4th Grade: Art Styles

In 4th grade we studied the idea of being a master at something, developing our gifts and talents.  We looked at the elements of art and then studied the different Isms in preparation for our visit to the McNay where we would see true masters at work.  The 4th graders were given different art pieces that they had to research.  They had to learn about the artist behind the piece, as well as the art itself.  The kids also had to act as an art critic and examine the piece with the elements of art in mind.  Here are their Thinglinks on their art.  Just hover over the picture and click on the different buttons to enjoy their work.

4th Grade: Tuck Everlasting

One of my favorite parts of Tuck Everlasting is when Winnie repeatedly thinks “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage” when she is on her way to help Mae Tuck escape.  It is a great phrase to have a Socratic Dialogue over.  It interests me to hear what the kids feel cages them in.  They used Google Draw to create their “prison”.

Kami

Jackie

Rylee

Carson

Julia

Caitlin

Augie

Matheus

Mark

Sierra

Braden

4th Grade: More Fun with Shakespeare

Last week in reading and learning about The Tempest the kids were introduced to Caliban, a monster that doesn’t understand talking in appropriate ways.  We had fun looking at the insults used in The Tempest through Holling Hoodhood’s perspective in Wednesday Wars, so we decided we wanted to try our hand at writing some Shakespearean Insults. Just what every 4th grader wants to do. 🙂 They had a little too much fun.  There was a lot of laughter and a lot of insults designed for siblings.  After creating our insults, I challenged the kids to consider how they could be used by characters in some of their favorite current books.  They had a ton of ideas and have added significantly to my summer reading list. Once they chose their characters, they used Comic Book to create a scene of their characters interacting.  They then created two Chatterkids to give both characters the chance to speak.  They needed to have a title page and include a page to set up the scene for their book.  Next up was iMovie, which was used to pull everything together.  Here are a few that are finished.

Jackie

Rylee

Carson

Kami

Next week we will be learning about MacBeth.  To prepare, the 4th graders were each assigned a quote to memorize.  Here are a few of them performing their quote.

4th Grade: Starting Shakespeare

Looking at Shakespeare through the eyes of these fourth graders has been most entertaining so far.  So often, Shakespeare’s language can intimidate, but these kids are embracing it completely.

I started our study of Shakespeare by chirping a website of well-known Shakespearean quotes to the kids iPads. The 4th graders perused the site for a quote that struck them.  They had to think about what the quote might mean, what they think the play might be about (based on the quote), and they had to memorize and act the quote out.  Boy did they get into this project.  They used props, costumes, anything they could find. Enjoy their performance.

This week we explored Shakespeare’s, The Tempest.  The kids read a 60 second summary and we watched a claymation version of the story.  The kids created a quick comic of the beginning, middle and end of the story using an app called Comic Book.  I discovered that we need to work on summary. 🙂

Last week, I gave the kids a quote from The Tempest to memorize.  I am thrilled that all but 2 students had their quote memorized and obviously well practiced.  I don’t know what I was thinking, but didn’t video the kids performing.  I caught four of the kids as they walked out the door.

4th Grade: A Visit to the McNay

My 4th graders and I had the pleasure of visiting the McNay several weeks ago. It was an awesome trip and the kids made me look pretty good in front of the docent.  I guess our quick dip into the Art Isms and elements of art gave the 4th graders just enough working knowledge to impress. They really did amaze me with the intelligent observations they made.  While we loved the art, we also loved the beautiful grounds.  The kids enjoyed posing for the camera all throughout the grounds.  They also performed a strange Zombie Apocalypse before gathering on the bus.  I am still not exactly sure what that was about, but it was funny to see.

4th Grade: Go Animate

I have the pleasure of working with some of my GT students on Friday mornings in our Tech Know Club.  Recently we have been working on creating some PSAs on topics affecting our campus.  Please enjoy!


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate for Schools.


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate for Schools.


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate for Schools.


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate for Schools.

4th Grade: Fibonacci Sequence

It is time to dive into the world of Fibonacci!  Learning about Fibonacci and his amazing number sequence is one of my favorite parts of teaching GT.So, get ready for quite a few posts dedicated to this amazing thinker.  

