The Uncle Chris Experience Author Visit

Yesterday, our entire school was able to listen to Chris Espinosa. Her refers to himself as "Uncle Chris" and has written two books. One called World Wide Wes 1.0 about a boy who is  uploaded to the internet and battles a comptuer virus in cyberspace. The second book, Rocket Megabytes's Texas Adventure is about a robot dog that travels around Texas and learns all about the Lone Star State. While Uncle Chris was talking to the students, the students were mezmorized by his comedy as well as the information he provided. He even brought his robot dog, Rocket! Uncle Chris reminded me of a toned-down version of George Gonzales. I think that's why the kids had so much fun with this author visit. Fourth graders were given a special priviledge of hearing Uncle Chris for an extra hour. During this time, Uncle Chris talked about writing and how students can improve their writing using their senses and why, what, where, when and how questions. This visit was perfect timing for us to rev up and get ready for our TAKS writing test coming up very soon...March 1st!

Class Picture for Ice Cream Social

Friday is the annual Ice Cream Social. Each class is to provide an auction item. Our class item will be a framed picture of the students with their signatures on the mat. Here are a couple of pictures we took trying to get a good one for the auction. I had a little parent help on deciding the one to choose...thanks to that parent!

A Piece of Cake!

As all of you know, 4th grade is the first year for the state, standardized writing test for students. Since the beginning of the year, Greene's Gorillas have been learning what makes a talented writer. The other day, students learned about figurative language, specifically, idioms. I read a book to students that was filled with idioms. Some, the students knew, others were new to them. After the lesson, students were able to brainstorm other idioms that they've used or heard and then choose one to illustrate. They turned out very cute. Now, if I can just get them to use them in their compositions we'll be fabulous! Leave a comment about YOUR favorite idiom! Here are a few examples of the students' work:

"I'm in the dog house."

Can't you just hear the one girl tell the other one, "You're in big trouble!"

The little boy and his mom are at Wal-Mart. The boy says, "Mom, can I have a cell phone?" Mom's reply, "When pigs fly!" On the literal side, all the piggies are saying, "Oink!"

"He hit the nail on the head."

The boy is saying, "Yes! I got all answers right on my science test!"

Sea Center Field Trip

With freezing advisories and wind advisories in affect, I was quite concerned about our field trip to the Sea Center today. Even with it being MUCH colder than we are used to, the field trip was a success. I believe the volunteers at the Sea Center do a phenomenal job. Students were actively engaged and learned a lot about the entire environment related to the Gulf coast area. I even learned a thing or two!

 

After the bus ride, here we are warming up and patiently waiting to begin our tour.

 

First, students went into a room where they played BINGO using names related to the ocean and ocean life such as crustacians, coral reef, Atlantic Ocean, waves, tidal pools, shore birds, hurricanes, etc. Students were able to play two rounds and we had several winners from each round. Those winners each received a key chain with an animal attached to it.

 

All the girls and me, with Miss Glossy absent. We missed her on our trip today. Hope she feels better soon.



After that we learned about trash that gets into the ocean and into other waters that kills many animals. The students were able to guess at which types of materials decompose the fastest. Here were the choices: glass, plastic, fishing line, wood, newspaper, styrofoam, aluminum and paper towels. The students said they would decompose in this order, from least to greatest: newspaper, paper towel, plastic, fishing wire, aluminum, and glass. The actual order was...paper towel (3-4 weeks), newspaper (5 weeks), wood (13 years), styrofoam (50 years), aluminum (200 years), plastic (400 years), fishing line (600) years, and glass (takes so long that they really don't have any idea yet how long it takes to decompose!)

I almost forgot to include the video! This is how the guide at Sea Center tried to teach the kids how difficult it would be for a fish to get out of something such as fishing line or plastic bags. She gave them each a rubberband and  had them wrap the rubberband around their thumb and across their hand to their pinky. Then they were supposed to try to get out of it without using anything but that hand. Some of the kids thought they could do it...hehe...but most of them struggled and were able to understand at least for a moment what it might feel like for an animal to be stuck!

Students getting ready to touch the animals in the touch tank! They were checking out their hands to see if there were any cuts on their hands. This is where the rules were given. Use one finger to touch, don't touch the fish, don't use a hand with a cut on it and thoroughly wash hands afterwards.

 Kids were touching my least favorite animal in the touch tank...the spider crab.

This is the room they call the "LIFE SUPPORT ROOM". In this room, the water is kept clean from anything that could cause bacteria to grow or contaminate the water.

Eggs in this tank.

At the Sea Center they raise red fish (or red drum), speckled trout and flounder.

Tiny fish, called frys, were in this tank.

These were the samples to show students what the eggs and the frys looked like. Our guide also showed us the last stage, called fingerlings, which are the ones that go out into their ponds. We were unable to go into the actual rooms where the actual adult red fish are and where they lay the eggs and such because right now they have sensitive fish...they might hurt themselves if we had gone in.