Ms. Fraser's 4th Grade: Week in Review

It was a short week, but we managed to fit in a lot of learning. On Tuesday Sunderland hosted its first school wide writing celebration. In third grade students were assigned to teams that consisted of students from third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. Students then traveled with those teams to the various classrooms to listen to writing pieces from students at each of the grade levels. It was a great experience, the students really enjoyed listening to students at different grade levels share their writing. Thank you Mrs. Burstein for organizing this for our school.

Mr. B explains how the All School Writing Celebration will be run

Anthony share his persuasive writing piece

Bianca shares her persuasive writing

Jlane shares her writing

Alexis shares a narrative piece of writing

On Wednesday the students were treated to a great program on simple machines presented by the Discovery Museum from Acton, MA. The students participated in three hands on challenges designed to teach them about levers. Students can visit the following website to find more hands on science activities and to get a pass for free admission to the Discovery Museum.

Http://tinyurl.com/TWSactivity

Challenge one: move the sponges to the center of the bullseye without your hands, using only the spoons, rulers, and small wooden blocks.

Challenge two: move a boulder (the presenter) using only two pieces of wood; a short piece and a longer board. Students needed to decide how to place the pieces of wood so that Kirsten would be able to left the boulder.

Kirsten tries pushing the boulder, but it won't budge.

The students try making a lever.

Will it work?

Yes! Kirsten lifted the boulder

After Kirsten lifted the boulder students worked in groups to create their own first class levers.

Challenge three: students need to identify the type of lever based on where the fulcrum, load, and effort are located. All of the levers were different old fashioned coin banks.