Solve this one:
Al, Beth, Chuck, and Dean are standing in line. Chuck is standing in back of Dean. Beth is standing in front of Al. Dean is not first. List the names of the kinds in line in order from first to last! Comment your answer to this post or solve it in Club Geek.

Have a good weekend, kids, Enjoy the nice, mild weather. See you on Monday.

P.S. Be sure to complete any corrections you may have.

Sorry to not get a blog out yesterday. I did want to take a moment here to publicly say, "Thank you!" Your behavior on the bus and at the theatre was outstanding. You represented our school and my class well. I heard a few comments from the ushers saying how well behaved and mature you were. I hope all of your parents know, and read this, so that they can feel the pride that I do.

Be sure to read Leah's Pony tonight for our comprehension test tomorrow. Also, I am looking for someone to start a thread in Club Geek in the Classwork area. I would like someone to write their spelling list out. It would be fun to see if a bunch of us could do it. If four of you manage to do it, I will write the words ten times each! Really, I will. Hahahahaha

Here is the classwork for the day:

Just as a reminder, you will need to bring a lunch tomorrow to eat in the classroom. We will be eating an early lunch (around 10:30!!) so that we can leave on our bus around 11:00. We should be back around 2:30 pm just in time for Phy Ed class. Remember not to bring your portable music player or gaming machine because they are not allowed on the bus. See you tomorrow morning!!

Here is the classwork for the day:

Today, we started a new spelling list that teaches us about building compound words, so, in that case, one word plus another word gives us one (larger) word. Strange how spelling messes with our math!

Just a reminder that our field trip will be on Wednesday of this week. We will be leaving around 11:00 and returning by 2:30. We should have time to squeeze in reading and spelling. Here is the classwork for the day:

This week we began comparing and studying the metric system of measurement with that of standard American measurements. Even though we are more familiar with standard measurements, it is nice to work with the numbers that come with the metric system. Anyway, here is the classwork for the day. Make sure your corrections for your social studies tests are finished by tomorrow!

Sorry for not getting a blog post out yesterday. Somehow the day just got busier and busier, but that is behind us now. I will keep this post short because I know that many of us are busy these evenings with our lives and parent-teacher conferences. Have a good night and I will see you tomorrow.

Well, it finally happened. After a few of my students' vacations to Mexico, I finally got my burrito!! Now I am a very happy teacher. Thanks to Eleanore and Mom, I finally got to enjoy the warm, spicy goodness of a wonderful burrito. Thanks! You made my week!

In other news, we scored a 99% class average on our spelling tests this week and a wonderful, record setting class average of a 97% on our reading comprehension tests for the story Lon Po Po. Great work, kids. You writing is becoming mechanically perfect, and your sentence structures are beautiful. I am impressed by how well you are using your resources to answer the questions correctly, too.

In Club Geek news, we are only 35,000 hits away from earning a class pizza party. So, this weekend some time, register if you have not - or log in and chit chat with friends. Post some questions, make some polls, show off some fun pictures, or whatever you want. I have posted some family videos in the Media Sharing section of my baby girl, Nadia. There is even a video of my sister and I when we were very, very young. Hope you enjoy them.

Have a good weekend, kids, and let your parents know that I am looking forward to seeing them at the parent/teacher conferences coming up. If your parent needs to contact me about changing a time, direct them to the "Email Me" page. Bye-bye!

~Mr. M

Happy Birthday, Dani!!
Have a great evening, kids. Here is the classwork:

This week we have been studying standard measurements in math class. Today we made clowns using gallons, quarts, pints, and cups. We then hung them up in the room. Hopefully, this activity and hanging them up around the room will help us on our test in the future.

Also, below are some pictures of us acting out Why Mosquitos Buzz in People's Ears from last week. Enjoy:

Here is the classwork for the day:

Not much news, just the classwork:

Great job this week, Kids! I was really impress with how hard you are working and your commitment to making sure that all of your corrections are made. Have a great weekend and head on over to Club Geek some time over the weekend and check out the new features! The only work some of you may have is our handwriting practice of uppercase A and O. See you on Monday, I'm off to celebrate Nadia's first birthday. Look for pictures in Club Geek in the Media Sharing section sometime this weekend. I hope to capture a picture of her with cake all over her face!

Oh, and head on over to the photos area to see pictures of our Valentine's Day Party. Also, check out the new multiplication and division downloads!

This week we unrolled a new classroom policy for almost every assignment. After checking with me, all corrections are made on the spot. Kids, tell your parents to look for the green signature above your grade. That green signature of mine lets you and your parents know that I have seen your corrections on a particular assignment.

