ES Grade 4- Jimenez-Ocson's Class

Last week we revisited teamwork with a couple of activities. Ike tells you more…

Teamwork

This new semester at ISM, we planned something new to try out about teamwork. We grouped
together and planned… well… something to present that showed teamwork. Groups could
decide and design maybe a picture, a drawing, skit, dance, song, story,
invention, some sort of creation. Some groups made drawings and lots
of groups chose dancing, while others made skits and songs! We were assigned to
do something not to see how well we could dance, but how well we could
cooperate. It was the test of teamwork!

We also got to do something more active and amazing. We made newspaper towers! (Also with groups of 3 or 4) The
goal was to make the tallest structure, but working as a team was most important.

Ike

January, 2012

We finished reading the books The Gold Cadillac and The Hundred Dresses. Each group prepared a presentation and they shared it in class. Attached is a picture of the work of each group.

The Reading Record this semester has shifted from a mere listing of books read to writing about reading. The children have submitted their first log and we shall discuss ways to make these ‘conversations’ more worthwhile for the children.

Numeracy tests are going home this week for you to go over with your child. Please sign them and have your child return the test to me. We begin with 2-digit multiplication this week, reviewing large numbers, and multiplying numbers with zeroes. Basic numeracy facts review is crucial so that each child can concentrate on the processes of multiplication/ division rather on trying to solve a basic fact.

In one of the news sites I posted, Ike found something interesting to share with everyone… a car run by Coke and Mentos? You Bet!

http://www.dogonews.com/2011/12/15/coke-zero-and-mentos-the-new-alternative-fuel

New alternative Fuel –

- One of the big problems in our world is pollution; from the garbage in our oceans to the carbon monoxide that meets the clouds, until Fritze Grobe with Steve Voltz introduce a new fuel-saving vehicle design they’ve worked on for years. Mark II, a small car that runs on Coke with Mentos!

Mark II has traveled as much as 209 feet, almost as much as Mark I, with a distance of 230 feet. Although, Mark II used half the fuel as Mark I and only off by 21 feet out of 230 feet. Unfortunately, the new invention might have some dis-advantages as well.

Imagine the kind of electricity to make all those (somewhat 54) bottles of coke in the factory. That kind of power might fuel a light bulb for about a month straight!

And then there’s those itty-bitty Mentos we’ve got to handle too! That might take up even more electricity. Both those factory’s power combined could light a light bulb for maybe 3 months! (Just a guess…)

Not including the materials that make up the vehicle; 2 six foot tubes (one of them a metal rod), a solid wall and a sheet of plywood. Making these items would take up a lot of electricity as well! But that’s the details.

The least I can say is that this is one cool, ecofriendly, and amazing car. Thanks for listening!

Happy new year to all. I hope all of you had a great time recharging and getting ready for the next six months of the school year. The week began slowly with about three people out. JO’s class reviewed teamwork basics and decimal concepts which we had taken in December. We hope to start our new unit of Inquiry on Child rights by next week.  Literature Circles roles are being practiced as  we read two short novels entitled The Gold Cadillac by Mildred D. Taylor and The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes beginning this week. We welcome Joel and his family to ISM.

Enjoy the System performance Task presentations of the children taken last December.

Have a great weekend.

Anna JO

Dear Parents,

It is the last school week of the year. Students from JO’s class have spent about four months of learning together.  I have seen such marvelous growth as individuals in each of them.  Thank you so much for your support of their endeavors.

We will begin the semester with goal-setting once again. This time there will be an added dimension.. each child will have a peer partner for this session.Your child’s second semester goals will have come from four sources of  input:  me, you, a peer and the child himself/herself.

Just last Friday we voted for the best t-shirt design for our Sports day T-shirt. Lauren’s design was chosen  and here is her winning design:

I would like to acknowledge the other designers for all their hard work. Here are the other entries:

Below this blog is Lauren’s write up about the PCF students’ visit

I wish you a restful break with family and friends. Be safe everyone.  Classes begin on January 9, 2012! See you soon, Jiggly Jellies!

Anna JO

On Tuesday, November 29, 2011 PCF (Philippine Christian Foundation) Grade 4 and grade 5 we students from visit us. We started out the day by meeting our buddies and interviewing them, and then we made some masks and bookmarks together.

 After snack we went out to play. It was a challenge for me because I had two buddies and they were really curious so I tried my best to answer all their questions.

