4th Grade Ramps Up for the Writing STAAR

4th grade is in the home stretch before the writing STAAR test. They have been doing Six Traits review and revising/editing review in rotations. Students are reminded of how much they have learned throughout the year in writing workshop. They've come a long way and made so much progress as writers! Students are applying their writing skills to develop great ideas, using ba-da-bings to explode the moment, and covering their drafts with colorful revision and editing marks. We are so proud of all our writers!

4th Grade Students Explore Soil

4th grade students recently investigated the different kinds of soil and their properties such as their ability to retain water.  Students made predictions about what would happen as they passed water through the different types.

COE Cheetahs Win 3rd Place in Battle of the Bluebonnets!

The COE Battle of the Bluebonnets team took home 3rd place yesterday after a heated competition!  Our team of 5 reading rock stars, led by their coach Mrs. Collings, actually tied for first place with three other schools- several tie breaker questions were needed to settle the competition. In the end we brought home 3rd place medals- our highest finish yet!
Our team practiced well and worked together as a team- and it paid off.  If you see Mrs. Collings or one of these students, be sure to congratulate them on their accomplishment!

4th Graders Take a Virtual Tour of Texas- and Send Postcards!

Students in 4th grade recently took a virtual bus tour through the regions of Texas. They took notes on each region as then went. Students used Padlet, an online bulletin board tool, to collect their notes and thoughts. As an assessment, they created a postcard on a Google Drawing and wrote a letter about their favorite region, using facts and details to back up their reasons. See Ms. Barrios' class hard work below:

4th Grade Investigates Culture in Who We Are Unit

4th Grade has been inquiring into the central idea "Understanding personal histories, beliefs and values fosters intercultural connectedness." As part of their unit, they invited parents with a variety of backgrounds to come talk about their histories, beliefs and values. Students asked great questions to learn more about what makes each culture unique and also how we are all tied together. Parent volunteers came from Venezuela, India and France- it was a great mix of different cultures and students really learned a lot. We really appreciate all the parents who shared with us and helped foster intercultural connectedness!

Spring Techno Art Movies

Students in Mrs. Lanahan's Techno Art Club have been busy this spring!  They used claymation techniques and Frames movie making software to make their own movies.  Students used a storyboard to plan out their movie, then created scenery and props.  Students used digital cameras to photograph each step of their movie, then combined the photos with music and special effects.  Check out their work below!

Blogging in the Classroom: Kinder and 4th Grade Students Think, Wonder and Reflect

This year, two classes have started blogging in the classroom with a great tool called KidBlog.  Both Kindergarten and 4th grade students started blogs this spring as an opportunity to write and express their ideas and wonders for a wider audience.  Students have written about their activities at school and in their daily lives, things they wonder about, and their reflections of the day. In just over a month of blogging, the two classes have received over 2700 views!  Pretty amazing!

Kinder blog samples:

4th grade samples:

We hope you will hop over to their blogs and check them out.  One of the best things a blog author can get is some great feedback and comments.  So if you like what you see, or you have some thoughts or questions of you own, I know our students would love some comments!  (By the way, for student safety, all comments are moderated by the teacher, so your comment will need teacher approval before it can be viewed by others.)

Mrs. Morehead's Kindergarten Class

Mrs. Ganong's 4th Grade Class

4th Grade Letter Writing

Students in 4th grade were recently working on friendly letter writing.  One of Mrs. Ganong's students wanted to write to her grandparents  but their first language was Polish. Although the student can speak and understand Polish, she wasn't sure if she could write it.  She used Google Translate to help. First, she wrote in English, then pasted her work into Google Translate.  Once it translated her writing, she was able to check it over to make sure it sounded right. The whole class benefited as well, because Google Translate will read aloud the translation. It's remarkable what technology tools like Google Translate can do to facilitate communication!

4th Grade Investigates the Uses of Water

4th Grade students in Ms. Barrios' class searched for uses of water and categorized them using an online Web 2.0 tool called Padlet. Students saw how much water we use for "fun/entertainment" and decided that sometimes that is actually wasting water. They took action and decided to come up with ways to conserve water in their everyday use so they wouldn't feel so bad using "fun water" during the summer. What an awesome example of doing something with your learning! This activity is part of their "Sharing the Planet" unit where they are exploring the central idea, The availability of usable water affects people's opportunities.

Check out their work!
http://padlet.com/wall/id8man1tis
http://padlet.com/wall/63vuhykvfw
http://padlet.com/wall/ewcm57a424
http://padlet.com/wall/mk84okcmms

4th Grades Take Action!

4th Grade studetns are investigating the central idea, The availability of usable water affects people’s opportunities, in their Sharing the Planet unit.  Ms. Gray’s 4th grade class was inspired by a guest speaker from Round Rock Water to clean the trash from the reading garden. The speaker told the students one way to keep our water supply clean is to keep the trash out of the environment, so students decided to start in their own back yard!  Many students use the Reading Garden, so Mrs. Gray's class helped both other students and the water supply.  That's putting learning in action!

