iTouch Apps and the City of Ember

We just finished our read-aloud The City of Ember.  It was just about the best book we have ever read. 
In class, we created videos with iTouches in which we acted out scenes from the book.
But today we took the Doodle Buddy app and created these pictures that represent the story of Lina and Doon.

This picture shows what Lina, Doon, and Poppy saw when they made it to the end of the tunnel. 

This pictures show how the City of Ember looks.  I chose the sky as gray because it is always dark.  The picture shows a city scene and the brown building where people can live.

This picture shows Doon, Lina, and Poppy looking at the fox in the city of light. 

This picture shows Lina and Doon looking in the new land.

Drawing pictures on Doodle Buddy helps us show our ideas in a digital way. 

We really loved The City of Ember and some of use are even reading Book 2:  The People of Sparks. 

We will never forget this exciting book! 
What did you like best about using Doodle Buddy?  What prediction do you have about The People of Sparks? 

QR Codes

We have been learning all about QR codes.  They are like bar codes and contain lots of information.  Mrs. Alaniz made one for our class blog.  Now, visitors to our class scan the code and quickly get the link to our blog.


But we wanted to make our own QR code. Since we have been writing poems in Writer's Workshop, we decided to write poems about locations in our school (the gym, the PE, the cafeteria, the library, the music room, the office, the teacher's lounge, the playground, and art room). We typed them on Google Apps, and  used the Neo Reader app on our iTouches to create QR codes. 

A student is scanning a QR code to make sure the right poem pulls up!

We printed the codes online, posted them around the school, and invited our fellow students to read the poems with iTouches.
We call this "Poetry in Motion". Now fellow students are scanning the codes and enjoying our poetry at the same time!
Here's one of the poems we wrote:

Playground

Whoosh, whoosh swings coming by

watch out so you don’t get kicked in the eye

my turn my turn let me on.

Cool stunt but don’t lose your grip

go,go oh no someone's hurt no more monkey bars.

Jump, jump, chase, chase

running around playing games.

Four square campfire, tag you're it.

Bounce, bounce,pass, pass shoot the three.

Kick, kick goal!

Whistle, whistle now it's over.

What did you like about this project? 

Shuttle Launch: Endeavour

 Today at 7:56 a.m at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the shuttle Endeavour began its final mission.

We watched a video of the liftoff in class today.  We thought it was awesome because some of us had never seen a liftoff before.   There was a lot of smoke and a countdown that was full of suspense!

The Endeavour is headed to the International Space Station to deliver supplies and parts for a robot. We are going to keep track of the shuttle’s action in space.  What did you think of the liftoff?

iTouches in the Classroom

Our school has a set of iTouches. They have many apps that help us learn.

We like the iTouches because they are small, easy to put away and  easy to handle.  Mrs. Alaniz calls them "pocket computers". 

It is our turn to use them, and we think they're the greatest! They help us understand technology better.

For our morning/word work, we played some word game apps.
We played Mad Libs and Hangman.  In Hangman there were choices of which kind of word you wanted to guess on.  Partners picked western words such as saddle and boots.

In Reader's Workshop, Mrs. Alaniz read aloud a chapter of The City of Ember and recorded it using Voice Memo. 

Now, anyone who is absent can listen to her read.

As she read, we typed our responses on the Notes app.

Here, two 4D students are responding to events in the book.  We're at a really exciting part! 

While Mrs. Alaniz was reading, we learned some new vocabulary words using Dictionary.com:

We learned that falter means to stumble.

We also read an e-book called The Lorax.

Reading this book was fun because the pages were interactive!

(We'll tell you more about this book in another post!)

These little gadgets can do much more than you may think!
What did enjoy the most about using the iTouches? 

5,000 Page Views!

5,000+

Visitors!

Wow! 

Earlier in the school year, our class set a goal for our blog:  reach 5,000 page views!  

Last week, while we were on our Austin trip, our blog reached this goal!  Thanks to all of our wonderful visitors!

4D is EXCITED about this.  On May 9th, we hit 5,195!

We have to especially tell this to Mr. McLain, our favorite principal!   

Have You Read This Book Yet?

Are you a Rick Riordan fan? He is the author of The Lightning Thief books which many fourth graders have read. 
Last week, his newest book was released.  It is the second installment in the Kane Chronicles series: 


from barnesandnoble.com



Mrs. Alaniz is currently reading this book.  Are you looking forward to getting a copy? What did you love about the first book: The Red Pyramid?



Austin Field Trip

Learning Texas history is part of our 4th grade curriculum.  To celebrate our learning, fourth graders visited the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, Texas.

This museum was built in 2001 and was the vision of our 38th Lieutenant Governor, Bob Bullock.  He was a student of Texas history and was also a Secretary of State for Texas.  Mr. Bullock died before the museum was built. 

Inside the museum, we found this quote from Sam Houston:

We saw many fascinating exhibits in the museum that told the history of Texas -- from the view of the explorers, the Native Americans, and the settlers.  

At the gift shop, we bought a bunch of interesting items (souvenirs) that had something to do with Texas.  Most of us had money left over.  One of us had only two cents left! 

We also visited the Texas Capitol.   It was very big and its outer walls are made of granite.  When we walked in, we looked up and this is what we saw:

Inside the capitol we also saw this statue of Stephen F. Austin.  It was created by Elisabet Ney, a German-American sculptor. We had read about her in our social studies book.

Our trip was so much fun!  We learned so much about Texas history!

We also brought along some healthy snacks for the bus ride.

What part of the trip was your favorite? 



Have You Heard of The Lunch Lady?



Here are two of the installments in the series!

Have you ever heard of a graphic novel?  It's a  genre that is really appealing to young readers. 


GRAPHIC NOVELS are fiction books that tell a story using illustrations and words.  In a graphic novel, both the words and the pictures are very important in the story. 


The Lunch Lady graphic novels are very popular in 4D right now.  (We only have a few copies, so we are passing them around and sharing.)  Our students love these books because the story moves quickly. 

Each story is a mystery, and the heroine, Lunch Lady, fights crime along with Betty, her sidekick and three curious students (Hector, Dee, and Terrence). 


Which installment is your favorite?