Language Arts: We had a spelling test as usual.  Now everyone is finishing up their books.  Moving on to other books was fun.

Math: This week the green group took a test on Wednesday about graphs and a pretest.  Purple group did long division.  Also a mathematician came and talked to us a bit too.  We had to figure out how many squares we could find in a 3x3 grid, a 4x4 grid, a 5x5 grid, all the way up to a chess board (8x8 grid).  We found a cool pattern to it, so some of us found out how many squares there are in a 10x10 grid.  

Writing: We started on a new story this week.  Everybody has to write a story from somebody or something else's point of view that you can't talk to.  For example, we could write from Santa or a reindeer's perspective.  When you are done, you get to draw pictures around your paper.

Social Studies: For Social Studies this week we are starting to work on the Civil War and we just finished the presidents.  Also, Mrs. Price read a story about the civil way and it was VERY realistic, let's just say that.  We also started talking about what it was like for a slave.

Science: This week in Science we started our study of microbiology.  We're learning about things like bacteria, cells and germs.  We started by highlighting things in microbiology papers.  

Art: We are making very cool wrapping paper.  What we do is we have this tub of water and a little paper circle.  We put the circle in the water.  Then we have paint dropper thingies and we drop the drops of different colored paint onto the circle and it makes a really cool design in the water.  Then we put a piece of paper on the water and when we take it off, the design that was in the water will be on the paper.  

Gathering: The Octopi sang "12 Days of Christmas".  We started up SOS (Seabury on Stage) again.  This is where students can sign up to do some special talent at Gathering.  

Recess: Right now we are mainly playing blazer wars and freeze tag.  We also play with little fortresses of dirt and wood chips.  We use the wood chips as bricks and things as barbed wire.  

Math Games: This week we played 1,2,3 Nim.  The traps are multiples of 4.  For the original when you can take 1 or 2, the traps are multiples of 3.  We also found that for 1,3 Nim, the trap is an even number.  

French: We're getting into the holidays now so we're playing a really fun Christmas game.  We also learned Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman in French.  Also the decorations are good too!

PE: In PE we went to the Norpoint Center and did the climbing wall.  Then when we were done with the climbing wall, we went into the gym and played games.  

Here we are with the mathematician who came and taught us a cool lesson!

This post probably won't be nearly as interesting, as the kids weren't able to write about the week.  So, here was the week, according to Mrs. Price.

Language Arts: We are working hard to get our election chapter books finished before winter break.  The students also worked on a book report for their realistic fiction book.  They were asked to write the usual items, the characters, setting, problem, solution, and summary.  Then they also took one of the main characters and create a FAST Chart about them.  This included the character's feelings, actions, sayings, and thoughts.  We will begin books on the Civil War when we get back in January.

Math: The "green" group is finishing up their work on reading and creating graphs and probability.  They will have a test on this information next week.  The "purple" group is working hard to understand long division.  They too will be tested on this either next week or the week after.  

Writing: We are finishing the publishing of our 5 paragraph papers and will begin a new story next week.

Social Studies: The students finished their PowerPoint presentations on one of the presidents at the beginning of the week, then showed them to the rest of the class.  Many of the students showed an understanding of animation and the pasting of pictures into their work.  We also began our study of the U.S. Civil War.  We started a timeline of the events before the Civil War and will continue it with the battles and other important dates during the war.  We also watched 2 short films from the History Channel about the war.  

Gathering: Today was First Friday Gathering.  The students gathered together and spent about an hour snacking on hot chocolate and graham crackers, then read books with other students from a variety of grade levels.  It was a great, wearing pajamas and reading!

Recess: The students were very excited to earn four-square back during recess.  There are a few new rules and it was decided that if individual students are having issues with the game, they will not be able to play.  So far, things have gone smoothly.

Brownie Party: We had a brownie party on Tuesday this week.  They were s'more brownies with graham crackers and marshmallows.  Yum!

Our 2 candidates from the mock election fulfilled their duties on Friday.  They led the First Friday Gathering, brought all the teachers a drink from Starbucks, went out to lunch, and visited the middle school.  They also made some important decisions regarding the school that were important to their constituencies.  

Next week we will begin our study of Microbiology!

Here are some pictures from our read-in!

Our Head of School and Secretary busy at work.  

