Welcome Back...Supplies!!!

LAUREN’S SUPPLY LIST
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I know the list is long, but these supplies will really help us get off to a strong start. I am listing the supplies in four categories: individual, communal, optional, and at-home. Please review the list carefully and read the descriptions of each item. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding these supplies!

Individual Supplies
These supplies should take priority. It is important for each child to have the following supplies in hand by the first or second day of school. Children should bring these supplies to school with them so that they can get off to a strong start.

□ 5-composition notebooks (Meade or similar brand), lined paper

□ 1 graph-paper notebook for use in math (same size as composition notebooks)
***Please do NOT get spiral bound notebooks; these come apart too easily. Notebooks work much better.***

□ 1 thin lightweight loose-leaf binder (These are for storing papers and homework. The homework binder travels back and forth, and a lighter weight make it easier on the shoulders! Also, the bulkier binders will not fit in the children’s cubbies.)

□ 1 folder with three holes punched, for keeping inside the binder

□ 1 zip-up pencil case for holding pens, pencils, etc. in backpack

□ 1 (or 2) pen(s) that you really love

□ 1-2 packages of dividers for binders

□ REUSABLE WATER BOTTLE for water- students can take home and bring back, or simply leave at school.

*□ 1 assignment notebook (This can be a daily planner or small pad for keeping track of homework assignments.) this is optional.


Communal Supplies
These are supplies for the entire class to use. Because there are many supplies, I am splitting the list in half. If your child’s FIRST name begins with the letter A-K, please buy the items on list one. If your child’s FIRST name begins with the letters L-Z, buy the items on list two. I have done my best to make the lists approximately even in terms of price.

LIST ONE (First names from A-K)

□ 2- 3 sharp scissors (adult scissors are better than kid scissors)

□ 2 packs of Dixon Tri-Conderoga® Black Pencils OR blue/black ballpoint pens

□ 2-3 rolls transparent tape (with dispenser) □ 1-2 sturdy, absorbent sponges

□ 2-3 packages of post-its (any size, shape, or color) □ 2- 3 boxes Facial Kleenex
(OVER)

LIST TWO (First names from L-Z)

□ 6 packages .07 mm lead for mechanical pencils □ 1-2 packages of hot glue gun sticks

□ mechanical pencils for size .07 lead (The imitation “pencil” style is preferable)

□ 1-2 pack(s) of sharpies □ 1-2 packs of paper towels

□ 2-3 packages of post-its (different size, shape, or color preferable)

□ 1-2 individual sturdy pencil sharpeners with case for shavings


Optional Supplies
I know this list already seems really long! Here are a few things that are always good to have, in case you’d like to contribute more to our class supply.

□ post-it TABS (post-it makes these for dividing notebooks into different sections)
□ sculpting CLAY (any non-drying sculpting clay- all colors), SCULPTING WIRE (any hardware store carries this), NEEDLE NOSE PLIERS OR JEWELRS PLIERS
□ any art or craft supplies you feel might be useful for project time.
- GLUE GUNS, glue gun sticks
- CLAY (see above)
- ORIGAMI PAPER
- MARKERS, colored pencils- sharpie, bic, etc.
- TAPE- MASKING, PACKING, ETC.
- CARD STOCK, colored or interesting paper, construction paper, ORIGAMI paper, fabric, needles and thread, old magazines, scrap cardboard, clear contact paper, etc.-- you’d be surprised what can get turned into a project!)
-
□ Zip-lock Baggies
□ Fusion pens (varied colors)
□ Clorox wipes /dish soap and/or all-purpose cleaning spray (such as Windex, 409, etc.)
□ STAPLER
□ 3-hole punchers
□ Band-aids (Band-aid brand has worked the best for us. The others do not stick or hold, so we end up wasting a lot!)


At-Home Supplies
These supplies are to help students complete their homework. They will stay at home and do not need to travel back and forth with the students.

