About Ms. Bonzo

 

This is the theme that our door shows!

The kids expressed that a lot has happened over the past 20 months and it has been hard and scary. We talked about how knowing difficult times is part of life and so is knowing that deep inside is the light of hope that keeps us going!

 

The little elf ornament that each person created fits with our Enchanted Elf Escapades Gift Exchange. The lightbulb has a quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning who lived when Lewis and Clark did. It reads."Light Tomorrow with Today." The cloud that those two items are hanging from represents the cloud of sadness and confusion from these past months.

 

 

 

 

 Enchanted Elf Escapades is underway!!

 

These fun helpers, Declan, Wyatt, and Medora, are reminding us all that we have started our class game. It is a fun one!

The kids filled out information about themselves to share with others--things like favorite color, etc. Another classmate elf will get the name next week and the third week, the gifts will be exchanged. It is really a nice way to show how we have grown together! 

Everyone is keeping the name of who they get deep inside their 4th-grade brains! That way the game is fun and inexpensive (A $10 only budget for both gifts.)

Tis the season of merriment and light! 😁  

 

P.S. The theme they worked together on to create  for our door was  "Feel the light in the darkest night." 

 

 

More collaboration from looking at the distance that Lewis and Clark traveled. We thought about it "as the crow flies" and actually by following the Missouri and Columbia rivers. You can see Benja, Spencer, Conner, Grayson, and Wyatt checking out and on each other's work. :)

Rulers are complicated and using them takes a lot of practice!

 Here you can see Ely, Clover, and Lila putting up their results for their table group. Working together and individually to correctly measure the information from the map is a multistep task that requires perseverance. It was good to get the kids to remember that cooperation happens because we have two ears and one mouth! Listening allows more voices to engage in the discussion.

 

Understanding and then creating a graphic organizer for information takes time and many conversations. The kids did a very good job presenting their ideas and about how to show the information. Three students, Timber, Benja, and Declan, had their work chosen by their classmates at the strongest, meaning following the rubric most closely.

Each student has come a long way getting work completed in a timely manner and using our tools in class appropriately,

This work will come home tomorrow for you to "Ooh and Aah" over. :)

 

Hope you all have a restful and meaningful Thanksgiving with friends and family if you are able to share it.  

Take Care! Ms. Bonzo🦉

 

      Emily and Benja who are Teacher's Assistants this week did the tally work. Each student got to choose between one salty Cheez It or one sweet Sour Patch chewy. As the kids chose, the TAs colored in the fraction. That way what was chosen was represented in the fractional model.

       The reason there was a choice between salty or sweet is that, at two different Morning Meetings, motions have been made for what will be the reward for all the good stuff the kids are doing. Yet, there hasn't been a unanimous choice even with all the good discussion. So today, I thought it would be fun to do an experiment and see which direction the class would go and made a hypothesis that it would be about 1/2 and 1/2 from the discussions. And look-- completely different outcome!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids were a terrific audience for these amazing performers. It was fun to have so many family members be able to come too!

Check out the link to see a look at them. They perform tonight!

 

 

Thanks to Festival Dance and its sponsors for providing this opportunity to students in our county. It was the first 'live' performance for most of the students! 

 

       Today during Math, I had the kids take fractions and make the strips that show what they look like from 1 whole to 1/12 of the whole. They used a ruler, scissors, colored pencils, and a black and white template that I gave them. (That is the one you will see at home and we folded them accordion style.)

 

The colorful ones, even in the ROYGBIV pattern, we kept at school to use during this topic we are working on. 

The kids worked by (MP.6) attending to precision to get the parts equally sized.

 

 

We had an Usborne bookfair last week and Eliza donated a book to our class. She picked a great book! This book by Sophy Henn shows the actual size of animals or their parts.

She was walking around in this picture showing the kids and getting them to flap at the speed of a hummingbird. She showed the toenails of an elephant--only 2 could fit on the page! 

It is always neat to see the kids share ideas with each other.