possessive nouns. We did apostrophes for at least 20 min.

Once we finished that, we went to lunch. Then, Ms. Sarina read By The Great Horn Spoon. We're on chapter 10 called The Rogue Out-Rouged. We didn't start it yet but we will after lunch.

On December 20 we will have a party, well.. Mr. Kootman wouldn't call it a party..... OK it's a party kind-of. HO! HO! HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS, JOYOUS KWANZAA & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

December 13- by Demar

I did not know we were famous!!!!!! 1,2,3. HOW many people are gonna walk through the door! The superintendent of Fallbrook schools and two principals came to our room and a special person named Ms. Lucy. Today our class learned to multiply by 4 digit numbers; Mr. Kootman said I rocked it. I thought it was hard. Then we got ready to go to yoga. When we arrived some one told us that the kindergarteners were practicing their play. Then we tried to go out side but it was way to cold. Once we came back, the homework checkers checked our homework. Oh! did I mention that we had a math quiz? After that, we had reccess; I got beat up in football.

Once we came back from reccess we read The Milkmaid and Her Pail. We learned a lot about fables; we even made a circle map about it. I thought it was cool because fables have been passed on for years and years. Once we finished, we did vocabulary, we had a lot of words. We each choose our own words. My words were antibodies,microbes,plague and sterilize. Once we were done with our words we stepped right in to our C.L.A.S book. We were just doing review but I did not think so. Then we went to lunch.

At lunch they had hamburgers, pbj, and yogurt with graham crackers. After, we read our very new class chapter book The Great Horn Spoon. The chapter was about a kid named Jack and his butler, Praisworthy, searching for a thief on the boat who stole their money. So Praisworthy made an exellent idea to find the thief.

Next we did science and learned what is the pistol and what is the stamen,we even played a game of pictionary. Hunter figured out the most. When we were done we got ready for P.E. where we played a game of War Ball. You already know I got crushed. Then we packed up and went home.

December 17- by Mattison

WATCH OUT IT IS ALMOST CHRISTMAS! HOHOHO MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! On Wednesday we did a Review/test on chapter 10,then we moved on to Chapter 11, which is called Understand Multiplication. After math we went to yoga, but the kindergarteners were practicing a play for the parents so we went to class to finish up what we were doing. I was sad cause we couldn't go to yoga. Today we are learning Multiply by Multiples of 10. Before recess we did our Math Packet on lesson 1. When we came in from recess we started reading Medicine Past and Present. It is very long. It is about some diseases: cowpox,and smallpox. It is also about people getting really sick. A lot of people are getting sick from cowpox,and are having to go to the Hospital in the story.

After that we did a test on Medicine Past and Present.Then when we were done with that we went to lunch; it was good. I got ice cream. After lunch we read our class chapter book called By The Great Horn Spoon. Some of the characters are Praiseworthy,Captain Swain, Mr.Azariah Jones,Aunt Arabella and Jack. After that we did Science. Science was on lesson 4- What is an Adaption.

We did not do Social Studies today. After we did Science we were going to go to P.E,but we didn't because everyone was being too noisy and we didn't have enough time. We usually have Yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays,but we did not go Tuesday and Thursday.

Some of us had to do vocab and clues chart for Homework; I was one of them. Vocab is is where you learn about some words out of the story you will be reading next,and then you write down the words that you learned and you look them up in the glossary. And a clues chart is where you trace your hand and then you write down the author, the genre, the title and the key vocab and,finally the picture clues.

December 4- by Arabelle

Today we were lucky to have some guests. One of them was Ms.D, a teacher from another school, the other was Ms.Sarina, our student teacher. They watched us do our morning work which was math. During math we did a review on chapter nine, which was on expressions using multiplication. After that, we took the real test!

After the test, we went to yoga and we were the first there so we got to be on the stage for yoga,witch was kind of cool. When yoga was over we had a little more time to finish the test because some people were not finished.

In reading and writing, Ms.Sarina read "Salt". The story "Salt" is about a man named Ivan who was not trusted by his father. But he found pure Russian salt and sold it to a king. Ivan also won the heart of the beautiful princess, the daughter of the king.

