Sadako

Today fourth graders in Mrs. Kelleher's and Mrs. Gibbas's classes had the opportunity to participate in a cultural enrichment program based on the story Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr.  Through dance and story telling, students learned about hope, strength, perseverance, teamwork, self-discipline, and peace.  
Thank you to Nikki and Guy for giving students this wonderful experience.   Thank you to TESPTO for funding this special day.

Click on the image to see a video of the Ten Movements dance.

Egg Drop

Egg Drop

By: Student Blogger Eva

On Monday, April 30th, Team Gibbas and Team Kelleher did an egg drop for science. We had to protect an egg as it was dropped off the roof. Here’s how it worked: We were put into groups on Friday. We gathered materials to protect the egg over the weekend. On Monday, we put the egg in a shoe box and bundled it up with the things we brought in.

Here are some of the materials we brought in; bubble wrap, old t-shirts, and egg cartons.

Then we went outside to see Mr. Jones, the custodian, drop our eggs off the roof.

All of the eggs survived!

Then we went inside to record our observations in our science notebook. We all loved the egg drop!

Italy

Italy Presentation

Mrs. Strong

By: Student Blogger Sofia

On Thursday, May 3rd a very special guest, Mrs. Strong, came to share her immigration story and experiences with Italy. She came because in class we are learning about immigration and we wanted to learn about some experiences people in Team Gibbas had. Mrs. Strong taught Team Gibbas all about Italy. We learned some history about Italy, the differences between Italy and America, and then how Mrs. Strong keeps some traditions of Italy with her family like the befana and going to Italy every year. We also saw pictures of Italy and Mrs. Strong´s family in Italy.  Plus she brought in things to pass around such as little cars because Italy is famous for their cars, a mask because when the Italians celebrate they're big about masks, a wild boar stuffed animal because in Italy instead of deer there are big wild boars.

Mrs. Strong also passed around a little sculpture because Italy is big about art and sculptures, and last she passed around the befana. The befana is a tradition in Italy and the befana is a little lady who is poor but on January 6th she passes around small gifts like a mini Santa. We did learn a little Italian and we got to hear Sofia Mrs. Strong's daughter sing a song in Italian about the befana.

Thank you so much Mrs. Strong for teaching us all about Italy! We all hope to visit there one day.

Famous Figures

Wax Museum

By: Student Bloggers Gavin, Max, and Whit

Have you ever wished you could meet Wayne Gretzky or Anne Frank? Well at the Wax Museum on April 13, 2018  it was possible to meet them and lots of others famous people. The fourth grade at Proctor School performed an awesome wax museum to learn about lots of famous people. You could meet Stan Lee, Muhammad Ali, Joan of Arc, Steve Irwin, Marie Curie, Steven Spielberg, Wayne Gretzky, Sonia Sotomayor, Paul McCartney, Alexander the Great, Babe Ruth, Lucille Ball, Princess Diana, Jane Goodall, Jackie Robinson, Anne Frank, Amelia Earhart, Maria Tallchief, Walt Disney, and Julia Child. It took the wax figures a lot of time to do this. First they had to research and write their script.  Next they had to memorize their script. After that they had to find the right costume and had to be able to be comfortable saying their script in front of an audience. The fourth graders also had to perform their scripts for the fifth and sixth graders. After a tough day of repeating their scripts several times, they were relieved that the wax museum was finally over. Everybody was tired but we got to take a class picture.

At the end of the wax museum everybody was happy.

Mystery Skype

Team Gibbas Mystery Skype

By: Student Blogger Elise 

"Are you west of the Mississippi River?"  This was one of the questions that Team Gibbas asked the classroom we were skyping with for our first Mystery Skype of the year.

On Wednesday, May 2nd we got to do a mystery skype with a class from Kansas. When we skyped them we had no idea where they were from. To find out where they were from we had to ask yes or no questions. First we asked big questions and went down to more detailed questions. We did the skype to practice our map skills. When they said yes or no our note taker  would write down the notes to help the people in the think tank ask very good questions. Then the runners would give the questions to the filters to make sure they were good questions that hadn't already been asked before. After we learned that they were from Kansas the next question they asked was if we were from Massachusetts, so it was a tie!

At the end of the Skype call we learned that the fourth grader on screen asking us questions was actually the daughter of Mrs. Gibbas's college roommate!  We also learned that these Kansas fourth graders would be getting out of school a bit earlier than us.  Their last day of school will be May 24th whereas we will be in school until June 21st.

We can't wait to do a mystery skype again!

Thank you Mrs. Klipfel for this fun learning experience!