September 23, 2008- by Joshua

Today was great because we went to an assembly and the person who was talking to us said we(the 4th, 5th and 6th students) can fund raise,to get more:soccerballs,footballs,and other fun stuff. We started the day by doing Daily Oral Language and Daily Routines.The Daily Oral Language is the classes morning work that has 5 problems and the Daily Routines is also morning work that has at least ten problems. To me they're not very hard.

After recess, the class learned how to round when the problem asks you to round where there isn't a number, like this one: "Round to the thousands place: 947" so when that happens, you have to realize there is really a zero in the thousands place. You'll have to see if the number to the right is 5 or more or 4 or less.

After math, we rotated to writing and we started to order sentences for a long period of time. Then we finished early so our writing teacher Miss.Barone let us play charades. I found out that my friend was trying to act out as a person from a movie called "Men in Black". After writing class we went to lunch resses and the class got there late. After we ate we played "You Cant Touch the Ground Tag.

Today we reviewed a science test and I think I did pretty good although I don't know yet, but on Friday I will know how I did.

Image Credits:
http://wyoming5.21publish.com/pub/wyoming5/betagolec/help3.gif

http://www.eaicommunity.org/templates/images/clipart/kids_in_assembly.jpg

September 17, by Nalani

FIRE ALARM BEEP!!!!! We started off by getting our homework. Then we got out our D.O.L. That means Daily Oral Language. D.O.L helps you with with writing and reading. I like D.O.L because I like writing. Next is my favorite subject in school, MATH. Daily Routines 3.3 was easy for me. It is very fun too.

In math we also did Lesson 3, "Estimating Sums and Rounding." Estimating sums is when you add numbers together: 501 + 62 then round it to any digit. 501 becomes 500 and 62 becomes 100 if you round to the hundreds.

Reading is fun. What we're doing is reading in our Open Court Reading book. "Escape" is the story we read. Its from a bigger book called Charlotte's Web. Escape is about a pig that lives in a little pen; the pig's name is Wilbur. He is a small pig that has no one to play with. Next, we went to recess. For recess I had a PB and J sandwich.

After that there was a BEEP!!! A fire alarm went off, but don't worry it was not a real fire. I was scared because the fire alarm was very loud.

Today for lunch there was popcorn chicken and teriaki chicken with rice. For a drink there was milk and chocolate milk too. We were the first ones to get lunch.

After the bell rang we came inside and read the book Escape. We usually do science with Mrs.Moore and we do social studies with Mr.Kootman. But, we did not do science or social studies today because it was a short day.

I was not here after lunch because I was at chorus and band.The music teacher is Ms.Stephan. I play the clarinet which is long and black too.

image credits:
http://tn3-2.deviantart.com/fs11/300W/i/2006/169/e/7/Chocolate_Milk_by_ync. hhttp://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/recipes/100370160_pb-j-sandwich-cake-recipe.jpg ttp://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000J3FBP2.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V36353101_.jpg,
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000J3FBP2.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V36353101_.jpg

September 15, 2008- by Hunter

Do you know what a clues chart is? Read on to find out. In math we did rounding to the hundreds place. In reading we did vocabulary and definitions and we did our clues chart. A clues chart is a hand where you have to find the title,genre,author,key vocab and picture clues. The purpose of making a clues chart is prereading. This helps us to get some good background about the story.
In writing we did the four main things in a sentence like capitalization and punctuation. It also has to make sense and has to have a subject and a predicate and if it has less then six words it could be a sentence or it could not be a sentence.

For recess I played basketball,the score was 6-4. I played really well because I ate a good snack and I made all the baskets. But, at lunch recess Kaylee, Teion, Lucky and I all were beat by 7 six graders.

In science we had to write our four science vocabulary words, pictures and definitions. In social studies we did line of longitude, line of latitude, Equator and the Prime Meridian. For lunch I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The reason I had to get peanut butter and jelly was because I owed lunch money. My lunch was really good, it was so Yummy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At the end of the day we did page 10 of our CLAS book (our comprehension and language arts skills book). Today we did not get to read our class chapter book Room One.

Mr. Kootman is a really fun teacher. If you think 4th grade is easy, well its not. It is sometimes challenging because all of those subjects I just told you about like social studies, math, writing, science and reading all get more difficult in 4th grade.

