Today, students were tasked with creating Rube Goldberg machines. Rube Goldberg machines are complex systems of reactions that eventually perform very basic tasks. Through creating these machines, students had to share their ideas, think flexibly, try and revise their thinking, and put together unexpected materials to achieve a goal. All students successfully built a Rube Goldberg machine today.

(An iPad and two cameras were used to document the inventions. I will add those pictures and videos as they come to me. Thank you for your patience.)

(Click on a picture to enlarge it.)

Fourth grade students ended their poetry writing unit with a poetry celebration! During the unit, students wrote poems that incorporated many skills and forms of figurative language: alliteration, simile, metaphor, personification, consonance, idioms, sensory descriptions, and onomatopeia. All poems were structured with lines and stanzas. Antonym diamante poems were also created. Students revised and edited their work before assembling it into a poetry anthology. Some students included every poem that they wrote during the unit, while others were more selective. The writing celebration began with students taking turns reading poems aloud from their anthologies to the audience. Afterwards, they broke into small groups to share their anthology, teach their family and friends one poetic skill from the unit, and write a poem as a group.

We had our first all-school read-a-thon! Many students came to school in their pajamas or other comfy clothes. They brought blankets, sleeping bags, stuffed animals, and pillows. They could bring books from home or read books that were already at school. The day was filled with reading and literacy-based activities. Students also spent time with their first grade reading buddies.

On October 31, many teachers and students at LES dressed up as their favorite book characters! Students were excited to share about their favorite book characters and to see each other’s costumes. During the all-school parade, fourth graders got to see the costumes of preschool, kindergarten, first, second, and third grade students. It was a fun and exciting day!

Fourth grade scientists have been conducting experiments to explore how sound waves and light waves travel. In the light lab, students started in partnerships, reflecting light rays off of mirrors. One partner held the flashlight while the other partner held a mirror. The student with the mirror had to reflect the light from the flashlight to a point of their choosing in the classroom. Partners then switched roles and materials. After accomplishing the task, partnerships were combined into groups of four. They had to work as a team to reflect the light to one anther. One teammate held the flashlight and aimed it at another teammate’s mirror. That classmate had to reflect it to another classmate in the group, until everyone was was contributing to reflecting the light around the circle. Once this task was accomplished, students were put into increasingly larger groups. These larger groups had the same task of having to work together and communicate in order to reflect the light off of every teammate’s mirror. Some students conducted their own experiments, investigating how light acts when reflected off mirrors of various angles and various constructions of mirrors. Students concluded that though light travels in waves, it appears to travel linearly.

In the sound lab, students listened to echos, felt their vocal chords vibrate, and constructed purposeful contraptions out of a small styrofoam cup, a paperclip, and yarn. Students experimented with listening and speaking while the cup muffled their voice or covered their ears. Students noticed the effect the tightness of the string had on sending sound waves. Students came to the conclusion that sound waves are vibrations that travel through air (or a substance) and bounce into a person’s ear.

Fourth graders visited Morse Hill in Shutesbury for a full day of cooperative games, challenges, and problem-solving activities. Students learned about trust, teamwork, and supporting one another. The day included low ropes course elements and high ropes course elements. With the support of their classmates, students challenged themselves to trust, share ideas, balance on wires, reach great heights, and work as a team. 

What a lovely day for a hike! On Mountain Day, fourth and sixth graders hiked to the top of Mount Skinner. Students journeyed up steep, winding paths through the woods. At the top of the mountain, students ate lunch, played games, and observed the wonderful view.