Week of November 26

Social Studies: We each picked a president.  Then we looked up facts about him.  We had to find out years when he was president, his birth and death, his family, his pets, his wins and loses, achievements, home state, important things they did, important events they went to, hobbies, strange facts, nicknames, the party he was in, and his vice president and we could find more if we wanted to.  Then we typed a PowerPoint about him.  

Math: The 3rd graders are working on line plots and reading graphs.  The 4th graders are working on division and stuff.  The math we are working on is really fun.  But I think it should be more exciting.  Math is fun!

Library: We have been checking out books, building forts out of pillows, and reading books together.  

Recess: We are still trying to earn back 4-square, but we also have other games like tag.  

Music: This week we are working on our winter program and we have some fun stuff planned out for you guys.  There's some action, fun, and last but not least, music!

Writing: Some people are finishing their "If I were President" story.  Other people are free writing.  The stories are very creative.  That means we are the Creativores.  

PE: We played battleship.  We really need to work on team work.  We played island tag.  

Language Arts: We are trying to finish up reading our chapter books and we are almost done! First we read the chapter.  Second we write words and a summary.  Last we answer a questions and move onto another chapter.

Art: This week we are doing something SECRET but we can tell you about the other stuff like writing, science, social studies, and the other stuff.  

Math Games: Mrs. Price has let us choose from a variety of math games including multiplication war.  

Here is our turkey fruit from the Thanksgiving Feast!  

Week of November 13

Language Arts:  We are still working on the election books.  We started a new method of reading them.  It is reading completely independent.

Math: We had a lot of fun this week with math.  We learned about factors and multiples.  The fourth graders were multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers.

Writing:  We have been writing a story about what we would do or change if we ever become president.  It is very very very very very fun!

Science: We made two things bubble and we found out what liquids mix and what doesn't mix.  We learned about density of liquids and made layers.  We are now creating our own projects.  

Social Studies: We have been learning about all the presidents by reading a story with funny phrases.  We had a test on them today.

French: We have been learning about how to say numbers in French.

PE: PE is fun but we have had some problems.  We also played games like battle ship and hamburger.  We sometimes played 4 square to try to earn it back for recess.  

Week of November 5th

It was an exciting week for the Creators.  After many weeks of long, hard work, we were rewarded with a win in both the race for Head of School and Secretary.  Our flyers, commercials, buttons, t-shirts, speeches, and signs all paid off for the Endeavor Party.  We were all excellent winners, nicely congratulating the Pig Party on a job well-done.  Here are our Endeavor Party leaders.

Math: We learned how to multiply big numbers like 62 x 7 and bigger ones.  We also started a new fact practice on a website.  

Science: We tested to see what happens when you mix Sierra Mist with Smarties, Skittles, Mentos and jelly beans.  It didn't go as high as we expected.  

Language Arts: This week we wrote our book reports.  We had to write the characters, setting, problem, solution, and summary.  We also had to write 2 paragraphs to find similarities and differences with our current book and another one we have read.  

Social Studies: We also started learning the presidents in order.  To learn them, we are using this funny book called Yo, Millard Fillmore!  This book tells a funny story and gives certain words to help us remember.  It is fun!

Week of October 26

Social Studies: We are almost done with the election.  We had a debate in Gathering on Friday.  We also showed our commercials to the school.  We have a good feeling that we are going to win.

Language Arts: Most people are reading chapters 8 and 9 in their books.  We also worked on our book reports.  We had to do a summary and our best paragraph writing.

Math: We did x 11s and x 12s.  Mrs. Price showed us a trick with 11s that is kind of fun!  We also did the stock market game and it was awesome.  

Writing: We are writing about "If I Were President."  We have to write 5 paragraphs from the outlines we made.  We are doing great.

Science: In science, we are working still on Chemistry.  We did some experiments and we went through the Scientific Method.  We mixed Borax, baking soda, and vinegar.  It only fizzed and didn't blow up like we thought it would.

Gathering: This week was our First Friday Gathering.  We said the pledge and sang the Star Spangled Banner and made a video to send to Mrs. Dumler's husband and the others in his troop in Afghanistan.  We also had a debate for our election coming up.  We went to special classes.  

Homework: For homework we've been working on our packet like usual.  Also, some people asked for extra homework pages so they worked on that too.

Brownie Points: We have 4 brownie points.  That means 8 more to go!