□one ruler with inches and centimeters □ one student dictionary

□ supply of Post-it notes for reading assignments, etc. □ supply of loose-leaf paper

THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP TO A GREAT START!!!

http://hearastory.wikispaces.com/

Storytelling Project

We worked with Cheryl on a storytelling unit, which culminated in the kids recording their stories using garage band. Each child chose the story they wanted to tell. They had many opportunities to learn, practice, and perform. They worked alone and with each other during this process. They had to think about tone, expression, rephrasing, importance, audience...

We have a wiki space to share the recordings with you! They are really wonderful. We have been performing to other classrooms and this wiki space creates a legacy of the work.

Click on the link above to see and hear our special work!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Here are some Earth Day celebrations happening...

Day 1
Earth Day New York On April 22nd, 2010 we have an historic opportunity to present a worldwide call to action and unified purpose.

As one of the most internationally diverse cities, New York City is the perfect place to celebrate Earth Day by showcasing leaders and beloved musical artists from across the globe.

Our goal is to make New York ...City the focus of national and international public attention for the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.

With the support of the Bloomberg Administration, we plan to create an event of truly international proportions in the heart of New York City.

Program from 11:00AM to 2:00PM
Exhibits from 8:00AM to 4:00PM

See More
Earth Day Times Square
Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 11:00am
Times Square

Day 2
Earth Day New York This Friday, April 23rd, Earth Day NY presents the Day One of the two-day street festival of art, music and the environment on Vanderbilt Ave (outside the venerable Grand Central Terminal). A large exhibit area highlighting green businesses, organic food and environmental groups will include interactive displays that n...ot only educate, but also provide an opportunity to take positive action.

Come join the fun!
Friday's musical performance line-up is:

12:00 -12:30 BYS 

12:45-1:15 Miz Metro and Efficacy 

1:30- 2:00 Ry Cuming w/Marit Larsen

2:05-2:10 Patrick Garrison & Jen Dinoia

2:00-4:00 BREAK 

4:00-4:30 Metrosonics

4:30-5:00 Justin Sane (Anti-Flag)

5:15-5:45 BuzzUniverse

6:15-7:00 Grace Potter & the Nocturnals 

For more information on these performers, go to http://tinyurl.com/EarthFair2010lineup

See More
EarthFair Extravaganza FRIDAY Line-Up!
Friday, April 23, 2010 at 3:00pm
Vanderbilt Avenue (Outside Grand Central Terminal)

Day 3
Earth Day New York This Saturday, April 24th, Earth Day NY presents the Day Two of the two-day street festival of art, music and the environment on Vanderbilt Ave (outside the venerable Grand Central Terminal). A large exhibit area highlighting green businesses, organic food and environmental groups will include interactive displays that... not only educate, but also provide an opportunity to take positive action.

Come join the fun!

Saturday's musical performance line-up is:

11:00-11:15 Manhattan Samba Band

11:15-11:20 Stella Connelly

11:20-11:40 Dewi Maile Lim & Karen Baxter

11:45- 12:15 Nat and Alex Wolff

12:30- 1:00 Moodswing Orchestra

1:15-1:45 Judah Tribe

2:00-2:30 Deluka

2:45 -3:15 A Million Years 

3:30-4:00 Tamarama

4:15-4:45 The London Souls

For more information on these performers, go to http://tinyurl.com/EarthFair2010lineup

See More
EarthFair Extravaganza SATURDAY Line-Up!
Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 2:00pm
Vanderbilt Avenue (Outside Grand Central Terminal)

Letter from Science/Emily re 4th grade Science Test

March 22, 2010

Dear 4th Grade Parents –

Your child will be taking the Statewide Science test in a couple of months. There are two parts – the performance test, which will take place the first week of June, and the written test, which is scheduled for Monday, June 7. The written test is multiple-choice, and the performance test is a hands-on test in which the children handle materials and take measurements and are asked to make conclusions about their results.

I have scheduled one additional period with the 4th graders each week in order to help them review material to prepare for the test. We will be going over sample questions from the written test as well as doing some hands-on activities to prepare them for the performance test. I am also providing them with a vocabulary list of words and concepts they should review. You might discuss and review these words and terms with them. You could also be helpful by making sure your child is comfortable measuring with a ruler and measuring cup.

