Water Cycle Story

We are writing stories about the water cycle.  Students are using a drop of water as their character.  Their character has to have a name and feelings.  We've worked on using similes and sound words in our stories.  This story will allow us to pull those in along with demonstrating our knowledge of the water cycle.  We are also working on transitioning from one part of the story to the next without using transition words of next and then.  After the stories are done the students will get to illustrate the story using Paint.  They will create a background that will be used for every page of the story and the background has to match the setting of the story.  The stories and illustrations will be used to create a PowerPoint presentation.  Then the slides will be turned into jpg files and used to create a PhotoStory3 presentation.  This gives us the opportunity to use the PowerPoint program and PhotoStory3.

Student examples:  http://mrscooksfantasticfourthgrade.blogspot.com/2012/01/some-more-water-cycle-stories-1-2-3.html

http://mrscooksfantasticfourthgrade.blogspot.com/2011/12/water-cycle-movies.html

Earthquake tremors in Kansas

After feeling tremors in Kansas from the Oklahoma earthquakes, the students were really curious about earthquakes.  We did a little research and then completed a graphic organizer comparing earthquakes to tornadoes.  The information was used to write compare/contrast sentences.  Students highlighted the compare/contrast signal words.  We added a topic sentence and a concluding sentence about which they would rather experience and why.  The paragraphs turned out great.  The students used Word to publish their paragraphs.

The venn diagram in the middle of the picture is NOT mine.  I had the website address on the paper in the hallway, but now I can't find it to put it on here.  I'll keep looking as it is a great resource and the creator needs credit for it.

The sticky notes are from our instructional coach.  She wrote comments and questions on some of the paragraphs.  The kids loved it.  Thanks, Jamie!

Health Game

Students will use Publisher to create a memory card game about nutrition.  I'll make a template for them to use and they'll label the cards.  They will also find clip art to use on the card that matches the term.  I'll post an example when we get them done.