March 20, by Lovelynne

Have you ever gotten hit with a ball while playing hopscotch? Well, today that happened to one of my friends in my class. She fell down and was smiling at us because she thought it was really funny. We started the day by practicing for a math test tomorrow. We also did a times test just so that we won’t forget our multiplication facts.

When math was over we went to yoga. At yoga it was so loud that some kids got benched at recess, well about 1-4 kids. My friends and I were so happy that it wasn’t us.

After yoga we went to recess, at recess it was kind of boring for the first time. But, it was also kind of funny because we heard one of my friends scream when she got hit with a ball while playing hopscotch.

When recess was over we went back to the classroom and started to read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. It’s about a family trying to hide so that they don’t get sent to a concentration camp. At the end it was so sad because Anne Frank died in a concentration camp.

When we were done reading we discussed the story. When we were done with that we went to lunch. It was pretty noisy, but not so loud that your ears are going to bleed. After lunch we went to lunch recess, this is another opinion but it was better than the snack recess for some reason.

When recess was over we went into the classroom and read our class chapter book, Island of the Blue Dolphins. After we were done reading we went to the library. It was pretty noisy but not as noisy in the cafeteria. So that’s our kind of boring, really noisy day of school.

March 16,by Megan

Today was Eric Wilson’s birthday, he is turning… well can you guess? Well he is turning 10. There are ten people in our class that are ten- cool! He brought cupcakes which I thought were really good. They had green frosting and sprinkles yum, yum. Then we sang Happy Birthday after we went on Brain Pop. One Brain Pop movie was about Rise of the Roman Empire and one was about Jane Goodall! Jane Goodall studied gorillas in the jungle.

Afterwards we went to math mode. Today we learned how to use equations, y = 4x+1 is one of the equations we had to do in our Math book. Then we did some more on our white boards, we had to go to the next page because we did not have any more problems to do. Then we got out our Math packet on page 24.3, I thought 1 through 12 were hard for me.

Then we went to reading mode; we are reading The Big Wave on the C. D. It was about a boy who loses his parents in a tsunami in Japan! After that we got out our Class work book, if you don’t know what that means already it is a short word for Comprehension and Language Arts Skills. The lesson was Prepositions!

Next we got out our spiral note book for a Quick write about our grades on what we thought we needed to work on and and what we were proud of! Then Evan brought a magic thing every body was thinking it was cool!

March 9, 2007 by Kenya

We had a bike assembly today! They taught us bike safety and how to check our bike. At the end Dustin flipped over the ramp, a full 360! After, we went into math.
We learned about evaluating reasonableness of answers. You have to figure out if the answer is reasonable enough to be true.

Next, we read “McBroom and the Big Wind”, this story is about a family of thirteen trying to fight the wind, but they find that the wind can be beneficial to them. Then the wind pulls a hole in front of McBrooms’ door, that’s the howl’ in, scowl’ in wind that broke Mr. McBroom’s leg. The story’s genre is a tall tale. Maybe that’s why it does not make a lot of sense, like when it says the wind reshingled every gopher hole in the next county!

Next, we had lunch. For lunch we had the choice of shrimp tacos or toasted cheese on a wheat bun. Most people got shrimp tacos.

After, lunch we read Island of the Blue Dolphins. It is about a girl named Karana who was left on an island in the haste of fleeing from the enemies, the Aleuts. She has to survive about 18 years on a deserted island by herself!

Then we went to social studies mode, we learned about how The Indians Help the Priests, we were snappy about that and finished quickly! Then we went into P.E., for P.E. we played racket ball. That’s a day in the life of room 40! Bye!

March 8, 2007, by Jannely

Today we had our first singing class with Mrs. Stephan and we rocked even though we only learned notes! Before we did anything we worked on our fractions packet and we focused on adding decimals. In math, instead of adding decimals we learned how to subtract decimals and whether it’s adding or subtracting decimals, we always line up our decimals first. In math we also learned that Monaco is one of the smallest countries. Then we went off to recess where we can rest our brains and can have a little exercise and fun.

When we got back we read a humorous story called Mc Broom and the Big Wind
and when we read it, we laughed until we exploded! We were about to have a multiplication test, but then Mr. Kootman did a brief lesson on computers and he taught us how to search things on Google.com like putting quotation marks on some things we wanted to search for. Once he was done we went on our 5 minute multiplication test and WOW everyone did awesome! Then we went to lunch because we were hungry and because we had to.