When we were done with the story we did an activity with it.The activity was where we give the character a bit of advice and it was really fun. After that activity, it was time for lunch. Reina, Sami and I played an animal game because we LOVE ANIMALS.

After lunch Ms.Sarina read Room One. In Room One, Ted found out how he could save April and her family.The next day Ted found them in an abandoned house next door to the Anderson's house. Ted and his mom planned to pick up April, Alexa, and Artie but they were not there!After Ms.Sarina was done reading everyone started whining, but Ms.Sarina could not read any more because it would be the end of the book. Mr.Kootman had to get the class quiet so we could move on with the day.

At the time that was done we moved on to science were we learned about ecosystems on and off of land and it was pretty fun learning that because we learned stuff we never knew. When we got done with all of our science we were all ready to go home. So everyone got there homework and backpacks said " I will see you later "and every one had to go home and took off.

December 3, 2007- by Skye

NEWS LISTEN UP!!!!! First, at about 9:35am we had a practice test on chapter 9 in math and we went over some of the problems from the trimester test. Then, we did our vocab+clues chart for our new story Salt; some of our words are: uncharted, merchandise, and procession. A procession is a neat line of people or cars.

Next,our student teacher, Mrs.Sarina, played with the Smart Board; she was crazy. After snack we worked in our spelling and vocab book and learned about Plot in our C.L.A.S book (which took a good hour maybe). Then, Mr.Kootman taught a comprehension review on the Oregon Trail.... it was kind of like a test.

At 12:15 we went to lunch and we had a chicken sandwich. At lunch recess most of the kids (including me) played handball. Once that was done, we read Room One where Ted was still helping April and her family. Ted thinks the family is on the run. Last, we did science and we learned about ecosystems. An ecosystem is the habitat around you. If you don't know what an ecosystem or a habitat is then listen. Well a habitat is a home. An ecosystem is the living or nonliving things around you (dun,dun,dun)!! Then, we packed up our homework, and went home.

November 26, 2007- by Hunter

Wow! Didn't see that coming. Mr.Kootman got a bloody nose while teaching science today. In science, we learned about microorganisms and Mr.Kootman said "there are more bacteria cells in you, then there is you in you". Next,we went on to math. I'm confused because we switched from lesson 9.5 to 9.4. The lesson was equations with variables. We were using varibles to write equations from word problems. Then we had our Trimester Writing assessment and Mr.Kootman is still grading them using a Rubric!

We read "Business is Looking Up." Mr.Kootman read all 14 pages, so his voice must have hurt! Our class chapter book is called Room One. Ted got in trouble by Mrs.Mitchell because he was at the Anderson's house and he says "I'm doing a boy scout project". Finally, we had p.e. where we played war ball rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I got out about 6 times but they always got me back in. I got Mr.Kootman out then Devin Diaz got Ms.Sarina out! That was the last thing we did today!

November 14, 2007- by Joey

The blog is getting away; catch it!!!! Today we ran on the basketball court. We did a math practice test and a real test.The test was on lesson 8.1-8.7, which was about using parentheses. Yoga was awesome; we did a shoulder stand and push ups. After yoga we did our vocabulary, our words are community,restoring,harvest,organic,vendor and explain.

After language arts, we went to lunch. Lunch was rib sandwich or a strange kind of pizza. My mom makes almost all the lunches because she works in the cafeteria. When lunch was over we read Room One. It was about a boy whose name is Ted who meets a girl whose name is April. She needed food for her family so Ted gets some food for the family. When our chapter book was finished, we did music. In music, we square danced to Lil Mary Jane and it was awesome. Finally we went home.

November 7, 2007- by Samantha

Have you been to the Marine Corps birthday celebration? We have. We started off our day doing A through I on our new math Excel worksheet. Megan and I were the first ones done.Then we moved to our math book where we learned to multiply three factors. It wasn't very hard for most of us. We didn't finish the entire lesson before Mrs. Cecil walked in and told us that recess was going to be at 9:15. A few minutes later, all of us got our snacks out. Some of us were still full from breakfast, so we weren't ready just yet. A number of us didn't get to eat all of our snacks because Mr. Kootman said it was field trip time.


