Surprise Author Visit

By Student Bloggers Gabriele and John

Last Wednesday 4th graders got to learn about Steven Krasner, a legendary children's author. Steven talked to us about writing our own story and gave us some advice. He told us that when a person makes the “face” that means it does not make sense or you have left something out. This was one of the many pieces of advice Steven gave us.

This is Steve Krasner making "the face".

We discussed how to make a mystery story. He also gave us another piece of advice that was to revise every time you write an idea. A writing piece needs to be changed every time you find that something doesn’t work. Another bit of advice that he told us was that there are no such thing as a bad idea. A bad idea is just a myth.    

He also told us about the books that he made. He made a nonfiction book called The Longest Game, and also wrote an animal fantasy book called Have a Nice Nap Humphrey. He told us that the title is the last thing you do. It’s also usually the last line or sentence in the book. We hope that you'll read Steve Krasner's books.

Thank you TESPTO for bringing this wonderful program to our school.

Landforms on Another Planet

LANDFORMS FROM ANOTHER PLANET

By: Student Bloggers Emma and Sadie

Last week, Team Gibbas students made topographic maps of landforms from an imaginary planet out of modeling clay, a ruler, dental floss, graph paper, and a pencil. Here is how they did it.

                                                                      

 LANDFORM PREPARING 

Before the students made the map, they had to choose a landform from the choices given. Then they had to make it out of clay. They had the option of making a mountain range, a volcano, an ocean trench, and ocean ridges. After they made the landform, they pushed a pencil through the middle of the top of the landform so they could line it up on the map. Then they measured 1 cm up from the bottom and marked it. Then they kept doing that until they got to the top. On the marks between each centimeter they took the dental floss held it tightly between their thumbs and sliced their landform  on the mark.

MAP MAKING

When the students were done slicing their landforms, they traced the slices from the top to the bottom on the paper. Then they created topographic maps from the tracings.  As a final step students were given a random map and they had to find the landform that the map was made for.

Learning About Landforms

During the last week of September Team Gibbas students became landform experts.  To enrich students learning of the scientific landform vocabulary students sculpted 3D landforms out of clay and created vocabulary word walls to showcase their learning.  Not sure what a delta is?  Ask the Team Gibbas vocabulary experts!

Grade 4 Science Standards:

ESS1.  Earth's Place in the Universe

4-ESS1-1:  Use evidence from a given landscape that includes simple landforms and rock layers to support a claim about the role of erosion or deposition in the formation of the landscape over long periods of time.

• Examples of simple landforms can include valleys, hills, mountains, plains, and canyons.