Snowflake STEM Challenge by Michelle

Our class is making snowflakes.  Our teacher gave us a STEM challenge and said we’re going to be making…SNOWFLAKES.  We worked in groups of 3.  My group and I began to make our first snowflake.  We had to follow long directions.  I had trouble making the snowflake, but I finally got it!  Our teachers hung all of the snowflakes on our classroom bulletin board.  I think all of the snowflakes are great.  Every snowflake has 6 high points and 6 low points or we did something wrong if it doesn’t.  Some of the snowflakes have butterflies or hearts on them, but ALL of the snowflakes are different.  Some are small and some are big.  They make our classroom look beautiful!!!

Cursive Writing by Jake & Bella

Isn’t script so pretty?!?!?! We think it is. Guess what...a lot of schools have stopped teaching cursive writing. We know, we’re just as shocked as you are! Well in Room 217, cursive writing is making a comeback. It all started when our class read a Scholastic article titled, ”Should Schools Teach Cursive Writing?” Of course our class voted to see if we should learn cursive or not. It was a close debate, but we ended up LEARNING CURSIVE! Now every morning we learn at least one new letter of the alphabet in our cursive book. Luckily, our workbooks have QR codes that teach you how to properly make the letter of the day. We’re hoping by the end of the year, we’ll be cursive experts!!!! Our advice for you is to convince your teachers to let you learn cursive too!

What the holiday season means to us!

XtraMath Greatness by Austin & Connor

This is an easy one!

Have you ever gone on XtraMath???  If you haven't, you should try it! XtraMath is a computer program that helps us memorize our basic math facts. It's great for kids, and it makes us smarter.  XtraMath can help you before a big math test.  It gives you a whole bunch of multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction problems to practice.  If we’re finished with all of our classwork, we can log onto the computer and work on XtraMath.  

If you’re a teacher and you don't have much to do with your kids, you can set up XtraMath.  It will pick random kids in your classroom to practice their facts. Our class always does XtraMath first thing in the morning.  It gets us ready for the math activities that we’ll do later that day.  I hope you find XtraMath as fun as our class does!

Reading Buddies by Sofia & Matthew

Reading buddies are really AMAZING!!!  Our class pairs up with Mrs. Binns’ Kindergarten class every Thursday for about 20 minutes to read.  We get to pick new books each week to read to our reading buddy.  We each have a reading partner, and they’re the CUTEST little 5-year olds ever!!!  Each week we pick an easy book to read to our little buddies. This time of year, we’ve been reading holiday books!  We try to change our voice and use expression when we read to make it exciting.  We ask them questions to check if they’re listening.  Whenever our class gets to see our reading buddies our hearts MELT like snowmen just because they are so adorable!  Our reading buddies are amazing!  We hope by reading to our buddies that they will be encouraged and love reading as much as we do!!

Our Awesome Board by Hayden

Our Awesome Board is one reason why we do great work; we REALLY want to get our classwork or homework up there!  When the teachers know that we worked really hard, they hang our work up on the Awesome Board for all to see.  When my work goes up there, I know that my teachers know that I did a great job, and that I worked really hard that day.

You should create an Awesome Board in your classroom because it gives children lots of confidence.  When you see your classmate’s work up there, you want your work up there too!  And when you actually see your work displayed, it makes you feel more proud of your work.

Tis the Season to be Giving by Keira

Secret Santa is a good way to get to know the other kids in your class. This is the way I think we should do it in our class. First, everyone should write down their names on a folded piece of paper. Next, the teacher collects the papers and puts them in a hat. Then, each kid comes up, one by one, and picks a name from the hat. That kid is a Secret Santa for the person picked. The Secret Santa "makes" a special gift for the person they got; the gift cannot be bought. You can also give your person a special note or two that may brighten their day. Finally, the Secret Santa gives the gift and the Secret Santa is revealed. Everyone is surprised and everyone had fun. Our class will get to know each other even more. Our Secret Santa's in Room 217 will be revealed on December 21st!!!

Awesome Ozo by Peter

Have you ever seen an Ozobot tour New York State?? We have in Room 217.  Our class had lots of fun learning how to code.  

