Monday, May 27, 2013
Hot Diggity Dog!
What a great time we had at our Hot Diggity Dog celebration! A special thank you to each family who contributed to our great party! From dog bone cookies, to paw print cupcakes, to plates, napkins and juice--we appreciate it all! Thank you also to the families who came. We hope that you were able to learn about what went into this unit and enjoyed reading our finished realistic fiction dog stories. The students loved sharing them with you!
Young Engineers
Our enrichment teacher, Mrs. Hart, visited our classroom this week to share an engineering workshop with our entire class. Students learned about different towers around the world--The Eiffel Tower in France, CN Tower in Canada, Axum Stelae in Ethiopia, and the Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan--just to name a few.
Mrs. Hart asked students to observe the photographs and share their discoveries about these famous towers with their classmates. Students were then challenged to create a tower of their own. Each student received an 8 1/2 X 11 inch piece of paper and a roll of scotch tape. The rules were that kids could cut and fold the paper. Tape could only be used to keep a section of folded paper together but couldn't be used for attaching the tower to the desk. The tower needed to be strong enough to stand on its own. Mrs. Hart has been doing this project in different schools around the district and the record for the tallest tower was 36 inches. After about 20 minutes of work, two of our students broke the record! See the photo below of their tower! 
A special thanks to Mrs. Hart who has worked hard to keep our enrichment program going under some difficult circumstances. We hope the enrichment program can return to Westmere in the future! 
Friday, May 17, 2013
Fun on the Erie Canal
We had a fantastic field trip to the Waterford Visitor's Center this week! Students participated in a variety of activities while there. First we got on our life jackets and boarded the boat for a trip through the lock. Next we walked along the Old Champlain Canal because it is the most similar to the original Erie Canal we have been learning about in school. Kids followed the original towpath where mules and hoagees once walked. Each student was able to tow a wagon full of 40lb weights along the gravel towpath. Then, they each had the chance to pull a 400lb model of a barge boat in the canal. Ask your 4th grader to fill you in on which they preferred to tow along! After a snack by the canal and a few canal games, we moved to the famous tugboat Urger. Students were able to meet the crew of this 100+year old tugboat. We even got a chance to board the tugboat and check out the living quarters, the captain's wheel and the diesel engine that now powers it. Thank you to our chaperones for your help!
Friday, May 3, 2013
Erie Canal
We are learning about the Industrial Revolution in Social Studies. Students completed a webquest on the Erie Canal in our MacBook lab. Mrs. Russo has taught the class a great song about the canal. Ask your 4th grader to sing it to you. Next week the staff from the Waterford Visitor's Center will visit us to prepare us for our field trip to the Erie Canal on May 16th.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)