MS. KYLIE'S FOURTH GRADE!
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PLANNING AND WRITING A STORY

4/30/2018

 
We continued to work on the Elephant and Piggie books we started last week.  It's fun to use authors as mentors.  We can learn so much from people who are masters at their craft.  Some of us found it hard to write in only pictures and speech bubbles, but we all found we had to be very deliberate in our word choice and purposeful with our character's emotions and actions.

SPRINGTIME

4/27/2018

 
Springtime is here and we can feel it in the classroom.  We're loving spending time on art projects with our friends.  These are coming home to all you fabulous moms soon!

PRESENTATIONS

4/26/2018

 
Meet the Man Who's Survived
​a Snake, Bear, and Shark Attack
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Max, the reporter of the week, shared some interesting facts about a man not so far from home.  Did you know, 20 year old, Dylan McWilliams from Grand Junction Colorado has seen his fair share of bad luck, but had some very lucky outcomes?  Dylan was attacked by a rattlesnake snake in Utah, a black bear in Colorado, and a tiger shark on Hawaii.  Yikes!  He's still an avid advocate for adventure in the outdoors, but we're going to be careful next time we're out camping.

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Kai shared a project he's been working on all about the Library of Congress.  Today we had the opportunity to learn more.  The Library of Congress is the biggest library in the world.  Did you know it contains 39 million books and if the bookshelves were lined up they would cover 838 miles!?  We wondered how many pages that is.  Then our brains hurt!

THE IGNEOUS ROCK

4/25/2018

 
Today we continued our study of rocks.  We learned how igneous rocks are formed, made observations, and compared them to sedimentary rocks.  Did you know igneous rocks are formed from cooled lava?  Did you know basalt is a type of igneous rock?
Before learning that igneous rocks were just cooled lava, we had a chance to tap into our
creative side and make up a "silly" story to explain their sponge like appearance. 
Maybe they were created when two rocks went biking and crashed into each other. 
​Maybe they were created when kids were blowing bubbles and they stuck together in the dirt.  Maybe some rocks went to the doctor and had to get a lot of shots. Ouch!

WE'VE GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN OUR HANDS

4/24/2018

 
We've been talking about Earth Day in everything that we do.  Today we made self portraits on recycled newspaper.  It's fun to think of new ways to do art projects using recycled materials!
We love art projects because they give us time to use our brains in a different way.  
​We also love the time we get to spend chatting with and getting to know our friends better.

THE BIG BLUE THING ON THE HILL

4/23/2018

 
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We read the book The Big Blue Thing on the Hill.  First of all, it was hilarious!  Second of all, we loved it! But most importantly we made some great connections.  The animals use teamwork to get rid of the strange/scary blue thing that showed up on their hill.  Just like in the book Leaf they work together to come up with a plan.  It also reminded us of the book Swimmy that we read at the beginning of the year.  One little fish can't do much, but many fish together can do a lot.  In this book it's bugs and insects instead of fish, but same idea!

PINWHEELS FOR PEACE

4/22/2018

 
Friday we celebrated peace as a school.  We'd spent the week talking about what peace feels like to us and then we got to experience it!  All 547 of us made a pinwheel and made this amazing symbol to show the world what we, Aspen Elementary School, value and care about.
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Check out this cool Kid President video too!  He always knows just what to say.

SCIENTISTS AND REPORTERS

4/20/2018

 
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Dayanara shared a fascinating article about the CRAZY winds we've been having.  These winds are knocking down trees, cutting off highways, and taking out power across the state of Colorado like nobody's business.  Did you know that winds in our valley have reached 48 mph?  That's as fast as a car.  Stay safe out there.  Thanks Dayanara!

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Beck wanted to know how to turn salt water into fresh water. We thought strainers, filters, or spoons might be helpful. Turns out he had a very clever solution. Beck created a still that will allows water to evaporate (just like the water cycle in a bag) and collect, while the salt stays in another container.  Stay tuned for some sunny days to see the results!

IT'S ALL ABOUT PEACE

4/18/2018

 
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We're celebrating peace as a school with 
Pinwheels for Peace.  We've been talking about peace all week.  What it sounds like, feels like, tastes like, and even smells like.  Check out the book below.  Pinwheels are cool, but they also represent peace for us because they help us calm down through quiet breathing.  We figured the best way to celebrate peace was to make these with Miss Abby's class while celebrating our friendships.  On Friday, the whole school will be showing peace with these pinwheels. 
Teamwork makes the dream work!

We also took this opportunity to do a peace building, team building, community building activity with just our class.  We've only got a handful of days left, but we're committed to making our community better all the way to the end.  We took inspiration from the book Leaf and helped get this polar bear back home to the Arctic.  Look at the masterpiece working together creates!
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THE FORMATION OF A SEDIMENTARY ROCK

4/17/2018

 
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Ana, our scientist of the week, showed us how to make (yummy) sedimentary rocks!  Perfect timing, since we're learning all about rocks. Sedimentary rocks are made up of many different layers.  Ana combined layers of graham crackers, vanilla wafers, chocolate chips, and coconut shreds.  We tried to hold these layers, but they just kept crumbling in our hands and they were hard to eat!
So...Ana asked us how we could make them more rock like.  We came up with some great ideas.  First we thought we should let it sit for a few years and come back to take a look!  We were too hungry to wait.  Then we thought we should add something sticky, like maple syrup or butter.  Then we thought we should stick it in the oven to meld it all together.  Turns out we were right.  When we added butter and sweetened condensed milk the snack stuck together.  Then after a short time in the oven they were the most delicious rocks we've ever tasted.  Thanks Ana!
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Sedimentary rocks are created over lots of time, under lots of pressure, and with lots of heat. The dry ingredients are the layers (dirt, sand...), the wet ingredients represent pressure. And the oven added the heat.
We're keeping a detailed Rock Observation Notebook so we remember all of these cool facts!
Next up, Igneous and Metamorphic rocks.  Do you think those are tasty too?  We sure hope so!
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