Wednesday, Aug. 24th

It was so hot today!  Everyone came in from recess all sweaty!
(Note from Mrs. Goertzen:  EVERY 4th grader has a spelling list to bring home to study for the spelling test on Friday!)
Today we took our apples outside (because Mrs. G was grossed out by all the flies) and we set them in the sun for 2 hours.  We weighed them when we brought them back inside and they all weighed less.  Then we threw them all away!
We wrote 5 sentences in spelling today, so we talked about what sentences need to have.
In math we talked about shapes and we used the Promethean board to play with the shapes.
In social studies we watched a Keynote about the USA's symbols.
We took a reading test on the computers today.  (Note from Mrs. G - we are not finished; we'll finish up tomorrow, I think).
For lunch we had hamburgers and a juice up and the really spicy french fries.  No, they weren't spicy (we have differing opinions in the classroom!)
We talked about deodorant today (always a fabulous 4th grade conversation) and about wearing appropriate shoes to p.e.
Mrs. Goertzen is reading "Larger Than Life Lara" to us.

Tuesday, 8/23/11 (Open House tonight!)

Today we did a lot.  We talked about the AR rules. We did the apple experiment again -  some of our apples are growing fungus and mold - awesome!  We used Google Earth and looked at Buhler, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sears Tower.  We looked at the forests in other states. We took timed tests for the first time.  We played a game called Poison Frogs and we played "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and had to stand up quickly every time we said a word that started with a B!  We got on Spelling City during spelling time. We made lists of 10 things that made each of us smile.
We had a GREAT TIME!
Tonight is Open House night.  From 6:30 - 7:15 you can come to school and see what we are doing so far.

Our Classroom

Photos of our classroom, before students arrived for the 1st day!

Coming Attractions...

It seems impossible, but in just a few hours, students will begin their first day of school for the 2011 - 2012 school year!  I can hardly wait - every year I get a little nervous the night before school starts; I think I'm just so excited that I can hardly wait!
One fun bit of news:
This upcoming Saturday, the 20th, our PTO is having a Family Swim Night at the Buhler Pool!  It's only $1/person to get in (or $5 for a whole family if that's cheaper!)  And they are selling candy and soda for $1 as well.  They will also be selling $1 tickets for a raffle, and I hear that they have some great prizes - a big gift card, and I heard that they might have an Amelia Beadelia's necklace!  Parents need to stay at the pool with their children to supervise the swimming. This sounds like such a fun community-building evening - what a perfect end to such an important week!
Mrs. Goertzen

It's Almost Time For School!

It seems impossible, but the days of summer are winding down.  I've been working in our classroom, getting things ready for school! 
Our school's theme this year is "Lights, Camera, Learning!"  - kind of like Hollywood at BGS!  I've been having fun decorating our room and making Hollywood name tags for everyone! 
I hope that you are having a marvelous summer and I can't wait to see you in a few weeks!
Mrs. Goertzen

Squishy Eggs, Mealworm Larva and Winning Airplanes

This has been an exciting science month in 4th grade - hands-on science is one of my very FAVORITE things, so I love the amazing science we get to do this time of year.  In the past three weeks, we've had:
*a paper airplane contest that let us practice our scientific method of finding a problem (how to make our planes go further), coming up with a hypothesis, researching it (we love Google!), and then trying it again with improvements.  So fun!
*the addition of mealworms to our classroom.  They will, hopefully, be turning into darkling beetles by the time school is out.  Right now, we are experimenting with them to see if they prefer to live in cornmeal or flax.
*Squishy eggs!  We put a raw egg in vinegar for three days to see what happened to the eggshell if it sat in an acid.  What a fun, stinky experiment!  We're hoping that Mrs. Burgey will put the video of our final squishy egg experiment on BGTV - we tested whether or not it would bounce!

Suspensions & Solutions

We spent the past week in science studying what happens when 2 objects interact - which things dissolve, and what makes a suspension and what makes a solution. We learned that anything that gets mixed into a liquid, but doesn't completely dissolve is a suspension.  It still has pieces suspended in the liquid.  We found out that you can get those pieces out by using a filter.
Then we learned about solutions, where what's mixed in completely dissolves, and you don't see pieces any more.  We read that you can separate the parts by leaving it set out in a shallow bowl, and the water will evaporate.  Our groups let their solutions sit out in pie tins over the weekend, and had an interesting result this morning!