Danielle's story that has no name...yet!

Maybe we should have a contest to "Name Danielle's Story."

Here we go:

On a foggy day, my step-sister, Stevie, and I were going to the mountains to go to the snow. But first we had to stop at Starbucks and then we were off.

We finally got there and we started to play. Then we rode our sleds down hills. We fell a lot. Then we moved to some different hills.

I was afraid because they were a lot steeper than the other hills. But I still went down it. It was really slippery and then I took the biggest fall of the day. First I turned around, then I flipped back over and fell off right in the middle of the hill and rolled down the rest of the way.

After that, we all had a snowball fight...boys against girls. There were 3 boys and 5 girls. We threw them hard and fast. The girls won. We played a little more before we went home to relax and dry off.

A few days later it was Christmas morning. We opened presents and I got a bunkbed, some Bratz dolls, a new pair of heeles, a new Ipod, and a fox jacket. Then we went to Grandmas to celebrate and open more presents. After that, we went home and went to bed.

It had been a fun Christmas, not only opening presents, but going to the snow.

Too Good For Drugs

Room 8, along with the other 4th grades, have just completed 2 lessons in the "Too Good for Drugs" program. Mrs. O comes into Room 8 every Thursday from 12:45 - 1:30 to teach us.

I believe the focus of this is tobacco...rather, to educate on the dangers of tobacco. However, tobacco hasn't been mentioned yet. What I like about this program is that it seems to be focused on making good choices, on planning, and making and setting goals. The subject of tobacco will come, but the groundwork is being set.

From this page of the workbook, you can see the focus on setting goals. These are things you can say that encourage. Those are 'Goal Boosters.'

If you aren't encouraging, then that's a goal buster.

In these last three photos, you can see some Room 8ers doing some role-playing.





Mrs. O is explaining to Tyler what he is going to play.

I wonder if Macey is giving Tyler a Goal-Booster .... or a Goal Buster?
Elijah, Kyle A, and Macey ready to do their part.

The Eggnog Blunder, by Dillon

We've been writing short stories about something that happened over the two week winter break. I asked Room 8 about putting them on the blog so everyone could read them. They were definitely in favor of it. So here goes our first story...by Dillon.

It was a dark, stormy night in Pennsylvania, not really. It was actually quite warm and sunny. It was Christmas Eve Day and still my brother didn't know who his Secret Santa was. Grandpa got pushed into the pool and I thought it was funny. Plus, it was only a few more minutes until the Eggnog Drinking Contest.

Stop, everytime before the contest, we hide things we need from each other. Like Grandma with her wig, she caught me red handed! But still I could hide my brother's best suit.

It was now Eggnog Drinking time. We would all have to drink a gallon of eggnog. I walked to the fridge to get the drink. When I opened the fridge, the eggnog was gone. So...we had an Eggnog Blunder.

We were rushing from store to store. Finally at Costco, we found some and headed home. When we got to the house and walked into the living room, Grandpa was sitting on the couch, watching football and drinking all the eggnog. He was so startled, he jumped up faster than a spring chicken.

It was time...on your mark...get set, go! We started drinking. It was funny. Hunter spilt it all over himself, but Grandpa won.

I think it's from all the eggnogg he drank before. We all still had fun.

Painting the parfleches

Once we had designed our parfleche, it was time to add some color. Room 8 had the choice to paint or use markers. Most chose painting... All of them are turning out beautiful! Look at these:
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Designing our parfleches

Today we read about the Plains Indians who used parfleches. This 'envelope' way we folded ours is the same way the Plains tribes did. However, they also had boxed and tubular parfleches...according to what the parfleche was used for.

The Plains tribes used many geometric designs on their parfleches. We looked at some of those plus some Native American symbols and their meanings. From there, we started to draw our designs on our parfleche.
Mary
Jacob and Kamren
Casey J
Devin
Elijah
Edin
Dillon

Once we finished our design, then Room 8'ers had a choice to color it with markers or paint. I've always had students use markers, but in reading about parfleches, paint was suggested. I think a few Room 8'ers got a bit frustrated with the paint...we'll see how many switch to markers tomorrow!

Parfleche

A parfleche is a type of bag some Native Americans used for carrying items that a basket wasn't necessarily good for...like clothing, foods, and other goods. Among many tribes, it was the women's job to make and decorate the parfleche.

In Room 8, we are studying some of the California tribes. Now I don't know if our tribes made parfleches, but we're making them in Room 8....out of paper sacks, not rawhide, like the tribes used.

We started with a paper sack...(hide)...and we twisted/untwisted/twisted/untwisted the sack (beat it with a stick) to remove all the hair (to break down the fibers).
First we cut down one side fold of a sack and cut off the bottom.


After wading the sack up in a ball, we then CAREFULLY smoothed it out and rubbed it vigorously along the side of our desks.
Look at the speed of Carlo!
Looks like Madison has the rhythm of getting her 'rawhide' ready to go!Devin's got the stance...notice how he's bracing himself with his feet. He probably broke a sweat doing this!Austin is working hard on his, too.

