Walk Like an Egyptian (an Ancient Egyptian that is!)

Greetings Fantastic Fourth graders!  I have been working on downloading pictures of our fabulous work during our Egypt unit.  I apologize for the delay, but I am proud to say that in this post are pictures of two of our end-of-unit projects.

The first is a picture of our canopic jars.  The students studied Ancient Egyptian burial rituals and learned that canopic jars were used to preserve the organs of dead pharoahs.  These sacred jars held the liver, intestines, stomach, and lungs of the deceased.  There were shrieks of "Eeeeewwwww" and "Coooooooooooooll" throughout the classroom as we watched videos, read articles, and completed research on the meaning behind these jars.  The students then got to create their own canopic jars (without the guts inside).  Check out their creations!

The second picture shows our hard work using algebraic function tables to complete a project of ancient proportions.  The students created their own scale models of the Great Pyramid of Khufu using nothing but a ruler, a pencil, and paper.  Using a scale of 1 cm = 30 m, the students computed the measurements of their paper pyramids.  The results were incredible as each student made sure to keep accuracy and precision in mind!  Great work!

Our class loved learning about Ancient Egypt!  Thank you for all the support and help during this unit!

A Fantastic Fall Festival!

On Friday, we celebrated fall festivities and Halloween with a schoolwide walk-a-thon and a class party.  Our day began with a fundraising walk to raise awareness about homelessness in Frederick County.  The students paired up with their "little buddies" to walk together around the school.  All the Urbana Hawks soared with pride as we joined as a school coomunity for a common cause.  Look at what great big buddies we have in our class!

The day's fun continued with our class party.  The afternoon was full of tricks and treats!  The students participated in an estimation game, where the winner got to take home a whole tub of candy corn!  We also made spider candy holders out of paper plates and munched on lots of delicious goodies!  A HUGE thank you to all of the class parents, families, and friends who made out Fall Festival Day a success!

One of the Pigskin Geography teams all dressed up for Halloween!

The "Arizona Sparklies" worked together too!

Our Halloween spread of TREATS!

Look at those goodie bags! 

Fagan's Fantastic Fourth!

Landscape of Egypt

Today we began our study of ancient Egypt!  We read a decision-making story about a boy who lost his brother along the Nile River.  The class learned lots of new vocabulary, such as quarry, oasis, desert, and cataract in order to describe the landscape in Egypt.  Tomorrow, we will begin creating a map of ancient Egypt.  We will be locating geographical features, natural resources, ancient landmarks, and ancient cities.

Check out the link below to try your fate in the story we read today.  There are also great maps to reference and a fun, challenging map game using coordinate grids.

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/geography/story/main.html

CarrotSticks is here!

After many requests from students, I have the information needed to set-up an account with CarrotSticks.  CarrotSticks is a free, educational website designed to provide rigorous math skills practice.  On this site, students can create their own avatar and compete in fast-paced math games.  Here's how to set-up an account:

Go to http://www.carrotsticks.com/urbana7.

Click "play now."

Create a login username and password.

• Try using the same username and password that you use for edmodo.  It will be easy to remember! 

Have Fun!!

CarrotSticks is a great way to get extra practice with math facts too!  This will be extremely helpful as we continue with long division and eventually begin our study of fractions, decimals, and percents.  Math facts are the backbone of each!

Classifying Organisms

In science, we have been working on a unit about classification of living things.  The students have looked at examples from the kingdoms that are used to sort living organisms: plants, animals, protists, fungi, and bacteria.  We have observed how various organisms survive using their unique features.  Today we observed a spore print that the students made in pairs from a mushroom cap.  They are also growing fava bean plants to observe how a plant can be classified based on its growth pattern.  We welcomed 10 goldfish, 250 red worms, and 5 hermit crabs into our classroom this week.  We will be observing their characteristics in upcoming science lessons.

One of our fantastic students researched a website that gives a plethora of examples of organisms from each type of classification.  I have added the link under Student Links.  Check it out to find information about specific plants, animals, fungi, and much more!

New Student Link: Poptropica

Happy Mid-Week Fantastic 4th Graders!  Here is a cool site to check out on your day off.  It's called Poptropica.com and it is a virtual quest full of competition, games, and a little history!  Create an avatar to travel through the island levels and meet famous historical figures along the way, all while competing to win medallions for each mission.  The website includes places for you to chat with other players (using your safe avatar name), information about locations throughout the world, and games brimming with friendly competition.  I have added a link to Poptropica under student links. 

Leave a comment giving your review if you check it out!

Edmodo is up and running!

Calling all fantastic 4th graders!

Our class edmodo account is now up and running after weeks of anticipation.  The students have their usernames and passwords that they created during last week's computer lab time.  To access edmodo, all you have to do is click the link on this page under Student Links or visit http://www.edmodo.com/.

Edmodo is a free and secure social learning network for teachers, students and schools. On edmodo, classes can safely connect and collaborate, in order to exchange ideas, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices.

Before we begin using edmodo on a regular basis, there are several guidelines for students to follow when on our group site:

1. Do not reveal any personal information on Edmodo. No telephone numbers, addresses, or other students’ names. Address your classmates either by initials or their username.

2. Do not post photos or videos showing yourself or classmates.

3. Keep conversations on topic. There is a proper place (for almost anything you’d like to share. Just be patient!

4. Use appropriate language. If you’re not sure if a word or joke is okay, then it’s not.

5. There will be a zero tolerance policy for posts that tease, bully, annoy, spam, or gossip about any other member.

6. If someone posts an inappropriate remark, kindly ask them to edit or remove it.



By following these guidelines, edmodo will be a fun, safe, and exciting place for us to share ideas and knowledge.

Welcome to Our Blog!

Welcome Fantastic Fourth Graders!  This is our new class blog, where I will have lots great information about learning and working together as a community of learners.  On this blog, parents can find links to great sites to enrich what we are learning in class.  Students can find fun games to practice the skills we are learning and everyone will be able to stay up-to-date with upcoming events and special assignments.   

Without a doubt, this first month of school has been a wonderful opportunity for the students in our class to get to know one another and to bond over their love of learning.  We got started on the right foot by establishing our classroom routines and procedures.  The students created exceptional "All About Me" newspapers to show off at Back to School Night.  They have been working hard in math as well and have even gotten started with several science experiments. 

Check out our year as we soar to success together!  All of the highlights will be here!