The Corner Office

After finishing our Realistic Fiction stories, we jumped write into our next piece of writing: informational text. Each student in our class has selected a different animal found at The Lincoln Park Zoo (one of our Chicago destinations) to research and deliver information on. The early stages of the project are to generate “I Wonder Questions” to drive their curiosity. Here students are sharing their animal and questions they have to inspire new questions with their friends.

Two of my favorite activities are reading to students and eating! Lucky for us, we could combine the two. After several days of reading and analyzing Patricia Polacco’s Thundercake, a story about a young girl who working with her babushka and with a little help from a secret recipe learns to overcome her fear of thunderstorms. We decided to take the story to heart, or more appropriately, to our mouths and followed the Thundercake recipe to bake our own Thunder “Cup” Cakes! Further proving that reading is delicious! Enjoy the pictures!

Each year, during the first week of school, I like to have the students take part in a “Following Directions” activity. It really is a set-up for them to see how not following directions can have a tremendous impact on the outcome of the assignment. With this activity the outcome is that they look silly, but I emphasize that throughout the year, not following directions, will make it more difficult for them to learn really useful information. The activity is really simple. Take a look and enjoy the video:

Name_________________
Number _____________
Following Directions
Directions: Please read through all of the tasks you must perform before you begin. You will only have five minutes to complete this paper so please do not waste any time! Thank you.

1. Please clap your hands three times.
2. Please say, “Good Morning” to Mr. Overway.
3. Please quietly go to your locker and turn your nametag upside-down.
4. Please go to the classroom library, find any book, and bring it back to your seat.
5. Please say, “This is the wrong book,” out loud and return it to the bin where you found it.
6. Please take off your right shoe and pretend it is a telephone.
7. Please point to the ceiling and say, “Is that a pig flying?”
8. Please walk to the front, white board and write your name on it.
9. Please give Mr. Overway a handshake.
10. Please give a compliment to your neighbor.
11. Please walk to your mailbox and say, “Wow! I have mail!”
12. Please read this carefully: This was a test to see if you followed directions. If you read all of this and have not started doing any of the tasks like you were asked in the directions, you are following directions. What I really want you to do sit quietly in your seat and watch everyone else.

PBIS: Locker Video from Abe Overway on Vimeo.

A big thank you goes out to Holmes’ very own Bajt Family! Recently they made a donation to our classroom’s newest Donors Choose Project. Our most recent project is geared to buy excellent mentor texts to teach comprehension strategies and elements during our iTime. I don’t think it has even been a month and we have had 3 donors who have knocked off $90 of our total! Click on our Donors Choose Page to find our link!

Thank you again Bajt Family!
Love,
Mr. O

Today the fourth graders at Holmes Elementary were treated to an amazing presentation by master illusionist, Tom Coverly. Students were amazed as knotted loops of rope seemily hooked together, three colored balls appeared to reorganize themselves in a tube, wedding rings disappeared and reappeared tied to shoes, and yes even a sword somehow passed through the neck of one student. Each and every student, including Guac, was left thinking…”Wait? How? Really?” A big thank you to Mr. Coverly for leaving us all stunned!

You can check out more of Tom Coverly at:
tomcoverly.com

Congratulations Fourth Grade Families,
In less than 24 hours of our newest Donors Choose Project being posted, we received our first donation. This donation came from some familiar faces here at Holmes: The Allard Family! This is the second project of ours they have donated to, so if you see them around be sure to say, “Thank you!” Let’s see if their generosity is contagious…

Thank You Allard Family!!!

Check out our link by clicking on our Donors Choose page!

It has arrived! Our new art cart, courtesy of several wonderful donors in Spring Lake and a few out of state friends, is now at home resting peacefully in Room 13. I want to express a deep THANK YOU to everyone involved (which includes all my students) for their kind and selfless hearts. My only wish is that I would have taken a picture of the jumble of paper in the back closet before I organized it by placing it on our new unit. If you didn’t get a chance to donate to this project don’t worry; I will have a new project up soon: BOOKS!
Thank you again!
Mr. Overway

Somewhere through the development of science and storytelling the moon was told to be made of cheese; specifically swiss, which explains all the discolorations we see from Earth. And as much as that tale makes us smile to think that there is a huge ball of swiss cheese orbiting our planet, it is untrue. It is a myth. In fourth grade, during our unit View From the Earth, we have learned cheese is out and Oreos are in. Okay so the moon isn’t made out of Oreo cookie either, but through these delicious treats we learned some very important facts about the moon.
1. The sun always shines on half of the moon.
2. The reason the moon looks like it grows and shrinks is that we cannot always see the entire side of the moon that is lit.
3. The moon has different phases: new moon, crescent moon, quarter moon, and full moon.
4. When the moon seems to be growing it is called a waxing moon and when the moon seems to be shrinking it is called a waning moon.

More GREAT NEWS Fourth Graders,
Over the weekend, we were given another donation toward our Donors Choose project! This donation came from the Cobb Family! Thank you for your generosity, bringing us even closer to meeting our goal!
The Cobb Family is awesome, especially Isabelle!
Love,
Room 13

You too can donate!
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