When recess was over, we went to the undercover area to learn some Filipino games from our buddies. The games we played were Patintero, Luksong Tinik (for the girls), Luksong Baka (for the boys) and Tumbang Preso. I enjoyed…

We went back to the classroom after that and ate our lunch. The day was over, but we promised to see each other again.

 What an exciting day it was!

                                                                                                                                                                Lauren

                                                                                                                                                December 7, 2011

Dear parents,

                This morning Jo’s class practiced the role of discussion directors for the novel Fantastic Mr. Fox. We gathered as a group to observe a literature circle. Maddy was assigned to be facilitator at this time.  From time to time we stopped the discussion to add anything we observed from the  group in the ‘fishbowl.’

                To get the discussion going I posed a question, “Was it right for Mr. Fox to steal food for his children?” Immediately the group (as well as the observers raised their hands to give their opinions) Maddy again took over as facilitator and the group members answered the questions… I paused the discussion in the fishbowl and called on a few observers who wanted to express the views.

                I then asked another question… why do you think this is a FAT question?   The group again had a discussion about it… and then…

                The discussion just went its own way with the kids expressing their views, listening to others and making connections with their own lives…WHAT A GREAT SESSION IT WAS and I am so proud of the progress they have made in practicing collaboration, listening with purpose and critical thinking…

                What a  great day this is… J

                                                                                                                                                Anna JO

                                                                                                                                                December 7, 2011

Ps..  Sadly My Vado and camera were not charged today… L

Dear Parents ,

Last week was quite hectic with Filipiniana celebrations. Many thanks to the parents of the dancers for taking time to prepare the costumes and to all of you who came over and celebrated with us. Here is a blog entry of Keerthana about the celebration. Enjoy some pictures!

Filipiniana  

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Wow! As you might have known last Friday was Filipiniana Day! The day started out with an assembly. Some of us in Grade 4 participated as emcees or dancers. The Filipino dance was called Subli.

Our first class activity for the day was the jeepney ride. Everyone was so excited and it was really breezy so the ride was pleasant.  When we got out of the jeepny we got to taste the Filipino ice-cream there was chocolate, vanilla and even cheese.

 After that we put on our spare shirts and went to the gym. Everyone was surprised that we were doing art in the gym until we found out that we were going to paint the wall-climbing wall! It was really fun and relaxing!.We used many different colors green, blue, purple and black. We then had snack and then play. After play time we went to the science lab and made chicken adobo with Ms. Joy and Ms.Ria. First we got into partners and smashed some garlic then we poured some soy sauce and vinegar onto the chicken and marinated it. After that we all poured our chicken into a humongous pot and Ms. Joy started to stir it.

While our chicken was cooking we got to taste another 4^th grade class’ chicken adobo and all of us thought it was delicious!  For the vegetarians, there was also a vegetable adobo mixed with tofu.

From there we moved on to the CMC to hear a two stories from two people called Juvie and Richie. One was called you’re a star and another, a book about a…gecko!

We had lunch and then we danced tinkling with Ms.C. At the end of the day we basically just had free time. This year, although  Filipiniana might have been  simple I can definitely say that it was one of the best Filipiniana day experiences that I have had so far and I will be looking forward to next year’s Filipiniana (if they have filipiniana in middle school)!

Keerthana

Here is Katie to tell you about our buddy activity:

Not too long ago, Ms. JO read us a book called Animalia (by Graeme Base). In Animalia every page has a special letter that almost every word starts with. This is called alliteration. When we got back to the classroom Ms. JO   had an idea…

The next day we worked on our own version of Animalia! We chose a letter and drew a picture to go with it. Markers and colored pencils flew across pages. Ideas jumped from head to head. Then Ms.JO called us to the carpet.  She said we will make a page for our Animalia with our first grade buddies!

We met up with the buddies a day or two later and started working. My buddy Elise, my classmate Lauren, and I chose L. Our paper said: Lulu leopard licked lots of lemon lollypops in the local library while learning about librarians.

We still need the letters: A,b,f,h,I,n,o,q,u,v,w,x,y, and z. maybe you (or you children) could help out! There is no deadline so take your time!

Katie

Here are some prvious photos with our buddies:

Lauren is preparing another blog about our fun-filled day spent with our Philippines Christian Foundation buddies last November 29, 2011. Watch out for it next week.

Some dates to remember:

December 13 – report card distribution

December 14 – Holiday Party – Please coordinate with Kim Morrison to assist in this affair.

Nine days to go!