4th Grade Living Leader Museum

During 4th grade's How We Organize Ourselves unit, they studied the central idea: Conditions within a community dictate the types of leaders that emerge. One of their activities was to construct a Leader Living Museum. The 4th grade students used their research skills to learn more about important leaders, then developed speeches using the information from their research. Each student created a poster with their leader on it, and other students could "push a button" and hear the speech of that leader.

4th grade wonders: what does it take to be a good leader?

4th grade's How We Organize Ourselves unit explored the central idea: Conditions within a community dictate the type of leaders that emerge. To help students understand this big idea, they hosted a panel of leaders. We had members of the community- our PTA president, Mrs. Olesen, Cristy Crowder and Ms. Welebob as well as Ms. Haynes and Ms. Herbst. Students asked the panel of leaders questions about what it takes to be a leader, qualities of a leader and how they became leaders. Students asked some great questions and were able to make connections to some of the leaders and leadership types they had been learning about in class.

4th Grade Reflects and Graphs the Results

Students created Essential Agreements (or norms for the classroom) at the beginning of the year. Then,they reflected on how they have been doing so far using post-its to create a bar graph.

They noticed which traits they are all focusing on the most and which traits they want want to try to focus on more in the future. They say, "Next time we create a graph, we hope that we will have more examples of the traits we were lacking on this time."

4th grade Showcases their Knowledge of Matter

After investigating the properties of  matter, students demonstrated their understanding by finding examples that highlighted the different properties around the building. They used digital cameras to take pictures and then uploaded them to the laptops. Groups then created a PowerPoint to explain what they observed about matter around the school.

4th Grade Writing Camp with Phil Bildner

Author Phil Bildner recently stopped by for a visit with our 4th grade students.  Mr. Bildner led a writing camp to help students understand the writing process from start to finish. He discussed how to create ideas, edit the work and the importance of using powerful language when writing.  He also shared some of the galley pages from his next book and told inspiring stories to help our 4th graders kick off the year with an excitement for writing!

4th Grade Students Take Action - On Their Own

4th Grade has been studying how the availability of clean water affects people's opportunities.  After diving into this unit, students took matters into their own hands!  THIS is what it is all about.  These students are the IB learner profile in action, and we couldn't be more proud of them! The note below confirms that parents are seeing some pretty amazing things too.

  

Ms Haynes,
I just wanted to share this picture and story with you.  Ms Gray taught the
students this past week about families in Honduras who didn't have clean
water; they kids had to do a project describing how their lives would be
different if they had to walk two miles to get clean water and had to
figure out how their family would handle it.

After learning about this the kids, on their own, decided they wanted to
raise money to send to Honduras for clean water.  They, again without any
help from parents, decided to sell lemonaid and sno cones.   They
determined who would bring what, how much to charge, and when they would do
this.   All came home very excited on Thursday and us parents realizing
they were very serious helped them pull this together on Friday.

They raised over $75 in just a few hours.  According to Ms Gray, $25 gives
a person clean water for life.  Because of their efforts they gave 3 people
clean water for life!

I just wanted to share this with you, one because I'm proud of them.  Two,
and most importantly, Ms Gray not only educated these kids but she also
inspired them.   Ask any of them and they can tell you exactly what is
happening in Honduras, about why not having clean water is bad, and how
lucky they are.   IB education does work and will help create some amazing
kids!
Thanks
Julie

Students Take Their Spanish Skills Up a Notch!

4th and 5th grade students are applying their knowledge of Spanish vocabulary by writing some amazing stories.  See if you can figure out what they wrote. 

Here is some vocabulary to help you out:
otra vez=again
oveja=sheep
pastor= shepherd
corre= he/she runs
cuida= he/she cares for
grita= he/she yells

The Impossible Shot is POSSIBLE!

It turns out the Impossible shot IS possible.  Tanner in Mrs. King's 4th grade class was the first student to make it!  Congratulations, Tanner!  You'll go down in school history!

Not sure what the Impossible Shot is? Students and teachers try to bounce a tennis ball into the Impossible Shot - a tall, festively decorated PVC pipe.  They get the opportunity to take a shot by earning  I See IB tickets when teachers see the IB attitudes, for Gold Star behavior, or awesome cafeteria behavior.  We've had a lot of students try in the last two years, but Tanner is the first to make it!

4th Grade Graphs their Origins

4th Grade recently wrapped up their Where We Are in Place and Time unit where they studied the central idea "Opportunities and challenges motivate people to migrate."  In addition to looking at some of the reasons others migrate from one place to another, they also investigated their own family's country and continent of origin.  After tallying the results in their class, they made a graph of their results in Excel.  Check out a couple of examples below!

4th Grade Supports No Name Calling Week!

Fourth graders read a story about no name calling to second graders. Then they asked students if they wanted to sign a no name calling poster and act out a skit to show how to be safe with name calling and help reinforce the strategies for the younger students: stand up for yourself, ask a friend, find an adult, and exit the area. YEAH FOURTH GRADE!