Ninging in the New Year

Happy New Year! I'm so excited about one of my New Year's resolutions. I am planning on building my PLN this year (not my initials, but my Personal Learning Network), so I spent my Christmas holiday learning about social networking.

This is what I've accomplished since New Year's Eve:

• added RSS feeds to my Google reader from other educators' blogs, so I know when they add a new post
• read countless blogs and articles about PLN's and social networking
• created a Ning for fourth grade teachers in my school system
• invited the teachers in my school system to join that Ning
• joined Ning in Education
• asked to become colleagues of several educators I found on that Ning
• wrote this post to my blog

I'm excited to see how the next couple of weeks go. I hope to hear from the other educators I've connected with over this holiday break. Also I'm hoping to participate in an online collaborative project with another teacher. If all goes well, my next step is to set up a Ning for my students so they can begin to build their PLN's.

Well, 2009 is off to a great start. Let's all Ning in the New Year!

Help Others as You Learn

I just discovered a website where my fourth graders can practice their multiplication facts and earn free rice for the hungry people of the world. The project is called Free Rice and is found at the following site: http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&s=Multiplication%20Table
I first found it on a non-teacher's blog and then about ten minutes later saw it listed again on Ms. Lay's (another JPPSS fourth grade math teacher) eBoard. There is a video you can watch which explains how the program works. In the video they are talking about vocabulary, which can also be practiced to help earn free rice. Click here to watch the video http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/newsroom/wfp152916.wmv

I hope all of my students will become multiplication masters as they do their part to help the less fortunate.

The Monster Mash

My English class learned the song The Monster Mash to practice their reading fluency. They sang the words from a packet I created. Each time their reading improved and so did their singing. We also discussed the rhyming pattern of the words, since a song without its music is a poem. They also wrote a story pretending that they attended the monster mash.

The Great Pumpkin Project

On October 30 and 31 my classroom looked like a pumpkin patch. The fourth graders brought in their pumpkins for The Great Pumpkin Project. They created a chart in their math journals to record estimates of the circumference, weight, and number of seeds in their pumpkins. Then they worked in cooperative groups to measure, weigh, and count all those seeds. Some were close to their estimates, but most guesses were way off. We tested to see if pumpkins float, and they do. We even ate roasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin puree. Enjoy the video.

Field Trip to TCP October 29

The P.E. Department arranged a great trip to learn about golf from

pro, Kelly Gibson.

The kids enjoyed his tips and got a photo opportunity.

Some of Ms. Naugle's homeroom students

Ms. Naugle even posed for a picture with Kelly Gibson.

WOW Math

Descriptive Writing

We are learnig how to write a descriptive paper in English class. We have learned about vivid verbs, showing not telling our reader, capitalization and punctuation, and formatting our paper.

Our target skills are:

• writing a title
• capitalizing the words in the title
• beginning with a "hook"
• indenting each paragraph 2 finger spaces
• capitalizing the first word of each sentence
• using proper punctuation
• using vivid verbs
• showing not telling our reader
• concluding with a good take-away ending such as "This reminds me of ..."

I would like you to post your best work to this blog. We will help you fine tune your paper.