There are several practice tests (and answer keys) available on the State Education website, which you can download and print if you would like to give your child more chance to practice at home. The web address is below. If you are unable to do so, I have these tests in Room 409, and I can make copies available to students who request them.

http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade4/Science/home.html

Best wishes,

Emily

Websites to Check Out

This is a list of websites one of my student teachers put together for parents and students. I'll add on some new game sites that I've tried out recently. Also, please reply if you have any!


MATH WEBSITES:

www.funbrain.com - games, comics, great for parents

www.edhelper.com - puzzles, games, can be used by a parent to supplement the classroom curriculum

www.ehow.com - covers literally everything, but you just type in certain math issues and it's great, good narrative

www.mathforum.org/students/elem - little of everything

http://www.kidsites.com/- there is a list of topics to choose from, such as math, history, etc.

www.brainpop.com



LITERARCY WEBSITES:

www.timeforkids.com

www.scholastic.com

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

http://pbskids.org/

http://www.kidsites.com/

www.cricketmag.com

www.bankstreetbooks.com/

www.brainpop.com

http://www.826nyc.org/ - non profit dedicated to helping students with writing

Independent Projects Writing Celebration- this WED. (March 24) after SING

*This will be our 2nd performance for those who couldn't make the 1st :)

Darfur Sister School Fundraiser Friday

After school on Friday we had a successful first fundraiser for our sister school in Darfur. Students made projects using recycled materials, such as mini-booklets, bracelets made from recycled magazine beads, original artwork, paper cranes, and intricate snowflake designs. They raised over $100, and spread even more awareness!

Independent Projects Writing Celebration

We had a successful (1st) celebration on Friday! It was so popular (and not widely publicized) that we will have another celebration this Wednesday, March 24th, directly following SING. We hope you can join us!

Printing in Art

Reusing Magazines to Design and Make Beads

Some students have been using old magazines to create new beads to make bracelets and necklaces. They use strips of magazine and roll them tightly securing with clear nail polish. The end product is truly amazing. They sold them at today's fundraiser for our sister school in Darfur. We will be making more for upcoming sales.

Artist Al Wadzinski

We visited the show "Al Wadzinski: The Greatest Show on Earth" at NY Studio Gallery @ 154 Stanton Street (@ Suffolk).

Artist Statement:
"Wadzinski creates zoomorphic assemblages using found objects of every material - valuable, mundane, cast-offs, delicate or impermeable, reclaimed from salvage yards, garage sales and alleys."

This was great inspiration for our work on our own "green projects." We have been using recycled materials to create new design. Wadzinski even stopped in to speak with us! He was really generous, answering lots of questions and signing notebooks! He said it was really wonderful to see the gallery so full of energy, just like his pieces. Students have been using newspaper and magazines to make snowflakes, beads, bracelets, mini-booklets, and more...

Excellent Writing Resource- 826 NYC!

"826NYC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills..."

Check out their website for lots more info:
http://www.826nyc.org/

MySeries101.webs.com!

Anette has this cool website called Myseries101.webs.com. IT is super cool it has stuff like:Links,Members,News and lots of other cool stuff!

Pictures From Our Trip To The Cooper Hewitt Design Museum...

Each table was given a task, such as: make something to wear, create something that will hold things, etc. Then, each table was given a mystery bag of materials to complete the task. Below is the process and product.



Design for a Living World:
Ten leading designers have been commissioned to develop new uses for sustainably grown and harvested materials in order to tell a unique story about the life-cycle of materials and the power of conservation and design. The featured designers and places include Yves Behar/Costa Rica; Stephen Burks/Australia; Hella Jongerius/Mexico; Maya Lin/Maine; Christien Meindertsma/Idaho; Isaac Mizrahi/Alaska; Abbott Miller/Bolivia; Ted Muehling/Micronesia; Kate Spade/Bolivia; and Ezri Tarazi/China. On view will be the prototypes, drawings, and finished product created by the designers. The exhibition is co-curated by renowned graphic designer Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt. This is the debut venue in a national tour of the exhibition, organized by The Nature Conservancy.