After we finished this part, we folded it - sort of like a large envelope. This was a common way the tribes folded theirs. That's where we stopped on Friday.

Tuesday, we should start drawing our designs. They will be symmetrical with some geometric shapes and Native American symbols. We will then paint them...then sew the sides with yarn.

Be watching...they're always beautiful!

Math Centers

Tuesday and Wednesday we rotated through math centers. Room 8 loves it when we have centers.I tried to get a picture of how we were spread out in the room for centers. Over by the sink, you can see Mrs. W with her Rack-O center. Sitting in the back desks, you can see some of our Independent Center. In the top left of the photo, you can see most of Mrs. T's Tile Math Center...and then last but not least, you can see Amber and Emily from the Adding and Subtracting Decimals center.

We had 4 centers and did two a day. That means it took each student 2 days to get through all 4. In my center, I was teaching adding and subtracting of decimals. For example, how would you set up a problem such as 14.1 - 8.37? We learned that the most important thing to remember when setting up a decimal addition or subtraction problem is to LINE UP THE DECIMALS.
Look how excited we are to be learning about adding and subtracting decimals!

In Mrs. T's center, Room 8 worked on Tile Math. There were two different ones - PEMDAS and something like T-Tables. These are more difficult than you would think!

In Mrs. W's center, we learned a new math game called Rack-o. This is a game of ordering numbers in ascending order. We are loving having and getting to know Mrs. W in Room 8.

Our fourth center was an independent center. (no adult) In this center, students worked on a math page like the ones we normally have.

I had several students today say to me, "Mrs. Johnston, I just LOVE decimals!"

Happy New Year... and off we go with the bus posters

Happy New Year! It's hard to believe it's 2008 - doesn't it seem like school hasn't been going on long enough for it to be January?

We said good-bye to Miss Cunningham...although only a temporary good-bye. She'll be back to visit (actually, she came up to the school today!) and we wish her a wonderful time in her new placement - a 2/3 combination classroom!

We said Hello and Welcome to Mrs. W! She'll be with us for the rest of this year. I'm excited to have Mrs. W. join Room 8...I told her she was so very fortunate to have this class to student teach with.

Yesterday and today we worked on BUS POSTERS! (Well, we worked on lots of other topics too!) Each year, our transportation department encourages teachers to involve their students in creating posters around a certain theme. The theme this year is "Miles of Smiles on a Yellow School Bus"...

Fortunately, I took some photos when they first started...but unfortunately I FORGOT today to take some of the finished posters - and they had to be turned in as soon as school was over.

Take a look at some of our posters in the making....

Whew! Look at our construction!

Thursday was a big day in Room 8!

From 10:45 till noon, we constructed our Gingerbread Houses. They are masterpieces in my opinion. I was so impressed, I took 70 photos which I'm putting all on a slide show!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

After the Gingerbread Houses, the Recycling Center came in to give us our PIZZA PARTY for winning the Phone Book Recycling at our school. They told us that not only did we win first place in our school, but we recycled the most books of any classroom IN THE COUNTY!

Room 8, you're the best in every single way!

Merry Christmas, Courtney!

Remember those pop-up cards we were making for Courtney?
I almost forgot to give them to her!

Courtney was here a few minutes early on Tuesday. We were just talking while Room 8 had an 'inside recess' because of the rain. Once recess ended, Courtney started reading (and finished Because of Winn Dixie). She read a few minutes longer so she could finish. As she was leaving, Casey O. ran up and whispered in my ear that we hadn't given her the cards! Oh gee whiz! Thank you, Casey O for rescuing my forgetfulness!
Room 8 was SO excited to watch Courtney open her cards...her beautiful cards!

Merry Christmas, Courtney!

Matching shirts

This is what greeted me as I walked in yesterday...

These are not twins...this is Austin and Kyle W.

As I was snapping this picture, Casey J pointed out to me that he and Michael both had on blue shirts.

"Well, Casey J, that calls for a picture!" I told him. Casey nodded his head in agreement.
And then here is Casey J and Michael...both in blue shirts!

What a BUSY week this has been!

In the beginning of the year, I would tell parents - "In room 8, we work hard - but we like to party hard too!" Well, this week we've just partied our hearts out...and we still have tomorrow!

We made crafts...you'll see them come home tomorrow:

Austin is 'making his list'....
Carlo is making his list... uh-oh, looks like ... well, he thinks he's getting coal. I'm not sure that's a good sign
Dillon has a LONG list!
Macey is thinking what to add to hers...
Dillon and Kyle A are painting their spools.
Look how careful Casey J is while he paints!
Trevor is just a happy guy!
This was our room arrangement for our crafts....
We just turned our desks around so we were facing the person we usually sit across from...
It worked well for paint supplies...and then for the gingerbread houses!

The craft times weren't necessarily a "party" but Room 8 had lots of fun doing them!