Anna JO 

                                                                                                                -

It has been a busy week. Apologies for only getting these two posts out only now. Our bloggers are Seamus, Sam, Maddy and Devon. We hope to have every child in JO’s class write a blog soon. Just some reminders:

1. Filipiniana is this Friday, November 25. Please don’t forget to have your child bring a big t-shirt to protect his/her costume as we will have an art activity which can get ‘enjoyably’ messy. I will send the schedule of where JO’s class will be via email.

2. Children from PHilippine Christian Foundation, a school in Metro Manila, will be visiting our fourth Graders on November 29. We will be sharing learning experiences throughout the day. Please have your child bring an extra snack and lunch for their buddy on that day. if there are any changes to this plan will let you know ASAP.

3. Details about the holiday party will be sent via email. Tentatively it will be on December 14, Wednesday.

4. Reports are to be given on December 13. They cannot be released before then. If you plan to leave earlier for the break, your child’s report will be sent to the ES Office.

Hope to see you on Friday! Happy Thanksgiving. Below is the blog post of Seamus and Sam.

Anna JO

We have just learned about the second to the last role  in literature circles, the connector. The connecter connects what he has read from a book to a diferent book ( text), yourself ( life experiences), or to the world. Lierature Circles are called that because you sit in a circle and discuss books read. Each one is assigned a role. Other roles were talked about last week.

We were introduced to something called a stumper in the beginning of the year. The stumper is a math  problem that pratically just tries to stump us! As we learn new concepts in math the stumper questions get  harder every week. Als0 in Numeracy, we are learning about number sentences and word problems involving logic.

Sam and Seamus

This Friday some of the grade four students are performing a cultural Filipino dance for Filipiniana  called Subli.  It is a dnce that came from Batangas, a province south of Manila. It comes from two words.. subsub ( meaning to be pushed forward)  and bali ( meaning break).We are excited to perform it, but some of the dancers are a bit nervous. We have already learned all of the steps to the dance, and now we are just practicing to get all of the steps and movements PERFECT!!!!!  We are going to preform the dance in the F.A.T (Fine Arts Theatre, November 25. We hope that you will enjoy our cultural Filipino dance!!

Devon and Maddy

Enjoy the posts of Bryan and Camella ( with special participation of Aditya) about systems and 11/11/11!.

More coming next week..

Anna JO

This month we have started a new unit called systems. A system is a group of thing working together to make things move or work. We have done a lot of things like: figuring out what systems are exploring different types of systems. We were shown some pictures, and we wrote down how they are related to systems. There was a picture of an invention and somebody guessed that it is a system experiment.

We also have watched a movie about the digestive system and learned about how your body takes in food, breaks it down and gives it to your blood stream to give you energy. It has been a very magnificent unit and everybody has learned a thing or two about systems so far.

We have also learned about simple machines. Here are some examples, the Wedge, a pulley, an inclined plane, and wheel and axle.   We also have seen a movie about the simple machines. It told us a lot about what things we use simple machines our daily lives. A wedge is found on a knife. A   pulley  s used in some construction sites to lift heavy things. An inclined plane is used to bring up heavy loads to go up or down. A wheel and axle is used on cars or even door knobs.  We got to go to sites that involve playing with simple machines.  This unit has been a great unit and I can’t wait to learn more!

                                                                                                                                Camella

Ps. Last two sentences in the first paragraph supplied by Aditya

Last Friday November 11, 2011, our school sponsored an event called “Blackout”! We celebrated the Blackout event by coming to school in black clothing. Well, from 7: 30am – 3: 15pm, nothing great really happened. This means, there were no parties, games etc.  It was just a regular school day. But, at 3: 15…WE BEGAN A FLASH MOB DANCE PARTY!

We had fun in the sun and because our black clothing attracted lots of heat, we were burning!  We drank liters, maybe even a gallon of water! And after a little dancing, the HS cheerleaders came out into the sun and showed us a majority of their routines. The cheerleader’s routines were awesome because of their balance, beauty, and their POM-POMS <LET’S GO BEARCATS! LET’S GO!>!

After, some people were SO tired of dancing, we moved to the HS Sports Field to see some rugby games and football games. For the ES students, there were competitions in the jogging track like Rope Jumping, Hula-Hooping, Football Throwing, Sack Hopping, etc. There were also great prizes like: Pencils, Hats, Sunglasses, and Water bottles. And other prizes for people who turned 11yrs old on 11 11 11 (there was nobody who turned 11yrs old on 11 11 11).

We had so much fun. But it was only a once in a lifetime event and I will NEVER EVER FORGET this experience.

                                                                                                            Bryan

                                                                                                            November, 2011