An Ozobot is a mini robot that can fit in the palm of your hand.  It has a brain that reads color patterns.  Ozobots can read the colors red, green, blue and black.  We used markers to highlight different things on our New York State Maps.  We used the color red for mountains, the color blue for lakes and rivers and the color green for the states that border New York.  Whatever color line the Ozobot went over, it would turn that color.  

We also coded our Ozobots using OzoCodes to do cool tricks like spinning, turning and moving fast or slow.  The OzoCode for spin is green, red, green, red.  We learned the rules for coding pretty quickly. For example, drawing lines that are thick enough for the Ozobot to read and even putting the right colors in the correct order.  You don’t want to overlap colors or the Ozobot won’t read your code.     

It was lots of fun using Ozobots to learn about New York State.  You should try them, too!

Our Fluffy Adorable Friend Mabel!!! by Hayden

Mabel is our class guinea pig!!!! She is brown and full of love to share. We take turns cleaning her cage and surprisingly, it is SOOOOOOO fun!  I personally play the “Quiet Game” around her because with a guinea pig, you can't be loud.  It also helps her calm down if you’re quiet. She goes to the bathroom a lot so we clean her cage every morning. We also refill her water; we have a different bottle for the weekends so she doesn't get dehydrated. We feed Mabel hay and lots of kibble. I think that her favorite time of the day is silent reading because during that time we have to be silent. When we read Wonder, it feels like she is listening too! We all love Mabel and hopefully she loves us all back. GO MABEL!!!

Flipgrid, Our Class Specialty by Sofia & Sophia

In room 217, we use a website called Flipgrid. We use it for different topics like introductions, class debates, and sharing information about ourselves with other people we don’t know! We just started sharing our video responses with other students that live all the way on the other end of America!!!  Our conversations were about a book called Wonder. Ever since our fabulous teachers, Mrs. Ryan & Mrs. Ziegelhofer, introduced us to Flipgrid, our class has gotten better and better at video recording!! At first, it was extremely difficult to concentrate and not laugh, but after a couple of trials, we made a Flipgrid that wasn’t goofy or silly.  We then take selfies and we’re allowed to add silly faces, sunglasses, etc. to our pictures.

OUR little LIBRARY By: Bella and Jake

In our classroom, we have a little room that is very special.  It is our back room and we call it our little library. It is small and very quiet.  But even though it is small, it is very helpful. Some days we are allowed to read in it. We also use it for station work and Kahoot! Everybody in the whole entire school would want to have a little library like us if they knew we had it.  Our little library has a big carpet and curtains for the windows.  There are different colored bean bag chairs in our little library as well as a sofa chair; it is SO cool that we even have a Smartboard and a dry erase board on the wall.  Also in our back room we always have music playing, and it is very soothing.  It is very nice in the little library.

Super Duper Incredibly Awesomely Amazingly Flexible Seating!!!!!! by Connor & Austin

Have you ever been in a classroom with seats that could move or bounce? Because if you have, you had a classroom with flexible seating.  Flexible seating is incredibly awesome!  We have different seats such as bouncy chairs, chairs with wheels, chairs that spin as well as chairs that are tall and chairs that are small including colorful bean bag chairs.  Flexible seating is comfortable and relaxing.  But we also have some rules to follow.  You have to pick a “smart spot” which means to pick a seat that works for you and helps you concentrate.  And when you're done using your seat, you need to clean up all the materials that you used.  Our teachers remind us to have fun, but be responsible!  Flexible seating is one of the coolest things in our whole entire CLASSROOM!!! Flexible seating, YEAH!!!!

Welcome to our Class by Sophia

Room 217 is about to start blogging!!!  In case you don’t know what blogging is, blogging is an ability for our classroom to share what we’re learning about weekly in fourth grade.  We can create YouTube live videos, post pictures, and document our learning.  Our class decided to blog because we want the public or even the world to know what cool things we do in Room 217...and because we’re sooooo unique.  Only us kids will blog and not our teachers; each week 3 new students will be chosen out of a cup to blog.  Blogging will allow our classroom to be free and write with our voice, our thoughts, our opinions, and even our emotions.  If you haven't already figured out, we’re extremely excited to blog!!!