Room 17 News

After a lot of hard work, students have finished working on an animal project. Finished projects can be seen on our new blog: Ms Guild’s Animal Projects

Feel free to check out the projects and maybe even leave a comment or two.

Today was our last day of MCAS testing until May. Students sat for the longest MCAS session last week with the Long Composition test and then finished up this week with the English/Language Arts Reading sessions. I am very proud of the students for doing their best and working hard on all three sessions.

Our next MCAS sessions will be in May when the students take the two Math MCAS sessions. The specific dates will be given closer to testing.

Here is some information to help students prepare for MCAS:

English Language Arts MCAS testing will be Tuesday 3/20, Monday 3/26 and Tuesday 3/27.

The afternoon before each MCAS test, students should go outside & get some fresh air and some exercise. (Playing video games and watching tv ARE NOT good ways to prepare for MCAS!)

The night before MCAS, students should go to bed a little bit earlier so that they can get a good night’s sleep.

The morning of MCAS, it is important for students to eat a good breakfast.

It will be very helpful to students to have a mid-morning snack on testing days.

Students need to come to school on time on testing days. We will start getting ready for testing (passing out booklets, filling out information, and going over directions) immediately after morning announcements (8:40am).

Help students feel calm and relaxed going into MCAS testing. Testing becomes more difficult for students if they go into the tested worried, anxious and stressed.

This Friday, March 16^th we will be going to the Tsongas Industrial History Center (Lowell Mills). We will be leaving the school at approximately 8:45 am and returning to school at approximately 1:45 pm.

For this field students will need to bring a bag lunch labeled with their first and last name. NO CANDY OR SODA!

I strongly recommend that students bring their lunch in a disposable bag. Any personal lunch containers drink bottles or lunch bags that are not disposable, must be carried around by students during the afternoon portion of the field trip (and we can’t return for lost/misplaced items).

Due to the schedule of activities while on this field trip, we will NOT have time for our usual midmorning snack. I suggest students eat a good breakfast before coming to school that morning.

Also, we will be doing a lot of walking, so please wear comfortable shoes!

In social studies we have just finished studying the Midwest region of the US. Did you know that all of the Great Lakes are connected by locks and canals? They are! We watched some short videos that showed us how locks work in canals. We also watched some old videos that showed us people working on farms a long time ago. We learned that there is a lot of farming in the Midwest and they grow corn and wheat, and raise cows for dairy products. Also there is a lot of manufacturing in the Midwest. Finally we learned a lot about the Native Americans in the Midwest and why buffalo was so important to them. Many groups depended on buffalo for their food and many other things.

Next, we will be starting our Immigration unit.

In science we are studying all of the planets. We are also studying The Earth’s moon. Every night we have to go outside and write down on a calendar what phase the moon is in. We will turn the calendar in at the beginning of April. With the planets, we are just finishing packets that asks questions that tell what the are, their distance from the sun, revolution time,  rotation time, and another fact for all the planets. We are having lots of fun!

Ms Guild’s class read the book The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodle, by Julie Andrews. This was a Fantasy book. The book was about three kids named Ben, Thomas, and Lindy Potter. One day they were at the zoo and met a small man with a round cheerful face with bright blue, sparkling eyes, and a few hair growing on his balding head. He turned out to be a professor looking for a creature called the Whangdoodle. Then when they were all walking home from school  Tom dared Lindy to go up to a haunted abandoned house for 25 cents. Lindy agreed. But the day of Halloween Lindy regretted her decision. But she did it. And it was actually the professor”s house! He told them all about Whangdoodle Land and the Whangdoodle himself. All of the kids were fascinated. They wanted to go on his adventure with him. They met the day after, and the professor show them the things that would make them actually get into Whangdodle land, those things were called Scrappy Caps. It gave them more imagination to get there. It took a lot of work to get to Whangdoodle land, but they finally got there.

Do you want to know what happened once they got there? Read the book to find out!

Right now in reading we are reading fantasy books. Our class is almost finished with the books. For reading, our class is divided in to four groups. The red group, the green group, the purple group and the blue group. Each of the groups reads the book at separate paces. Three groups are reading Poppy and the other group is reading Bunnicula. The main characters in the book Poppy are Poppy (a girl deer mouse), Mr Ocax (a mean owl who lies about being ruler of Dimwood Forest), and Poppy’s family. The story is about Poppy’s adventure to New House when Mr. Ocax does not give them permission to go to the house. On her way to New House, Poppy meets a friendly porcupine called Ereth who tells Poppy that Mr. Ocax is not the ruler of Dimwood . Because Mr. Ocax is afraid of Ereth, they make a deal. Ereth loves salt, so the deal is that Ereth would escort Poppy to New House if Poppy got him the giant salt lick on a pole. Right now this is where we are in Poppy.

In the book Bunnicula,  there is a dog named Harold, a cat named Chester and a very suspicious bunny named Bunnicula. Bunnicula is an odd bunny and Harold and Chester believe he is a vampire Bunny who sucks the juice out of all the vegetables in the house. (Luckily he doesn’t hurt people.)

In PE we just finished our basketball unit. We learned the basic rules and practiced dribbling, passing and shooting. At the beginning of each class, we would have 5 minutes for free shooting. We also got to play a couple small games. Now, we are starting our hockey unit. Mrs. Devarney said that in the month of March we would be doing hockey because of MCAS and it would allow us to let loose. Also, there aren’t many rules.  We should be starting hockey next week because this week we are going to the living lab during gym time. Go hockey!

When you’re in fourth grade in music in Abbot Elementary you’ll be learning about . . . . . Recorders! We have learned many notes like B, A, G, C, and D. We do many songs you have probably never heard of unless you play an instrument. We play songs like Hot Cross Buns, Juba, Shave and a Haircut, Big Bad B, A, G, and many, many more. Each time we learn a new note and we play it for our teacher, we get a colored string to try in the bottom of our recorder. The colors go in order of the colors in the rainbow. It’s a lot of fun! Don’t you want to play music at Abbot Elementary?