When we got back from lunch we started on our new class chapter book. Every one got the book and it was called Island of the Blue Dolphins. When we were done with that we went to P.E. and we played racket ball. The point of the game is to hit the tennis ball with the racket and try to hit as many cones you can get so you can get some points. Once that was done we all got our backpacks and went home.

March 6, 2007, by Devyn

Today we took a state writing test about writing narratives. Because the test took so much time, we didn’t have yoga and didn’t have Social Studies. In math we learned to add and subtract decimals in our math book. In our Open Court Reading Books we read a story called Mc Broom and the Big Wind. Mc Broom and the Big Wind is about a man who tells how he broke his leg. He has 11 children and a wife named Melissa. This story is a tall tale because Josh McBroom exaggerates and makes up things.

The class all got a new chapter book called Island of the Blue Dolphins. We also went to the library. I didn’t get a book because I forgot my old books at home. For P.E. we played racket ball; it was fun. It was odd verses evens based on our class numbers. The day felt blank because the day went by fast.

February 27, by Kiana

Did you know that Greenland is one of the largest islands in the world! Today we got started on a math test review then we got the real test. We did estimate sums and differences. It was kind of hard.

In reading we did vocabulary, clues chart, spelling, and summary. All of these assignments were for Arctic Explorer, which was about Mathew Henson- the first African American to explore the arctic in Greenland. In social studies we learned about Junipero Serra. He was a Spanish priest who established the California missions. After social studies, we finished our chapter book The Week in the Woods; it was great. After social studies we went to P.E. and we played racket ball. It was difficult hitting the ball the first few times but later I got the hang of it. And that is the summary of our day.

February 28, by Cassidy

Today we had a soggy and disgusting day. Some people got the bottom of their pants drenched! Other people got their shoes all filthy and had to walk around the classroom in their socks!

For math today we did our fraction packet on comparing fractions. We also watched a math video and worked on how to compare whole numbers and where to put the numbers in the right place value.

This morning we did a practice test for a VERY IMPORTANT TEST!!!!! This test is called the State Test. If you don’t do well on it will show on your report card and it wouldn’t be very good if someone got an F on it because I know I would be really depressed. The class read Arctic Explorer in cloze reading and then we read in partners. A cloze reading is when someone is the reader and when the reader stops you say the word that is next. It just lets the reader know that you’re paying attention. My favorite way is to read in partners but some times it can get a little noisy.

Before we went to the Paws Shop we got a Social Studies paper. The worksheet is called “Missions in California”. The worksheet is about the 21 missions in El Camino Real.You have to look up the answers on the computer. After you find all the answers then you turn it in just like any other worksheet. When we went to the Paws Shop people crowded around everything. Everyone was going CRAZY!!!! There were eyeballs, bouncy balls, pens with different colors in them and many other cool and unique things to buy from the Paws Shop.

For P.E we played Racket Ball and it’s really hard to stay in the game! If someone catches the ball then the person that hit the ball is out and if someone grabs the ball and taps it on the cone before you do then you are out. I had a really fun day and I have to admit even though it was disgusting outside it was one of the best days I ever had!

March 1, by Mr. Kootman

Hi everyone! I figured I would do my own blog post while I was gone. Today I woke up earlier than usual because I had to pack my car for a trip to Palm Springs, California. Palm Springs is really just a nice town in the middle of the desert. I gets really really hot in the summer, but this time of year the weather is perfect. The humidity is very low though, so it feels extremely dry.

So I set off for what should have been a two hour drive, but it took almost three hours due to road construction. Watch out for traffic! When I arrived I had to go register for the conference I will be attending and speaking at. The conference is for a group I belong to called Computer Using Educators or CUE for short. Cue has several thousand members across all of California and our goal is to use computers in schools to help our students learn. Needless to say, there’s some pretty cool things here! It’s great being around other teachers who also love to integrate technology in their classrooms. I wish you could see all the cool things that are available, like smart boards (white boards that a computer can interact with) or student response systems (every students get a remote control to answer questions with). Maybe someday we’ll get these things too!

The conference is broken down into short sessions, or hour long classes, each about a different topic. I attended many sessions today and learned some new things, like how to use Google Earth in the classroom. I hope to learn a lot more in the next few days. I’m even giving a session of my own on Saturday! I’ll let you know how it goes. I hope everyone is enjoying having Mrs. Witt as a substitute; I’m looking forward to a good note from her when I return ;) Have a great weekend and get outside in the gorgeous weather! By the way, if you get this early enough, could someone tell Devyn that today is his day to do the blog; happy writing Devyn!

Take a look at the photo and notice the windmills and the mountains in the background. What do you think the windmills are for?