Please re-register in Club Geek if you are interested in some online fun. The new software that I am running allows you to have a lot of control in your "user Control Panel". Also, uploading media from your hard drive is a lot easier - no need for a digital briefcase. So, you will notice that page is gone now.

Here is the classwork for the day:

Today we learned a bit about traveling west as a pioneer. We learned about wagon trains and their leaders, what kind of stuff to bring along, and some of the dangers of life on the trail. Feel free to play Westward Trail to get a virtual feel for this experience. Click the image to play the game. I have also added the game to our social studies games.

I have also updated the sidebar to include more current events that are coming up. If I have missed one please let me know.

Today we reviewed mixtures and began to discuss solutions in science. Check out the link for more information about these two vocabulary words in science. Check out this resource for more information about solutions and mixtures. There are movies, pictures and other activities there for you to explore. For some extra practice comment below one example of a solution and one example of a mixture.

Today we also began our review of multiplication for our test on chapter 18 in math. Head on over to our downloads section to practice if you wish. There are math facts and multiplication activities to browse through.

Also, Club Geek is in repair right now. I upgraded the software to try and keep out the bots, but lost all of our conversations. Please reregister yourselves remembering to use your first name and last initial in this format: Firstname L. - I would be Rocco M. Choose a password and submit your email address and wait for me to ok it.

Have a great night, kids. Here is the classwork for the day:

Today we spent quite a while working on the multiplication of larger numbers. I was really impressed with how well you kids stuck to your work and made sure you got all of your problems on the first sheet correct. Here is the work for the day:

There are no challenge words for the week in spelling. We will be learning 16 homophones. Check them out here from our spelling chalkboard:

Homophones are words that have the same sound, but different spellings and meanings. Here is a link to more than 100 of them. Post your favorite to this post using the commenting system. Lastly, here is the homework for the day:

As a reminder, we will be having our Valentine's Day party next week Thursday in the morning. The party will begin sometime around 10:30AM. All parents are welcome to attend and celebrate this holiday with us.

Remember that you are responsible for bringing in a self-decorated Valentine's Day mailbox and valentine cards for each of the members of our class. Attached is a class list of first names for you to download. I will send a paper copy home if requested.

School is closed for the day! We will have our "Bring Your Portable Music Player to School Day" next week Wednesday. Have a great day!

~Mr. M

Well, that was our lesson today in social studies. Please share with your parents what these three things have in common. Just as a foot will grow at the expense of the shoe, the sun will grow at the expense of the inner planets, suburban communities grow at the expense of an animal's natural habitat. We had a great discussion about that, and we had a good review of multiplication for our test tomorrow. We will be testing on our 9's and 10's facts, along with three digit multiplication, and missing factors. Solve these for a little extra practice and comment your answers:
1. 9X4=?
2. 6X9=?
3. 10X0=?
4. 7X10=?
5. 2X4X5=?
6. 1X5X3=?
7. 6X2X4=?
8. 4X?=12
9. ?X3=36
10. Rodney wanted to ride a roller coaster with two of his friends. Each ticket cost them 5 dollars. After the first ride they all wanted to go again. How much money did the whole group spend on roller coaster tickets altogether?

Due to the winds and the crazy wind chill, our school district has closed for the day. Enjoy your Wednesday off. If you are bored, head on over to Club Geek. I'll be checking in throughout the day. Talk to you all later!

~Mr. M

Sorry about forgetting to blog, I guess I was busy chit-chatting with you at the end of the day. It was great hearing your opinions about your report cards - what you are proud of and what you would like to improve on. I am really impressed with how you all seem to be "owning" your education. Here is the classwork for the day.

Here is a link to something cool. It is the cockpit of an Airbus. I don't know much about these large planes, but check out this 3D panoramic view from the inside! Pay attention to the details! Anyone think they could fly this thing?

Today, I raised the bar of expectations that we are going to have for ourselves. It is that point in the year where we slide into writing like fourth graders. What this means is that complete sentences with proper mechanics. i know many of you are nervous about the consequences of this, but it will be old hat soon enough. Your fourth grade teachers will be impressed! You are all great kids who can do wonderful work, trust me - I see you every day.

We will be writing a lot of nonfiction and use those grades as our writing grades. So, our writing grades will reflect our work in social studies, math, science, and reading - along with our writing projects.

Have a good night, kids, and remember your capital letters, punctuation marks, and proper spelling!

Today we were taking our science concept (exploring matter by breaking it down to its basic elements - atoms) to English class. We were practicing all of our English skills by breaking down sentences to their atoms, or parts of speech. We were trying to identify subjects, predicates, nouns, adverbs, adjectives, and verbs in sentences. Here is our work:

Great job, kids!!!
Here is the classwork for the day:

In addition to posting your classwork for the day, I want to suggest something for you to do at home to help you progress through your multiplication math facts. Head on over here and get the individual level you are on and practice it the day (or morning) before you take it here in class.