As soon as room 40 was loaded and ready to leave with another class the bus took off. We were on our way to the soccer field,where the birthday celebration took place. It wasn't long before the bus stopped and almost all of the fourth grade classes started swarming towards the booth. Almost half the class nearly lost the other half until we noticed it was right behind us. Mr.K got us seated and we waited for a while. Then a person on a microphone asked us to stand for the Marine Corps song. We remained standing for a few other things.While they were talking we were actually also learning about how the uniforms changed over the years and about our nation's proud history. A lot of us thought it was just a speech you know with out presents. But we were proved wrong when a small little carrier car drove out on to the field carrying the biggest cake I have ever seen. None of us got a piece and we didn't think we would.The cake was cut with a sword. I guess just to seem more military like.We saw them serve two pieces of cake to the general and some one else. A boy said he wanted to be a general just to get a piece of that big cake.


Shortly after the cake was served we left for school again.It seemed like we were going in circles over and over again just to get out of traffic, if there was any.Some of us got a little frustrated with the driver. Soon we got back to school and finished our snacks.Surprisingly, we got back about half an hour before lunch.I bet a number of us thought it was going to be an all day field trip.A half an hour later we all went to lunch.

When we got back from lunch we read our class chapter book,Worth.In this chapter Nathaniel hears about how the two families that fight alot blame each other for tragedies that most likely were coincidental. Next we read Wells and William G. Fargo. Finally we wraped up our day playing kick ball basketball and went home.

November 6, by Christian F.

We had an assembly, and West Winds Brass played for us and they were awesome. For math we had a practice test on graphs. Then we were going to take the graded test. I think I`m going to do well on the test because I am really good at graphs. Ah yes! I did really well!
I only missed one. Yes! I love math it`s fun huh?

We jumped into reading and my class and I are did our vocab and clues chart. Don`t tell anyone but I`m not done yet. I think my table is done already. I am so behind in my table. I`m slow at writing. Are you slow at writing? Finally, I finished it. It took forever to finish my vocab and clues chart. I wish I was faster at writing.

Then, the paper passers handed out cursive sheets. I hate cursive. Do you hate cursive? I don`t like writing at all. I would rather do math but this is writing. Then we took the spelling practice test. I studied a lot and I got most of them right. Yes! We have twenty words. If you had my words, would you get most of them right?

All in all, today was a weird day! Everything was early because of the music assembly. It was kinda fun but I was ready to go home.

November 1, by Max

EAT HEALTHY, EAT HEALTHY!!!! Isn't it funny we had an assembly about eating healthy after a night of eating candy for dinner (ha-ha)? Today we attended an assembly about eating healthy and eating at least one of the foods from all five of the food groups (protein, grains, calcium, vegetables, and fruits). We played a game in which the students had to place the food in the right food group. In some cases students didn't get it right. But we all learned a lot of important things. Following the assembly, in math, we finished our Excel worksheet. This is the one which the answers to the problems add up to a certain number provided. Then we learned about line graphs, double bar graphs, and stem and leaf plots. We learned that line graphs progress over a period of time; that double bar graphs provide for two sets of data; and that stem and leaf plots show groups of data arranged by place value. Normally we would do yoga after math, but because of the assembly it was canceled. Miss Swanlund is our yoga teacher.

After snack, we read our class story for language arts. In the story, there are two main characters, Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, the founders of the American Express Company. It was neat to learn about one of the biggest banks in our country. During writing class we learned about "ou", "oi", "oy" and "ow" sounds. Finally the long morning was over and it was time for lunch. It was loud in the lunch room, as usual!!! Some things in my lunch were healthy and some were not. After eating we went out to the playground and I played with my friends.

When we came inside, we read our class chapter book called Worth. Nathaniel throws a book out of his window and John picks it up and tries to read, but he can't read it because he never went to school. Mr. Kootman reads the book to us. He is good at making us see the picture in our minds. Today we started science. I've been waiting all year for us to start science. It's one of my favorite subjects. We are learning about plants and how they grow. Plants make oxygen for us and we let off carbon dioxide for the plants to use.

Finally, we all packed our books in our backpacks. Everyone walked or got on the bus to go home - it was really crowded on my bus.