Halloween: We had a great Halloween parade and party.  We worked on fun pages that day that worked on math and other things.  Some of us also made a cool ghost picture with our feet.  

Week of October 22

Writing: Already people are working on their second story some people are already done!!!! They are on their third of course... 

Math: Last week we investigated making squares using tangrams.  We had to make different sized squares and then figure out the area of them.  Some were really easy.  We could just use the small square and put them on top of the squares we made.  We knew those were just the squares used for square roots.  Some squares we couldn't measure like that though.  We had to break the small square into triangles and then measure using the triangles.  We found that there were squares made of 2, 8, 32, and 72 square units.  It was cool to discover this and try to find the square root of these numbers.  

Reading: For reading people have been working hard and there still working on their story's.  Hopefully we get new books in about a couple of months, years or even days... HOPEFULLY!

Science: This week we made gloup and are still studying chemistry. We also made bouncy balls.  

Social Studies:We are still working on the election. So far, We've told our speeches to the the fifth grade class, the kindergarten class, first grade class, and the second grade class. After the speeches, we gave them flyers and pins that said,"Vote for Olivia and Zoe" and has a picture of them. We've already registered voters. Last week, we visited the republican headquarters, Jake Fey and Debbie Regala.

Democratic Senator Debbie Regala and City Councilman (running for State Rep) Jake Fey speak

Republican Headquarters

Lunch at the Downtown Tacoma Farmers' Market

Brownie Points: We had a brownie party on Tuesday and they had white chocolate chips. Today we earned 2 brownie points. I hope we can have another brownie party soon!

Book fair: Our school has started a book fair and it is very very fun! The books are Scholastic books and there are many other things like erasers, pens, posters, and of course BOOKS!!!!!

Seabury Students reading the Declaration of Independence on the way back to school!

Week of October 8

Social Studies: Olivia and Zoe are our class's nominees for the election for the Head of School and Secretary.  We made 60+ posters and we got our political party jobs.  We have a team in charge of voter registration, publicity people working on flyers and commercials, campaign managers, and speech writers.  Our party name is the Endeavor (means to work hard) Party and our slogan is "Building a Better School."  We are hoping to win the election on November 6th.

Math: We are still working on stocks.  We have learned that the stock market is crazy.  Our teams are now ranked 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 out of 11 teams.  "It is becoming the Great Depression." 

Everyone took tests this week.  The purple group was working on decimals and the green group worked on addition and subtraction.  

Writing: A lot of people are publishing their story.  Some are still editing and some are already free writing.

Language Arts: We continued reading our books this week.  Everyone is on at least chapter 4.  

Science: We are making a Periodic Table of Elements.  We are looking for the elements on the website chemicool.com, where we can find the number of neutrons, protons, and electrons, who found the element, and the uses for it.

Recess: New 4-Square rules are posted on the windows.  We hope this will reduce the arguments over it.  Now other games are being played too.  

Spelling: We have been having tests over the spelling of the words and the meaning of them.  We have read some really cool stories in our Wordly Wise packets.

French: We are doing Halloween activities.  We are learning more French every day.

Library: We got some new books.  Some people got their adventure books, but not many.  

Performing Arts: We are doing a bunch of games and vocal warm ups.  We have a song of the month.  We are composing our own theme songs using the instruments there and she is going to record them.

PE: We  have been doing a lot of stations and working with other people.  We have played a lot of fun games and last PE, everyone made a goal and almost everyone accomplished their goal. 

Weekly Wisdom: This week's WW is "Always do your best, certainly not less."
  
Stop signs: We started using stop signs this week for when people are doing something wrong.  They say, "Please stop what you are doing and make a better choice."  If we get 3 stop signs, we owe million dollars or recess.  

Week of October 1st

Reading: Lately our class has been assigned a type of book.  First a mystery, next an adventure.  When we were supposed to turn in our book, we do a report and a presentation.  Super fun!!!

Math: The math we are doing is really fun.  3rd graders are doing rounding of whole numbers and adding and subtracting them and the 4th graders are doing decimals and answering questions from their math book and the Smart Board.  The 3rd graders like what they are doing.  I am not sure if the 4th graders like what they are doing because I am not one yet.  

Stock Market Game: We just started but we are doing great!  We are all really excited.  There are 11 teams in the area and one of our teams is in 1st place right now.

