January Newsletter

1. January Newsletter Written by the journalists in Mrs. Farrell’s classroom

2. Upcoming Dates • 2/14-Valentine’s Day/Ice Cream Buffet-- Thank you for all the donations! • 2/15-2/25-Vacation! • 3/1-Dr. Seuss Day • 3/15- No School • 3/19- MCAS ELA Long Composition • 3/22-MCAS Reading Comprehension Session 1 • 3/26-MCAS Reading Comprehension Session 2

3. What’s the Buzz? Many events have taken place in the month of January! Students have practiced and performed a Reader’s Theatre of “Blame it on the Wolf.” You can view the entire play on my classroom website: http://wrentham.k12.ma.us/C19/C18/Ms%20Farrell/default.aspx We have also finished our Magnet and Electricity unit in Science and collaborated in small groups for a “jigsaw” activity. Groups each chose a topic, delegated jobs according the to the checklist and created a poster to represent their topic. Groups would then each present their topic and teach the rest of the class since they were experts on that topic.

4. What’s the Buzz? We have been studying the Mid-Atlantic region in Social Studies. Students worked in partners to research a historical landmark or symbol found in the USA. They needed to include factual information and create a poster to represent the information they learned. Students presented their project by persuading the audience to buy their landmark or symbol to help pay off Our Nation’s debt of $60,000,000,000,000! Some students decided to persuade the audience by creating a clever skit, a catchy jingle, or an adaptation of a song they like. We have also finished our Literature Circle groups where students voted on a book they were interested in reading and were assigned specific jobs to lead a student directed discussion group based on what they have read. Mr. Grenham visited our classroom while we were completing a culminating activity of Alphaboxes and we made the Roderick Blog! Check it out: http://roderickelementaryschool.blogspot.com I am please with how students have delegated jobs, stayed on task and cooperated within their groups! Way to go 4th graders!

5. Box method and Partial ProductsBy: Michael Erickson and Liam Foley Today you will learn two new fabulous efficient ways to multiply. The box method is another way to solve a multiplication problem, it starts by drawing a box with a vertical line going down the middle and a horizontal line across according to the place value of the number being multiplied. Then, you put the numbers being multiplied in expanded form on the top and side. Lastly, you multiply the columns and rows, then add up all the numbers in the boxes. Partial products is basically the same thing as the box method except you don’t use a box. First you set up an ordinary multiplication problem, then you put both numbers in expanded form off to the side. Lastly, multiply the expanded form numbers and put your numbers under the ordinary multiplication problem, then add. Now you have two more ways to multiply!

6. Coin Challenge By: Karly Willson and Michael Zagrodny Aloha!Do you want to know what our school is doing this week? From Monday, February 4 through February 11 Mrs. Foley and Mrs. Furgola will be collecting money for the school staff. It was made into a contest so the grade that raised the most $ gets a prize. 6th grade, 5th grade, and 4th grade are all participating in this contest. Silver coins like nickels, dimes, quarters, and half dollars deduct points but pennies and paper money add points. That concludes our report on the coin challenge. Adios!

7. Evidence Explanation InterventionBy Livi Bruno and Anna Bradley Do you know what intervention is? Well…...it’s when students switch classrooms to help build their MCAS skills. Do you want to know what we’ve learned so far? So far we’ve learned how to use and make a T-chart. A T-chart is a chart that is in the shape of a T. the T-chart helps us organize our evidence and explanation. Then, we put the evidence and explanation into an open response. Another thing we’ve learned is how to do a fiction open response. Right now we are focusing on non fiction. To figure out what classroom we are in we take a Pre-assessment. After we’ve worked on it for about 2 weeks we take a Post-assessment, which is to see how we’ve improved. The teachers group us based on what we need to improve on and what we’re good at. Intervention is usually on Mondays and Wednesdays. Hopefully after we have learned all these skills we all will do great on MCAS! 

8. Snow globeby Meghan, Emily Would you like to hear about a interesting and fun project we did in our classroom? This project is our snow globe project, and these are the steps we had to follow in order to make the snow globe fantastic. First, we had to think of a theme. Next we had build are snow globe using scissors, paper, and glue. Then, we all wrote alliteration to go with are theme. After that, we had to write a essay about our snowmen or snowwomen. After, we had to go over are checklist. Finally, we published in the computer lab. Next time you come in hopefully you can see them in our classroom gallery.

9. Lattice and standard algorithmBy Matt Elpus and Geoffrey Bowes Do you want to know what some methods we’re learning are? We’re learning the lattice and standard algorithm methods. Do you know the lattice is also called the Gelosia? You set up the standard algorithm like a “top hat” multiplication problem. It's really easy. You set up the lattice like a big box with 2 lines splitting into fourths. Then you slant diagonal lines from the corners of the boxes. Then put the numbers above the boxes and multiply. Hopefully you can use these methods to solve problems. 4 6 3 9

10. Morning Announcement Have you ever had a morning announcement ?Well, we do at our school. First, the 6th graders give the morning announcements. They give announcements over the loud speakers. When the 6th graders give the announcements they start off by introducing themselves ,and who's class there in. Then, they say the date and the day of school like the 98th. After that, they tell us who is celebrating a birthday. They also tell us the after school activities like basketball. Then, they sing the pledge of Allegiance with us. Lastly, Mr. Grenham comes on and tells us to have a great day. Do you want to have a morning announcements too. By Ava And Jillian

11. Monuments and Mid Atlantic statesDerek, Nick,& Colin Have you ever considered buying one of the national monuments in the United States ? Well if you have this is a project for you! We are studying the Mid Atlantic region which is made up of New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. For this project we are creating an advertisement to sell famous monuments and landmarks. Some landmarks included the White house, Pentagon and Washington monument, Just to name a few. We are trying to pay off the United States debt. Just so you know, we are 16 trillion,5 million, dollars in debt. We are going to present our sales pitch to the wonderful class and students can bid on the monument they would like to buy! Going, going gone! Sold to the highest bidder! By Derek, Colin, Nick

12. Circuits By: Susannah Foster KayleaKelly Have you ever heard of circuits? A open circuit is when a light bulb or a switch is off and, a closed circuit is when the light bulb is when the switch is on or off. A parallel circuit is more than one path for a electric current to flow. A series circuit is one that only has a single path for current to flow. We did an activity that you had to use only a wire, a D battery, and a tiny light bulb, and try to get the light bulb to light. There is this program that we used to help us learn about circuits. The program is called Gizmos. One of the games is that you can build your own circuit. A circuit breaker is a switch that opens a circuit by turning off. A fuse opens a circuit by melting and breaking. An electric circuit is a continuous flow of negative charges. An electric circuit is a path along which negative charges can flow. That is some information about circuits, did you enjoy?

13. Blame It On The WolfBy: Owen Lotito and Olivia Pacheco This month we worked on a play. It was called, “ Blame it on the Wolf.” Owen was Moe, one of the Three little pigs, and Olivia was the Judge. The play was almost all of the fairy tales combined. The fairy tales where Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, and Chicken Little. The wolf was in court because they thought that the wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, Old Red. Throughout the play Chicken Little kept saying that the sky was falling, and at the end of the play the sky actually fell. We also used lots of props. At the end we all did the hula off of the stage. We performed the play in front of Mrs. Coleman’s class ,and Mrs. Farrell filmed it. That is a little bit of the play we worked on this month.