Our Field Trip to the Art Museum



On October 31, we went to the Springfield Art Museum and we observed prints, paintings and we also saw sclptures.Our docents taught us the elements of art line, shape, size/spaceing, texture and emotion.We divided our class in to two parts and our docents led us through most of the Art Museum and it was very exiting!

Summary by Jaden

"We took a field trip today to the art museum and we looked at a lot of different kinds of art." ~Kenson

"That sculpture was named 'Stacked' and we tried to guess what it was.
I said it was a stack of books. The artist was Ida Kohlmeyer." ~Natalie

"I loved this piece because it had bright colors and it looked happy." ~Madison

"I was in this group, and the print was named 'Out of the Running' by Frank Beady.
Our docent said it is abstract because of the colors that he used." ~Chesnee

"The horse was kind of coppery, and it was abstract because the grass isn't usually that dark." ~McKenzie

"Here we're looking at an untitled picture, but they called it 'Bronco.'
It was done with ink and brown paper. It was by Olaf Wighorst." ~Bailey



"This one's called 'Circling Sprague Lake' by Rob Erdle. I really liked this painting
because it had lots of color in it." ~Makaiah

"I liked this painting because it's like a reflection of colors and mountains." ~Torre

"I like this picture because it has a lot of color and shapes and texture.
It looks like it's out of nature." ~Austin#3



"This sculpture looked like it was really rough, and it was called 'Heavenly Burden' by John Cavenaugh
 with Mary pregnant with Jesus on a donkey." ~Caitlyn

"I liked the 'Heavenly Burden' because it was really old and really pretty." ~Lexi

"I liked how the artist used lead to create his sculpture.
Our docent said it was easy to sculpt becauselead is soft." ~Natalie

"This is a print of a horse. It was abstract because the veins on it were popping out on it like the horse had gone through a lot of stress. The name of it is 'Edge Event #3' by Joseph Piccillo." ~McKenzie

"I think it looks intense like it's getting ready to charge at someone." ~Kenson



"We were looking at this self-portrait of John Cavanaugh. It looked really detailed. He used oil." ~Jaden

 

 

 

Equilateral Triangle Pumpkins

Last week we learned about different types of triangles based on their sides: equilateral=all sides are equal, isosceles=at least two equal sides, and scalene=no sides are equal. Then we practiced identifying, tracing, and classifying the types of triangles on our geometry templates. Later, we created these equilateral triangle pumpkins in the math task options station during math workshop, which basically consisted of drawing a jack-o-lantern with at least 3 equilateral triangles--on the eyes and nose. Many of us, however, found ways to incorporate lots more equilateral triangles, though.

 See if you can find them all!

Sign created by Makaiah and Torre

The One and Only Ivan: Our 1st Reflections

We are currently reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, a book that is currently being read by countless other classes worldwide as part of The Global Read Aloud Project. While we began reading the book quite awhile ago, our progress has been a bit slow due to our busy schedule the past few weeks.

This week, however, we have had a chance to read more, so today we made it to page 52.

Afterward, we took some time to reflect on what we had read so far, by choosing from a list of several fictional prompts.

These are a few of the response choices:

♦ Ask questions about things that you're wondering or things that seem confusing to you.

♦ Tell about what happened in the story.

♦ Describe your feelings about the characters or events.

♦ Describe your favorite part.

♦ Make a prediction about what will happen next.

♦ Tell how you would react if you were one of the

characters in the story.

♦ Describe a part that surprised you.

♦ Write a letter to the author or a character.

Some of us chose to respond to one of the prompts in-depth while others decided to respond to several. When we were though, many of us chose to draw a picture to go along with our reflections.

  Here are a few of our responses to The One and Only Ivan so far:

When we were through reflecting, some of us chose to share our writing with the whole class--and with our blog readers, so feel free to check out the videos below:

3 States of Matter

Today we learned about the three states of matter (solid,liquid,and gas), and to help us learn how they are different, we morphed into particles to "become" a class solid, a class liquid, or a class gas.

A solid's particles are packed in tightly together, which helps it keep its shape. 

Notice how we, the particles that make up
our class solid, are packed in closely together. 

A liquid's particles are packed loosely, which allows the liquid to move freely and take the shape of its container. Sometimes particles of a liquid bump into each other, too. 

As part of the class liquid, each particle had to move around near one another--which meant, occasionally, the particles softly bumped into each other.

The particles of a gas move about freely and quickly, rarely bumping into each other since they are so far apart. 

Notice in both pictures, above and below, the particles of gas are spread out much further than when they were solid or liquid particles.

When we were through morphing from solid particles, then to liquid particles, and finally to gas particles, we gathered with our teams and together worked as a team to "become" a solid, liquid, or a gas together.

Thankfully, the weather cooperated with us, and it was a perfect day for this learning activity!

Our 1st Mystery Skype Experience by Bailey and Jaden

**Note: No corrections made to student writing in the following post.

Also, all pictures were taken by Hunter and Jacob on our Sony Bloggie, which is the new class camera we got through our Donors Choose grant!

Before:

We already wrote down our questions for the Mystrey Skype.
Now we are waiting to Skype with our mystery class and we cant wait!
Here are some of our favorite clues :

We boarder the Mississippi River .
We were in the Louisana  purchase.
We are in the Midwest.
We are the Show-me state.
We are part of Mr.MIMAL.
Our state bird is the Bluebird.
Our state tree is Dogwood.

If you were  wondering  what Mr.MIMAL is  he is made up of  Minnesota,Iwoa,Missouri,ArkanasMississippi,Louisana.

We are about to have our first Mystrey Skype!

We are calling Mrs.Pratt's Class.


During:

We are introduceing our selfs.
They gave us our first clue and it is "we border the Golf Of Mexico".
Their state was Texas.
The clue right before they guessed our state was we our 2 states below Canada.
They guessed our state Missouri.
They had to tell us there city due to time  they live in Anna, Texas

After

We said goodbye and went to lunch.

Our Dead Word Cemetery

Inspired by the "Dead Word" post on this blog HERE, we buried over twenty words in our Dead Word Cemetery on Friday.

How did we decide which words to bury? Well, we first discussed words we tend to use way too much in our writing such as good, nice, pretty, and bad. These words, when over-used, can sometimes cause our writing to be a bit bland if we're not careful.We then brainstormed a gigantic list of words we thought should die in our writing (or avoided as much as possible) and then created tombstones to celebrate their lives.

Our 1st Pen Pal Letters!

Today we got our first letters from our pen pals in Mr.Moriarty's class in New Zealand. We were so excited that we immediately began writing back after we read their letters!