Writing: Most of us are already done with "The Case of the Missing Summer Vacation" and are publishing!  I mean, it's only been a few days and we're already at publishing!!!

Social Studies: This week for Social Studies we have been working on what Obama and Romney are going to do for Health Care, Energy, Equal Rights, and all that kind of stuff.  Also we watched the debate of Obama and Romney which was very cool for the Creators!

Science: This week we watched a few videos and we drew atoms.  We are in the middle of making the Periodic Table.  

Art: We are working on op art.  We made pop out hands, an opposite stripe page, where you trace objects and then draw stripes and make the objects opposite.  We also did a free style picture where we have to make everything pop out.  To look at the pictures you can come look in the Creators classroom.  

Brownie Points: This week in our class we had a ... BROWNIE PARTY!  We loved the brownies with caramel and chocolate...mmm!

First Friday: The first Friday of every month is very fun.  On the first Thursday of the school year, we chose three things we wanted to do.  We could chose from, for example: drama, cooking, art, French games, library, or chess.  All sorts of stuff!  Then on the first Friday of every month we get to after Gathering, go outside to recess and snack, and then we go to the class we wanted to go to first on our list.  These classes aren't regular classes.  We don't get to go to cooking class on regular days.  In Art we get to do extra cool crafts that we don't usually get to do and other fun stuff!  The first Friday of every month is super fun!

Week of September 24

Writing: This week in writing we are still working on our summer vacation stories, but we also did a few other things. We made posters about colorful words so we don't use the same words over again.  We have a poster called "Said is Dead", "Bad is Sad", "Good is Bad", "Like is Last and Evil", "Pretty is a Pity", "Happy", and "Sad is Dead".  We will work more to use these words in our stories.

EnviroChallenger: We talked about dangerous materials this week and saw things to look for that are not good for you.  We played Bingo to learn about toxic and nontoxic materials.  We got a bracelet if we got a Bingo.  We also found out how to use common products instead of toxic ones, like ground cinnamon keeps fruit flies and gnats away.  

Brownie Points: We are 3 brownies away from earning a brownie party!

Million Dollars: Some people have gotten some really cool prizes already and others are saving up to get 20.

Math: We are working on rounding and decimals (4th grade).  We started the Stock Market Game this week.  Most of us are doing pretty good.  One of our teams is in 1st place out of 8 teams in the region.  We learned how it works and we also investigated different businesses to maybe buy.  We got to buy some stocks on the computer.

Social Studies: This week we went to the computer lab and looked at the different issues for Romney and Obama and took notes for one issue.

Science: We are still studying Chemistry.  We studied chromatography, where ink separates, and we did a salt water filter.

Language Arts:  We started our new novels.  We are using sticky notes to mark words we don't know and what is happening in the story.  We have to look up the words in the dictionary, write a summary, and then answer 1 question about the book.  

Weekly Wisdom for the Week: It's okay to not know, but it's not okay to not try.

Art: We did optical illusions.  Also we had fun sketching during free time.  We have had a lot of fun with all of the things we have done this school year.  

Week of September 17

Weekly Wisdom: Weekly wisdom is wise words that help us through our week. Our new weekly wisdom comes on the Monday morning meeting. We have new weekly wisdom every week. Every Monday our teacher, Mrs. Price puts our old weekly wisdom on the wall. Our weekly wisdom this week was do the right thing even if no one is looking. Weekly wisdom is why we have good weeks.

Math: We are working on tests to see what math chapter we should be on. We have two math groups the purple group and the green group. The purple group is working on turning fractions into decimals. the green group is working on estimation, word problems, and place values. 

In social studies we studied the election and we did a packet on the election. It was fun!

Brownie Party: This week our class had a party, a brownie party that is!!  The brownies were delish and Mrs. Price (a.k.a Mrs. Fabulous) said she would make a different type of brownie every time we got 12 points.

Reading: It is fun.  We have to read a chapter book.  We can't read picture books.  We have new books about presidents.  We wrote down 2 book choices from the selection.  Then Mrs. Price chose one of those and we have to read it.  After we read chapter 1, we found 3 words or more that we don't know.  Then we have to look it up in the dictionary and write it down in our reading notebook.  Then we find another person with the same book and read the chapter together and talk about it.

Performing Arts: In Performing Arts we played the xylophone and we played an awesomely cool game called the Essence Machine. 

