Geologist Visit

Special Guest 

We had the honor of having Geologist, Jon Kim from Vermont Geological survey, join us in wrapping up our Rock Cycle unit. Jon showed us many formations of rocks and a geological map for Vermont. 

Jon taking students to represent the Rock cycle

The Geological map of Vermont! 

Writing Workshop

Biography Detectives!

 Good writers use reading strategies to help them discover how to produce a good writing piece. Our class has been investigating different biographies to find the great characteristics that make a good story about someones life. Next week we will look at all of our information we collected and begin our first biography piece! 

Digging Deep Into Science

Digging Deep Into Science!

Today we discussed the weathering and erosion of rocks. We have become experts on the rock cycle! These young scientist were able to use their knowledge and tools to represent the weathering portion of the rock cycle. 

It was a messy job, but worth it for the knowledge gained! 

Students are exploring with droplets of water.

Students explore with a rush of water and pressure (done by a hammer). 

Students exploring using bolder rocks to prevent a land slide. 

Bursting with knowledge

We are 'BURSTING' with knowledge

Scientists at work!

Students in room 138 were busy experimenting the rock cycle first hand through... STARBURST! Students have studied and reviewed the properties of each type of rock,now they are connecting the pieces and discovering how the rock cycle happens. 

Cutting up to make sediment

"A little bit of heat and pressure makes a Sedimentary rock"

"more pressure and heat create Metamorphic"

"This is hot! The heat from this is melting the Starburst (sediment), it makes magma!"

Leafing through a good book in 3/4 

Our class loves to read! We are very interested in what we are reading and beginning to recommend books to others in our class. This week we will be discussing how to recommend and persuade someone to read a book you have just read! The students will be asked to rate by giving it 1-4 stars and write a one sentence summary of why it was given that rating. This is getting the students to interact more with thier reading and keeping them accountable for their independent reading time.  

TEAMWORK 

This group of third and fourth graders is a group full of many wonderful personalities and helpful hands. After reviewing our classroom expectations last week, we decided our number one goal to work on was TEAMWORK. Here we made a fabulous learning opportunity where, as a class, we made an acrostic poem about teamwork. 

T teach others

E encourage others

A achieve your goals

M make good choices

W work together

O outstanding 

R respect responsibilities

K keep kindness strong

We are very proud of our goals and expectations and the students work hard so we can achieve them. Take a moment to talk about these expectations to you child and share your ideas with them as well!

Surprise Reading Guest! 

Because the class worked so hard to create such wonderful goals and expectations I decided it was only right to reward them with a special read aloud from Mr. Restighini. He came in to do a read aloud where the moral of the story was to work together and be kind. The students were very engaged and had a wonderful follow-up discussion. 

"Mr. R pointing out a double page spread"

"Mr. R emphasizing a vocabulary word" 

Thank you again Mr. Restighini! 

G.R.O.U.P.S

Give thoughtful feedback, respect others, on task, use soft voices, participate, stay with your group. 

Science has ROCKED the past two weeks, where we have split up into three groups and have been researching, discussing and taking notes about the three types of rocks. The students have gone through a series of steps, where they were assigned a rock form, given books and the internet to access information, discussed the most important facts, wrote them down on a poster, drew and labeled a picture and are now in the presenting stage. We have been so eager for science each day learning new things and being able to really work together collaboratively. 

 

Reminder:

Parent/ Teacher Conferences 

October 8th-October 9th

Please Sign-up at PTCfast.com