Tales from 214

MARCH 11, 2014! MRS. HINKLES FOURTH GRADE! THINK SPRING!

Pieces of Production: Crazy Cork Production Customer Survey Finished Clay Tiles

Class Updates and Calendar Items

Room 214 is one productive place literally!
As you know from past email messages and blog posts, our class has conducted a study on natural disasters as it emerged from current events and our own passions and interests. As a result, weve researched natural disasters and written informational articles, designed product ideas for an upcoming fundraiser for the Philippines, and held the Great Paper Airplane Debate. At this point in our study, we have completed our nonction writing and are hard at work producing, surveying, researching, and advertising. It has been a whirlwind of a ride, believe me! Our products include paper airplanes (F light for the Philippines), cork characters (Crazy Corks), foil roses (Razzle Dazzle Roses), toilet paper tube owls (Feathered Friends), clay tiles (Fun Tiles), and duct tape ower pencils (Tapetastic Pencils). What fun! We will share our study at Town Meeting on Friday, March 21st. To that end, students have retraced our steps and are writing scripts for each segment of our presentation. Please plan to attend if you can it promises to be both educational and entertaining! After a hurricane comes a rainbow... We will sell our creative products to the Wickliffe community prior to Spring Break. The exact schedule has yet to be determined, but the fundraiser will be held at various times during the week of March 24th. The fth grade classes will hold their annual Made in the USA Marketplace during that time, as well. In the meantime, we will attend Wickliffes annual book fair tomorrow (Wednesday, March 12th). Look for your childs wish list in his/her backpack tomorrow afternoon and send orders to school on Thursday and/or Friday of this week. We have also begun a study of American history using historical ction to jumpstart the study. Each child is in a book group, reading a novel from a different time period. We are working to build context for our spring study of U.S. history. As part of our study, we have planned eld trips in April and May. Along with that, well set up and conduct a variety of scientic experiments that may or may not relate to U.S. history! Stay tuned for more information about the eld trips and other fun spring events!

Principle #5: We engage in thematic studies and foster authentic and emergent learning experiences.