Recess: Hi, it's me, the reporter.  And I'm here to tell you about the Creator's recess.  So, usually we play four-square or we just hand out at the big toy.  

Pizza: This was really good this week.

PE: PE is awesome and fun and cool and really makes you sweat.  This week we went to the park and it was really fun!

Math Games: This week we played Multiplication War!  It is fun!

Science: We mixed ingredients like flour and sugar.  The flour had low solubility and sugar had a high solubility.

Writing: In writing some people are still working on "The Case of the Missing Summer Vacation" and some of us are on publish.Some people have 10-11 pages and some have 3 but with tiny hand writing."The Case of the Missing  Summer Vacation" is obviously a mystery  and there's kids who have different  variations of the  mystery. 

Well that all the time we have. You've been working with the Creators. Have a great day.

Week of September 10th

Our Weekly Wisdom for the week was "Make Today Ridiculously Amazing." We did!

Morning Meeting: We came up with a new secret handshake, in this case it was a foot shake.  We are working on good audience behavior and good eye contact when talking with others.  

Gathering: This week we talked about the Hunger Walk.  Please see the sign-up in today's Friday Folder.  It is going to be very fun this year and we hope you come.  We are having a food drive that starts on Monday.  Please donate non-perishable food.  We also sang the banana slug song for the first time.

Language Arts: Wordly Wise is a vocabulary packet that we have to finish by the end of the week.  We had a spelling test on it that was very fun.  We wrote summaries about a story we read.  We used sticky notes to help us write the summaries, to ask questions and think about vocabulary.  

Math: We divided into 2 groups for math this week.  Everyone worked on place value, comparing and ordering numbers, and the purple group worked on decimals.  We played Number Top-It for our math game.

French: We have been learning about transportation.  We played lots of fun games too.

Writing: We are still writing about the Case of the Missing Summer Vacation.  We learned about how to peer conference and we learned how to proofread.  Most people are still working on their rough drafts.  

Science: We did some awesome science experiments about States of Matter.  We learned everything is a state of matter that isn't in a vacuum.  

Social Studies: We learned about the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and why people came over in the first place.

Fun activities: In art we made 3-D hands.  We are 1 away from earning a Brownie party.  Also, many people bought coupons with their million dollars.  We also got a new trampoline.  If you are working hard, you get to jump on it for 30 seconds.  You can do all sorts of things on it, but you have to hold onto the handrail.  It is fun.  

Here we are with our new trampoline!

Week of September 3rd

Week of September 3rd

Our Week (as written by the Creators)!

We do lots of great things during the week.  Here are some of the things we did this week!

The Creators:  The third and fourth grade class voted for our class team name.  The winner of the vote was the Creators.  The name Creators is a good team class name because our class is very creative.  We also love to make stuff and do art.  The Creators is definitely the best name for our class.

Morning Meeting: So what we do for Morning Meeting is we talk about upcoming events and stuff about what we are doing that day.  Also we talk about our schedule with our morning meeting leader.  After that we do a secret handshake and brain breaks.  And that is Morning Meeting!

Brownie Points: Our class has this cool arrangement where if the whole class cooperates then we get a Brownie Point.  If the class gets 12 points then the whole class gets brownies!  Wow!!!

Million Dollar Bills: We get 1 million dollar bill for doing good things.  If we get 10 million dollar bills we get to choose something from the binder.  In the binder there is something like show and tell.

Math: In math, we took a test to determine our math level.

Flag: We are still having a little trouble, but we are working on it.

Language Arts:  In Language Arts (which is reading) we read a story called, "Thank You, Ma'm."  Then we did a worksheet, then we took a test about it.

Science: On Thursday we started Chemistry.  We learned about: matter, properties, and physical changes.

Writing: I just think that getting a book in public readers' hands would be an achievement.  We are writing a story called, "The Case of the Missing Summer Vacation."  It will be a total hit!

During Math Games we play Name That Number.  It is when you have a target card and you have 5 other cards and you use the 5 cards to make a math problem that totals the target card.  

In art we made self portraits and paper arms.  The one I made did not look anything like me.  On our arms we wrote our goals for the year.

And that is the week according to the Creators!  Hope you enjoyed it.  Tune in next Friday for another post!

The Creators after a great first week!

The Creators!