I hope you like Mr.Kootman if you get him as a teacher. Mr.Kootman has above the line chart and below the line chart. The chart makes you a better student and if you are below the chart you are not responsible. If you are above the line you are not a bad student. Mr.Kootman has a chart that says "If you don't have time to do it right,you must have time to do it over!"

Image Credits:
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:WR8c8qgSnKBwXM:http://www.edwardsheerien

http://www.phase1sports.com/siteadmin/video/basketball3va.jpg

September 11, 2008- by Lorenzo

A moment of silence please.... It's Sept 11 2008! Once we got into the class we took our homework out. After a while we stood up for silence for the people who died for us during acts of terrorism. Then we had Marines do a flag presentation and we walked around the neighborhood.

After that, we did math and we leaned how to round to the millions. For example step 1 find the place you round to, then underline it. Step 2 look to the right of the underlined digit and draw an arrow. Step 3 Five or more raise the score, four or less down is best. Step 4 fill in the rest. that's how to round.

After math, it was time for recess. At recess I played in the sandbox with my friend Diego, we built a sand castle. This sand castle was the best castle because me and my best friend Diego made it. Before we knew it, it was time to line up and go inside. When we got inside we went to the awesome book fair. I didn't buy anything because I didn't see anything I liked there. After that we went back to the classroom and got back to work right away.

When we got back, we started to read Sarah Plain and Tall. This book is about a girl that's mother dies and her dad puts an ad into the newspaper for a new wife. Then a woman replies and writes letters to them telling them about herself and what she can do around the house. So she comes for 1 month to visit. We didn't have time to read the rest because we had to go to lunch. I brought a lunch from home and, I had a ham sandwich with Kool-Aid for a drink. That's all I had for lunch. yum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was a great lunch.

When we were done everyone went to lunch recess. For that recess I played in the sandbox again with Diego. We made a mini fort with our hands. That was very fun! The bell was about to ring so went to line and Mr. Kootman came to pick us up. When we got back to the classroom we finished Sarah Plain and Tall. Today we didn't do science, writing, and social studies because it was back to school night. The day is now over bye.

Image credits:
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/kool_aid_man_waving.jpg

http://www.campbellsville.edu/news/2008/images/ColorsAZ_000.jpg

September 9, 2008- by Kiara

It is the fourth week of school!!!!!!!The first thing we did was DOL. DOL is something that you have to look at the spelling to see if the spelling is right. DOL also helps our with our speech. It helps learn what adverb and adjective mean.

In math we did rounding to the nearest hundred thousand we also learned how to round to the nearest million.
Next, we did reading. We read Sarah,Plain and Tall. The book is about a boy and a girl who have no mom.The mom had died after she had the little boy.

In Mrs.Barone's class we did writing. We did an autobiography. An autobiography is when you write about yourself like if you went to a different school last year.

In Mrs. Moore's class we learned about how plants get air. They get carbon dioxide by taking it in and the air flow's though the whole plant.

In social studies we learned about the sun and the moon. We also learned about how the Earth spins on its axis.
At lunch I ate a peanut butter jelly sandwich with whole bread and a bottle of water.

Then at recess , Sii, Brianna,and I did a cheer off (Sii is in Mrs. Barone's).

We did not get to read the class chapter book because we had P.A.T time instead. P.A.T time is when you get to mostly do whatever you want, as long as we are learning.

The last thing we did was that we went home. BOO HOO!!!!

image credits:
http://www.uncommonindustries.com/images/pbj_pop_37.jpg,
http://varsity-cheerleading.stafford.northhigh.schoolfusion.us/modules/groups/homepagefiles/group_webpage/133871-398480-169.jpg

http://www.theflowerexpert.com/media/images/mostpopularflowers/roses/assorted-roses.jpg

September 8, 2008- by John

The weekend is over and it's a brand new week. First, we did morning work which was D.O.L. and Daily Routines chapter 2, lesson 3. Homework checkers looked at everyones homework during that time. After, we went over our morning work; we did our morning math. We learned how to round whole numbers for example: 832,743 the number 7 stays as 7 while the numbers on the right turn into 0's, but the numbers on the left stay the same. Then, we took two colum notes about rounding whole numbers.

Next, we did our spelling pretest which is 20 words long. The words that the most people missed were measles and yield. When we finished we checked our own pretest.