Here is the classwork for the day:

After our two hour delay, we began our new quarter (and grade book) with a POD, or problem of the day. Mathematics brought us into our multiplication facts, as some of you are going to collect more data about your performance. Good for you! Who knows what you will find, that's what makes collecting data interesting. Anyway, here is the classwork for the day:

There is a two hour delay this morning, so I will be seeing you all around 10:45 instead of 8:45. Eat an extra pancake for me!

Have a great weekend, kids. You did a great job this week scoring a class average of 98% on your spelling tests, a 95% on your chapter 10 multiplication test, and a 93% on your Centerfield Ballhawk comprehension tests. Great work!

Monday there will be no school for you, but I will be here finishing up your report cards. One great little bit of data that I ran across was about missing work, or work that is turned in late. During the first quarter there were 67 assignments turned in late. During the second quarter there were only 17 assignments turned in late.

Here are some pictures of our classroom computer that we have been taking apart. Great job, kids, it seems you are wonderful at this type of thing. Now the next step is to put it all back together correctly again.

Next week we will be starting our multiplication timed tests, head on over here to get a head start.

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to add all of your suggestions of books and software to our store. Keep checking back! Talk to you later. Below are some pictures from your performance at our Pride assembly.

~Mr. M

Thanks for bringing in all of your DS's! You made spelling today a great success! We will try that again next week. Be sure to study for your spelling test tomorrow.

Here is the classwork for the day:

Tomorrow is our first "Bring Your DS to School Day"!!! If your parents approve and trust you to be careful with your Nintendo DS, you can bring it to school. We will be using the mesh networking technology to take advantage of the chat feature built into the DS. We will be doing this during spelling. Instead of using chalk slates, we will have groups in chat rooms on DS's writing their answers. Should work out, should be fun! Remember to get your parents' permission, first!

Many of you have science homework, or should bring your science home. The main point, and change from previous work, is that you begin to become proficient at writing your thoughts down in complete sentences. I do not expect everyone to be perfect right away, but I do expect us to be wonderful by the end of the school year. Writing about science and math in complete sentences will set you apart from every other fourth grade student next year. You can do it! Written expression is a skill that will take you far in life.

Even though tomorrow is Thursday, we will be having our comprehension test for Centerfield Ballhawk. Click here to do some online activities for the story.

I want to remind you kids first that we have a PRIDE Assembly on Friday morning. Please remember to wear your blue Pride shirts Friday morning.

PARENTS - - - I have added an Amazon store to this site. Feel free to browse, even though there is not much there yet. I will be adding dozens of books. I would love suggestions, also. Treat this store like a like the traditional book orders from schools, but you get to purchase without cash and get the books sent directly to you.

PARENTS - - - I have also added an Educational Downloads area, too. Right now there are math fact timed tests galore in it. If you would like your child to get some extra practice, download away! If you would like your child to get a head start practicing multiplication, feel free to take as many of those as you want. Challenge your child to a math fact race! They are getting pretty fast.

Lastly, I will be busy tonight watching the MacWorld Expo Keynote by Steve Jobs. Its Apple's release of all of their way cool new technologies. Here is the classwork for the day:

This morning was the final activity with UW Oshkosh's Science Outreach program. Follow the previous link to see their web site filled with links to other web resources.

We attended many short science lessons this morning learning about how hover crafts work, UV materials, endo/exothermic reactions, earthquakes, and phases of the moon. This was a great cumulative activity to do with our class. We all seemed to have quite a bit of fun. Thirty new photos have been added to our SIR photo album. Here are some of the pictures that I took:

Have a great weekend, kids! Hope you had as fun of a week as I did.

Tags: sir

Today we learned about comets and what makes up a comet. Kids, use the commenting system to name the parts that make up a comet, and to name what materials a comet is made of. More pictures have been added to our album. Feel free to check them out.

Also, some of you were interested in binary as a language. So, we learned how to make letters and symbols in binary. Pretty cool, huh??
Here is Tommy L.'s:

I wonder what it says?? Hmmmm??
Here is the work for the day:

Tags: sir

Thirty-six new photos have been added to our SIR (Science in Residence) photo gallery. Today we reviewed what we learned about scale models by using balloons to to make models of the Earth, our moon, and Mars. This gave us a great comparison to see the relative size of these objects. We also were able to understand the distance between these objects by keeping them in scale.

Next we learned about the telescopes and how the atmosphere can interfere with what we are seeing from Earth. We then practiced surveying a mystery planet from space without an atmosphere, comparing observations.

Lastly, we observed how meteors impact the surface of a moon or planet by dropping different sized objects into a fake surface. Check out the pictures for more details.

