Jamestown Survival by Harris

So to play the game Jamestown Survival, you need a dice and some game chips. So there is a board with a lot of captions that say either good stuff or bad stuff. If you roll a 4, you move up 4. If the square says you either got sick, died, or you are fine. If you are sick, you are fine. If you die, you have to go back, and if you go around the whole board you WIN.

How to Play Beat the Calculator by Cameron

For Beat the Calculator, you get a sheet and pick two cards. There are three players: the Caller, the Brain, and the Calculator. 

The caller calls out a problem using the cards. The player with the calculator has to beat the Brain and the Brain has to beat the Calculator. Then, if the Brain or the Calculator gets the answer correct, they win. And for the Calculator, you can't use your brain, you have to use the calculator. And the Brain can't use the calculator.

Play it, it's fun!!!

Multiplication Baseball by Connor

Multiplication Baseball is fun and competitive. The competition when you get to bat and you try to get on base. It is also when you're pitching, to try to never get easy an multiplication fact. And when you get up to bat, you always want to get a lucky fact.

It is fun when you are trying to get on base. When you are with your friends it makes it more fun. In conclusion, Multiplication Baseball is fun.

In the video above, Connor and Lucas demonstrate an inning of Multiplication Baseball. 

Published Book Reviews

Room 101 has recently published book reviews on our class book review blog, Room 101's Must Reads. You can read our book reviews here: http://fourthgrade101bookreviews.blogspot.com.

We chose to review books that we have strong opinions about and knew well (i.e. in addition to having read all of the book we chose, we also had some writing about our reading in our reader's notebook that we used to begin to gather our ideas about the book). During this unit, we studied mentor texts (published book reviews), paying particular attention to the structure and language used in the book reviews. We learned that, in addition to the reviewer's general opinion, book reviews often include a partial summary, thoughts on the author's craft, quotes from the book, and a recommendation for the type of reader who will enjoy the book. 

Having just finished our Touch Typing class, we took the opportunity to type our published pieces for the first time this year. The class worked in the computer lab for one writing workshop period, typing in a document through their Google Drive accounts. Typing in Google Drive allowed students to finish publishing at home. 

We hope our reviews help you find your next book!

Published Personal Essays Around Fair Haven

We're excited to share that our personal essays have been hung around town! Thanks to Sal, Ellie, Maddie, and their families for helping to hang these pieces.

Each hanging piece also has a QR code in front of it. The QR codes are the black and white images that can be scanned with a smartphone (there are free apps to scan them). Once the QR code is scanned, you'll be sent to a link that will allow you to listen to the class read our six word essays.

Here's a breakdown of whose pieces are where:

Tavolo - Patrick, Harry, Sophie, Jack M., Sal, Megan, Harris, Lily, Lucas, Christina M., Maisy, Braiden, Quinn, Chrisina U., and James

Fairwinds - Ellie, Caroline, and Connor

River Road Books - Maddie, Jack S., Maia, and Marcus

We're so thankful to these Fair Haven businesses for allowing us the space to share our writing!

How to Do Traditional and Extended Multiplication by Caroline

Why traditional and extended multiplication are important

Traditional and extended multiplication are important because you need to do them at random times. So for example, when you're at a grocery store and maybe you need to multiply the prices. It would be weird just standing at the register and not knowing what traditional and extended multiplication are. So for example: 5 bananas in each bag and you're getting 30 bags, so: 30 * 5 = 150.

Another example is if you have a job, you also need to know it at random times. So for example, if you wanted to know how many workers there would be in 2 days and there were 15 workers each day, you would have to know 15 * 2 = 30.

Traditional and extended multiplication are important.

In the videos below, Caroline demonstrates how to use the traditional algorithm to multiply by one and two digit multipliers.

Hershey Mass Production

We're currently studying the Northeast region in social studies. One of our essential questions is, "Why did our nation's first factories start here?" We learned that the water and people in the Northeast region influenced factories being built here. Many factories were built near rivers and used the water to power their factories. In addition, the Northeast's population provided people power for the factories.

We "stopped" at the Hershey Factory to learn about mass production. Students worked in groups of three and specialized in one job: wrap cutter, candy placer, or candy wrapper. For three minutes, students worked in an assembly line to (re)wrap Hershey Kisses. Groups wrapped between 8 and 15 pieces of candy during this time.

After the activity, we thought a little about what it would be like to work in a factory, specializing in one job, for a 40 hour work week. Many students recognized it may not be as exciting to do the same job for eight hours a day as it was to do it for three minutes in class.

The video below includes some photos and video of our mass production.

Hershey Mass Production from kate mills on Vimeo.