Goodbye Testing!

We have finally completed our last day of NYS testing.  Yahoo!  We worked hard these last few weeks.  It feels good to have the tests behind us, knowing that we can get back into our routine next week!

This week we took the Topic 13 math test.  Overall, the students did very well on this topic.  Next week we will begin topic 14, Measuring Units and Conversions. 

This week we used mentor poems to inspire us while writing poetry.  First we wrote a “Where I’m From” poem, using repeating phrases in each stanza of the poem. We learned what a Haiku was, and looked at different pictures to inspire us to write a Haiku.  We each shared one of the Haiku’s we wrote with the class to inspire us further. 

In Social Studies we completed a map of the original 13 colonies and discussed the different regions and which colonies were part of each region.  The regions were divided into New England, Middle Colonies, and Southern Colonies.  We learned a lot about what life was like in Colonial New York compared to present day New York. 

We reviewed the life cycles of a butterfly and frog, and watched two short clips on the different stages of each.  These are previous topics taught in first and second grade which may be on the NYS science test in May.

We finished putting together our flower project we started with our buddies last week.  They turned out great and definitely brighten up our room for the Spring!

We were very lucky to have a guest speaker that came to Glenmont this week to talk to the fourth graders!  Marcos Pontes is a Brazilian Air Force pilot and astronaut and spoke to the students about what it was like to go into space! It wasn’t always easy for him, but he persevered and believed that anything was possible!  The students loved his presentations and seeing pictures and hearing stories about what it was like inside the space shuttle.  Thanks to a couple fourth grade parents for organizing this!

I hope you all enjoy this beautiful weekend!