As you notice on our planner sheet, there was not a lot of classwork today. We are in the middle of taking our district assessments. We should be finished with everything by the end of the week. Next week we will continue with our current spelling list and language arts story.

Congrats on your math tests, our class average was a 93%!!

Club Geek Challenge:
1. Find a picture on the internet for 5 or more of your spelling words.
2. Upload them to our Digital Briefcase.
3. Go to this thread and paste each of our pictures along with the correct spelling of each word.
4. Look for me to post back, get your reward in the morning.

Tags: sir

SIR (Science in Residence) has begun! Today we met our college age scientists from UW Oshkosh who are cementing in some finishing concepts from our study of space. Today we learned about scale models and why they are useful. We also built a scale model of the Sun and compared it to a scale model of Jupiter. We learned that all models have to be shrunk down the same amount in order to compare them accurately. After making these models we were able to view scaled models of stars that are much larger than our Sun.

We also learned that 109 Earths would fit in a line across the sun. With the Earth able to have 4 of our moons fitting across it, that would total 109x4=436 moons across the Sun! Wow!! We also learned that our moon has a name, Luna.

Lastly, we sorted stars by temperature, color, and size.

I have taken a bunch of photos on my iPhone, but it died and I have no power here at school for it. When I get home I will upload the photos and make another blog post to let you know they are up. Each day I will add photos to the album. By Friday we should have quite a few photos. Check back later tonight for the first batch of photos.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring? It should be fun!!

What was your favorite activity today? Comment below!!

Congratulations are in order. Mackenzie, you did a great job accomplishing the Club Geek Challenge below. Anyone else want to give it a shot? You have until the end of the week.
Club Geek Challenge:
1. Find a picture on the internet for 5 or more of your spelling words.
2. Upload them to our Digital Briefcase.
3. Go to this thread and paste each of our pictures along with the correct spelling of each word.
4. Look for me to post back, get your reward in the morning.

Tags: sir

I am finally feeling better after being out of school on Friday. The doctor said that I have a sinus infection. I am going to have to take all of my vitamins and eat all my veggies to get healthy again. I also have to take my medicine. Can you believe this weather? It feels like spring. I am half expecting flowers to blossom and bunnies to begin hopping around. Doesn't this warmer weather and thunderstorms make you feel strange? Anyway, be sure to bring your boots to school. Even though we may not get outside in weather like this, you sure will want your boots if we do get outside.

Club Geek Challenge:
1. Find a picture on the internet for 5 or more of your spelling words.
2. Upload them to our Digital Briefcase.
3. Go to this thread and paste each of our pictures along with the correct spelling of each word.
4. Look for me to post back, get your reward in the morning.

Here is the classwork for the day:

Tags: photos

Just the classwork today, kids:

Welcome back from our long break! It seems like forever since we were doing Rocket Math, reading a story together, and learning about words. Before I go on I just want to take another moment to say thank you for all of the wonderful gifts you shared with me this holiday season. Although I only got to unwrap a few with you at school, Nadia and I had a great time uncovering those great surprises!

Secondly, thanks for remembering our classroom policy on talking in the hallway. I was so pleasantly greeted by all of you being perfect young students in the hallway. Nothing makes a teacher more proud than to see his class behave the way you all do.

I am looking forward to a new year and a new grading quarter starting in two weeks. These are the last few weeks to get as good of grades as you can before report cards come out. Also, Parent/Teacher Conferences will soon be following report cards being sent home. Check back here for updates. I'll try to put them all in the side bar.

Talk to you later!

Tags: thank you

the big performance, and all through the school the third graders were practicing, performing, and preparing . . . Oh, sorry, just was thinking about our big day tomorrow. Most of the day we will be at the PAC practicing, then performing for our school in the afternoon. In the evening we will be meeting in the balcony of the PAC by 6:15. I will be there around 5:45. Just look for me and you will be in the right spot. The performance will begin right away at 6:00. Those who are in the choir will be starting the show, the rest of you will be with me.

In other news, we have earned a reward for all of your hard work finishing your homework. We will be watching a science fiction narrative called 2057 The City. It ties into all of the concepts of social studies that we are learning. What will communities be like in the year 2057? What will kids' toys be like? What will computers be like? What will traveling be like? All of those questions and more are ones that are addressed in this movie.

You are welcome to bring a personal snack on the morning of Friday, December 21, when we will be watching 2057 The City. The snack cannot be sugary, though. Crackers, dry cereal, pop corn, granola bars, and other similar snacks are fine. If you have any questions about snacks, ask away in Club Geek or by commenting this post.

Not much to say today kids. Make sure that your writing projects are finished for tomorrow. We will be sharing them in small and large groups for the next few days. Here is the classwork for the day: