Celebrating Mickey Mouse's 91st Birthday

Disney Day

By: Student Blogger Evan

Do you know what Disney Day is? Well at Proctor School Disney Day is Mickey Mouse’s birthday!

Yesterday Mrs.Gibbas’s class celebrated by going on a QR code hunt to find out were Minnie was taking Mickey for his 91st birthday. We went around the library scanning all the QR codes to find out the answers to where they were going. There were 18 codes and 1 separate code had the answers of it. Mickey and Minnie were going to different states and capitals plus famous landmarks like The Empire State Building or The White House. We were all zipping around left and right trying to find the codes we needed to finish the hunt. At 12:45 p.m. we had lunch and when we had to stop the room was filled with groans and moans because no one wanted to leave. We were having so much fun doing the QR hunt.

Thank you Mrs. Klipfel for creating this fun activity for us!

Explaining Everything about the Midwest Region

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the Midwest Region?  If so, you've come to the right place!  Click on the videos below to learn more about different Midwest Region topics.
During the month of April Team Gibbas students learned about the Midwest Region of the United States.  To showcase their knowledge, students chose one topic about the Midwest Region to teach an audience.  Students were then asked to use the Explain Everything app and add a map, facts, moving objects, and voice recordings to fully explain their topic.
Students did a fabulous job learning this new app and educating their audience about the Midwest Region!

Grade 4 Social Studies Standards

Regions of the United States

4.10 Identify the states, state capitals, and major cities in each region. (G) 

4.11 Describe the climate, major physical features, and major natural resources in each region. (G)

4.12 Identify and describe unique features of the United States (e.g., the Everglades, the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, the Redwood Forest, Yellowstone National Park, and Yosemite National Park). (G)

Northeast Slide Presentations

As part of our study of the United States' regions, Team Gibbas students created slide presentations about each northeast state.  Today in class, students had the opportunity to present their presentations to each other.  Click the arrows on the slide presentations below to see the students' hard work and to learn about the states in the Northeast Region.

Massachusetts Grade 4 Social Studies Standards Regions of the United States: 4.10  Identify the states, state capitals, and major cities in each region. (G) 4.11  Describe the climate, major physical features, and major natural resources in each region. (G)

Mystery Skype

Last week we had our very first Mystery Skype.   We looked forward to figuring out where the classroom we were skyping with was on the map and which state they were in.   We had to ask lots of questions in order to find out where they lived.    Some of the questions that we asked were, "Are you in North America?"  The class that we were skyping with said, "Yes!"  Also one of the other questions asked was, "Are you east of the Mississippi River?"  The other class answered, "No."   We finally guessed where they were - Nebraska! They guessed where we were too, Massachusetts!  We had so much fun and we hope that we will be able to have another Mystery Skype soon. 
Written by:  Class Reporter - Abby Photos taken by: Class Photographer - Tristan

Working as a team to figure out where the mystery classroom is

Class Reporter and Note Taker hard at work

Thanksgiving padlet

Essential Question:  What do good writers do to improve their writing?
Team Gibbas students have been working on the writing trait of sentence fluency to improve their writing.  Students have learned that good writing includes sentences with of varying lengths.  For longer, descriptive sentences students learned the useful tool of adding a series of three to their writing. Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on things that we are thankful for.  Today during writing students had the opportunity to express their gratitude and practice their newly learned writing tool of writing a series of three with the proper use of commas.  Students were highly engaged with this activity as they worked on their laptops and were able to see their padlet posts simultaneously appearing on our classroom blog.
Student Challenge - Can you figure out how to add a picture to your padlet post?

Created with Padlet

Kidblogging about the Global Read Aloud

How can one book connect the world?  Why with the Global Read-Aloud of course!  Team Gibbas students have been reading the book A Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt as part of the Global Read-Aloud which was launched on October 5th.   Classrooms from around the world commit to reading certain chapters of the book on specified weeks.  Classrooms then have the opportunity to discuss what they've read with other classrooms.  One way to connect is through KidBlog.  After reading chapters 1 - 8 the week of October 5th  students offered the main character Ally advice on how to work through her reading challenges.  This week after reading chapter 11 and learning about Ally's struggles to make conversation with a classmate, Team Gibbas students blogged about ways to make conversation with someone you don't know well.  

Click here to visit KidBlog to read students full blog posts.  You can also access our KidBlog by clicking the Our KidBlog tab on this blog.  Be sure to leave a friendly comment about the students' advice!

Grade 4 - Massachusetts Common Core Standard - Writing

6. With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in a single sitting.