Afterwords, we got our homework and started on it. What you don't finish in class becomes homework like math, spelling, and vocab. Some people finish all their homework in class and there are some people that don't.

When that was done, we went to recess and played around. Some students played on the playground, some just sat around and talked to their friends, and some played different sports. When recess ended we went inside and started reading our class chapter book. Our book is called Room One. In chapter 12, Ted made a promise with April, but when Mrs. Mitchell asks what Ted was doing at the Anderson's old house Ted had made a promise with April but, April wouldn't know if Ted make a promise with his teacher that she wouldn't tell anyone so he makes a promise with his teacher that if he told her she wouldn't tell anyone and so they shook on it.

When that was over, we started getting ready to switch to Ms.Barone's writing rotation. In her class we finished our Autobiography's and drawing are portraits of us. When we got out of Ms.Barones we went straight to lunch. For lunch we had hot dogs, PB&J, and breaded cheese sticks. When that was over we went up top to the playground and started to play football with each other.

When the bell rang we lined up and waited for Mr.Kootman to take us back to the room. Afterwords, we went straight to Mrs. Moore's for our science rotation. Our subject was on What Plants are. We also did two column notes on our subject.

Next we went back to our home room and started on social studies. We learned about Latitude, Longitude, and the Equator. The Equator is what splits the earth in half. Once that was done we started collecting our homework and packing up. Before we left we got our clues chart and vocab ready so we can take it home. We can't do our clues chart without our Open Court text book. Finally, we lined up and walked to the front and we all went home.

Image Credits: http://inkeehong.com/articles/image/Clements_Room_One_2006_HC.jpg , http://strick4life.files.wordpress.com/2006/10/superstock_106-580a_bhands-holding-football-with-blue-background-posters.jpg , http://www.learner.org/jnorth/images/graphics/mclass/Lat.gif

September 4, 2008- by Katelyn

It took us two times to start our Thursday on the right foot. Because we were being seriously loud which caused an effect, which is Mr.Kootman told us to go outside,line up QUIETLY ,and go back into the classroom. When that process was over we started our DOL which is our daily oral language. This is usually, capitalizatiom, punctuation and spelling practice. Afterwards, we started a new subject, math. For today's math we did pages: 25-27, "Order Whole Numbers.''

After a while of learning we went to morning recess, which was like fifteen minutes long. Following, Mr.Kootman read, Room One by: Andrew Clements. The chapter that we listened to was about how Ted brought more food to April and April introduced her family to Ted. She gives him the opportunity to see the inside of the suspicious house April lived in. Next, we switched classes to Mrs.Barone's (she usually will teach us about writing) and she helped us do our own autobiographys to hang up in our classroom for next week's open house .

Later we came back to class and read our Open Court Reading book. Our story for this week is called,"Toto." Toto is about a boy named Suku and a young elephant, Toto. Toto always wanted to see where the river ends and so he goes past where his mother told him where they do not want to go ever. Toto ends up in a poachers trap and his foot gets stuck. On to Suku; his mother tells him to go get reeds from the river but on the way there he finds Toto stuck in the snare so Suku helps Toto. Suku takes him back to Toto's herd but on the way there they run into a lion. They are startled. Until Toto gets in the "getting ready to attack mode " and he trumpets. Next thing you know Toto's herd is there to rescue him and Suku's family arrives to rescue him. Everything in the story is now where it belongs.

After reading Toto it was time for lunch! Everyone was hungry! The choice for lunch was: macaroni & cheese or BBQ rib sandwich! Yum! I of course choose macaroni! When we were dismissed we went to recess! Most of the girls in our class and a lot of other girls in other classes played "Little Sally Walker" which is a certain dancing game. A while later we came back to the classroom and got ready to switch classes again. We switched to Mrs.Moore's. When we got to her class she taught us about leaves. We got to describe and touch different leaves. We all got to touch: soft , waxy, bumpy, and thorny leaves! That was fun.

Next we returned to class and Mr. Kootman taught us some social studies. After social studies we watched a Brain Pop movie about antonyms. Then Mr.Kootman did quite a lot of raffles! Finally it was time to go home.

Image Credits: http://www.logoi.com/pastimages/img/lion_4.jpg , http://greergardens.com/images/Ferns/2005Ferns.jpg , http://www.greenexpander.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/african-bush-elephant.jpg

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

http://bluebook.state.or.us/images/national/donkphant.jpg

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