Last week the 4th graders had a series of 24 different number sequences to solve.  One of the sequences was made famous by a mathematician known as Fibonacci.  Of course, the kids didn’t know this at the time.  Last week they struggled through the challenge on their own.  This week we went over the sequences and discussed the rule for each one.  We found that two of the problems used a similar sequence, and I later revealed that to be the famous sequence.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…

After seeing how far we could take this series with our calculator, I introduced them to a cool trick involving these numbers:

The Triples Trick.

Here is how it works: Take any 3 consecutive numbers from the Fibonacci Series.  Multiply the first and third number together and multiply the middle number times itself.  Every time you do this you will get a difference of one in your two products.

Examples:   

5, 8, 13

5×13=65   8×8=64; The difference of 65 and 64 is 1.

89, 144, 233

89×233=20,737   144×144=20, 736; The difference is 1.

Cool, right?

In the coming weeks we are going to learn about the man behind the sequence and why it is such an important pattern in our world.  We will learn how this series connects to art, science, math, and much, much more.  

Here are some pictures of the kids attempting to see how far they could take the series.  They were surprised by how quickly the numbers grew.  We learned what an E means when using a calculator and how to add some VERY large numbers once your calculator was no longer able to handle such fast growing numbers.

Photo Jan 15, 1 23 56 PM Photo Jan 15, 1 23 00 PM Photo Jan 15, 1 23 06 PM Photo Jan 15, 1 23 17 PM Photo Jan 15, 1 23 27 PM Photo Jan 15, 1 23 36 PM

4th Grade: The MI Classroom and Coding

We started the day by using SCAMPER to rethink some holiday related items: flying reindeer, snowmen, and Santa’s sleigh.  It is always fun to see the kids using their creative side.

After a little SCAMPER fun we discussed whether or not we consistently encourage and support all of the multiple intelligences in our classrooms. Most of the kids agreed that Linguistic and Mathematical intelligence are two of the most valued intelligences in schools today.  They also mentioned behaviors that interfere with using some of the intelligences.  Many of the 4th graders noted that ‘sitting still’ is an expectation in class, but that is in conflict with what a bodily-kinesthetic learner needs.  That students that are told to work on their own or told to be quiet, may have a high interpersonal intelligence and need to be social in order to learn.  With this discussion we started to think about ways we could design our classroom that met the needs of all of the intelligences.  The fourth graders are using Google Draw to design their classrooms.  We are not done, but enjoy a sneak peak at two classrooms below.

In the afternoon the kids continued to finish up their MI centers and then we managed to sneak in some more coding time. 🙂 I think we are becoming obsessed, but I am just amazed at what these kids are capable of doing. Especially considering some of them had never heard of coding before last week.  Enjoy some of their holiday games and scenes below.

By Augie and Matheus

By Rylee

By Aubrey

Fourth Grade: Hour of Code

Today, in addition to working on our Multiple Intelligence centers, the fourth graders participated in the Hour of Code.  After finishing up their benchmark we celebrated their hard work with some play time using Scratch.  After watching a video from code.org about computer programming, I shared some of the Scratch programs that the first, second, and fifth graders had written. Then we were off to the computer lab so that the kids could try their hand at coding.  

Created by Julia

Created by Matheus

We had so much fun working with code this morning that I introduced the kids to Hopscotch and gave them time to explore for the last 30 minutes of our day. These fourth graders are amazing!  They had so many ideas and possibilities as soon as I shared the app.  They are definitely NOT limited by their imagination.  I loved how they worked and collaborated.  They helped each other realize their vision.   Below are some videos of the kids sharing the games they created.

 

Fourth Grade: More With Multiple Intelligences

The fourth graders have been investigating the Multiple Intelligences by participating in various centers.  Here is some of their work:

They chose one of their top intelligences, scanned a QR code to read about an well known person with that same intelligence and created a Haiku Deck with clues about their person.


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Here are some images from the fourth graders Visual/Spatial and Naturalist centers.

Multiple Intelligence Centers on PhotoPeach

Some graphs created in Google Drive about the ways we are smart in GT.