Setting Up Our Compost...

DATES TO REMEMBER...

* march 9: museum visit to the new york historical society

* march 10-12: ashoken overnight trip

* march 15-16: spring conferences

* march 27-april 6: spring break!!

* april 10: community day

* april 26-28: ela test

* may 5-7: math test

"Our class is having a green good day!" -Kofi


Welcome back! I hope everyone had a relaxing break. I visited Buenos Aires and it was REALLY hard to leave :) But, it's been nice to come back to all of the cool projects happening in our room. We also have a wonderful, wonderful student teacher- Sami. She is studying at Sarah Lawrence and we have all really enjoyed getting to know her.

The year is really moving along. In a couple of weeks we will be going to overnight camp at Ashoken. Then, the following week is conferences. And another break at the end of the month. Whew! That's a lot! Here are some of the exciting things we've been up to...


SOCIAL STUDIES:
We have been deepening our understanding of activism, thinking about spreading awareness and fundraising. Students are working on one of 2 projects: our Sister School in Darfur and our Green Roof. The Sister School group has developed catching campaign slogans and is working on applying these slogans to bottles for coin donations. They plan to visit the classrooms with a short presentation about our Sister School in Darfur and leave them with a bottle for coins- give change. make change. darfur dream team. (one of the slogans.) They are also planning a fundraiser. It was in the works for before break, but the snow day through things off. So, stay tuned! The Green Roof group has been working on spreading awareness by creating arrows pointing upwards and some pointing in the direction of our room. They are almost ready to post them. Others have been creating bracelets and necklaces with beads they make out of magazine strips. They are really quite amazing. If you get a chance, stop in to take a look.

We have had a collaboration with Nancy's class all year, working on Green Design. We have stayed in our 3 groups- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle- from our trip to the Science Barge. The groups have experimented with green designs, such as creating beautifully intricate snowflakes out of magazine paper coated with gesso to make them a little stronger.

At the Science Barge, we were all excited by the window farm and have been wanting to make our own. We have a grant on donorschoose.org that is almost funded. We are hopeful we can get some of the big structural parts of the window farm done during Community Day, and have the students finish up the rest. As stated on the website, "Window Farms are vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible window gardens built using low-impact or recycled local materials." Check out this link for some pics and info on the window farm project: http://www.windowfarms.org.


MATH:
As you may have heard by now, we have transitioned out of "math streaming," and we will be doing math together as a class. This has allowed for some exciting inter-disciplinary work. In planning for our Darfur Day fundraiser, students worked on figuring out how many beads were needed for bracelets and how many were needed for necklaces. This lead them to see how many necklaces and how many bracelets they could make with the beads already completed. Then, they planned for how many more beads were needed so they could have enough bracelets and necklaces to sell. Another example is the group of students who have been creating arrows were measuring the length of the hallways to plan for the number of arrows and spacing. Hanging on the bulletin board outside is their cool diagram of the halls with all of the measurements.


Students have independent reading and writing projects they are working on. They are doing some great things, so I will include more info on that next time! If you have not returned the forms for Ashoken yet, please get them in ASAP. Remember, if you are sending any medicine, even something small like cough drops, it needs a doctor signature. Conference sign-ups will be coming home later in the week. I will email the form for those of you that would like to e-sign up. We will also be taking a trip to the New York Historical Society next week, March 9th, so a permission slip will be going home this week.

As always, let me know if there are any questions or ideas.

Take care,
Lauren

LAUREN CLASS DREAM TEAM BY TATIANA

IDEAS FOR FUNDRAISING
. we can go to wall street and beake up into teams and do a little performance and get money
. bake sale
. we could go to different schools and give speches on darfur to give a whereness on darfur
. we can us the scraps from H&M TO make Darfur t-shrits
. we could host a movie night like PS.63 does and raise money
. we can have a get MOVIN night raise money
. we could have a talent show
. we could have a grage sale
                    IF U HAVE IDEAS FOR FUNRAISING PLEAS WRITE HERE.