Our First Mystery Skype!

This week the students in 4A participated in their first Mystery Skype session. 

In a Mystery Skype, two classes meet via Skype, but neither is aware of the other's location.

Before the session, each class writes several clues as to the location of their state.  One by one, clues are exchanged as the students hope to figure out the mystery location.

Here were some of the clues our class provided:

• We are southwest of Maine.
• Our state capital is Austin.
• Our state flower is the bluebonnet.
• We can be found along the Gulf Coast.
• We are the state where "everything is bigger and better"!

During the call, 4A students had several Skype jobs:

One student was the Timekeeper: he noted the elapsed time of our call. (19 minutes)

Four students worked in the Atlas group, ready to look through atlases as they heard clues.

Two students were ClueKeepers (writing clues for the other class).  Two students served as spokespersons taking turns providing the clues.

The rest of the students responded to the conversation via TodaysMeet, sharing ideas for solving the mystery.

Here are some clues the mystery class provided:

We are in the Great Lakes Region.
We are home to the Ford Motor Company and Kellogg's.
Our state capital is Lansing. 
Our state animal is the wolverine.

As a class, we guessed the location: 

MICHIGAN!

We were so happy when they guessed our location correctly, too!

Mrs. Powell's class is in fourth grade, too!

They have 29 students! 

We enjoyed meeting via Skype, and we hope to connect again!

All About Adaptations

Today in class we began learning about animal adaptations.  This is the web we created on the Smartboard to show our thinking. 
Here are some words to know:

mimicry

camouflage

disguise

How are camouflage and mimicry different? 

What questions do you have about animal adaptations so far?  

 

 

 

 

 

Our Class Read-Aloud

from BarnesandNoble.com

In class, Mrs. Alaniz has been reading from a wonderful book called A Dog's Life by Ann M. Martin.


The main characters is a dog named Squirrel. She faces many challenges in her life!  Every chapter is exciting and we can hardly wait for Mrs. Alaniz to keep reading.  She always stops at the exciting parts.
We are at the part where Squirrel is healing from a terrible encounter with some very hungry dogs.

We love this read-aloud and can hardly wait to hear more because the author writes so well!

Learning the Regions of Texas

In Social Studies we are learning about the four regions of Texas. They are:

MOUNTAINS AND BASINS
CENTRAL PLAINS
GREAT PLAINS
COASTAL PLAINS

Each region has its own unique qualities. We have been working in groups to study each region.   Through our research, we have learned about their landmarks, cities, landforms, and climate. 

Do you know the answer to these questions?

Which region is home to cattle ranches and dinosaur tracks?
Where is Palo Duro Canyon located?
Where is El Paso located?
Which region is home to both coastal and inland areas?

Read our Social Studies book (Chapter 2) to find out and test your knowledge of our state!

All About Arrays!

In class we have been studying arrays.  Groups of things often come in rectagular arrays.  We found that our classroom cubbies come in arrays.  Arrays are formed with rows and columns. 

Here's an array we found in our crayon box!
Arrays come in dimensions to identify the number of rows and columns.

We made this array in class today. Its dimensions are:

4 X 4

It has 16 tiles.  What other arrays can be formed with 16 tiles?What do you notice about arrays?  What other arrays have you seen? 



Banner for Bastrop

When wildfire hit the community of Bastrop, many people lost their homes.  Our school is sending support and good wishes to the school kids of Bastrop. 
Our fourth graders worked together to create this banner of cards.  It will be sent to Emile Elementary in Bastrop, TX. 
Every grade level at DCE made a banner for a different elementary school in their district.  

We send them our best and hope they recover soon!

Grandparent's/Special Friends Day

Friday was a special day at DCE.  Many visitors came to our school in celebration of Grandparents/Special Friends Day.  Our classroom was filled with loved ones!
We formed groups and created iTouch videos to highlight what we were studying in math, reading, writing, social studies, and science. We also showed our guests the vocabulary words we used. 
Mrs. Alaniz showed our classroom blog to our guests, too.
We made heart maps about ourselves to show what we love.

It was an exciting day! (We especially loved the cookies!)