Project in Art

Our class is going to be starting to work on a quilting project in art class. Mrs. Telenko shared that the kids may bring in pieces of materials from home to include as part of their quilt. If you have any questions as to what types of materials your child can bring in, you can email Mrs. Telenko.

PA Regions Projects

Our regions projects are finished, and the groups did a great job presenting them today! We hope that you learn something new while watching our slideshows. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments, and we will answer you as soon as we can!

Social Studies? Technology? Reading? Writing?

We kid around in our classroom any time we do one subject when we're "supposed" to be doing another. We'll saying things like, "Wait!!! It's social studies time and we're using READING skills???" Or you'll hear something like, "I can't believe we're doing WRITING when it's science!!" While we are funny when we say these things, here in the Bair's Den we realize that in real life you can't do anything without including most, if not all, of the other subjects.

Our PA Regions projects for Social Studies class is a great example of this. We *thought* we were going to be learning about the physical regions of Pennsylvania, but here are all of the things we've actually learned  about so far during this project:

• climate and weather (science)
• different types of landforms (social studies & science)
• natural resources (social studies & science)
• how to research and pick out important details (reading)
• how to take notes (writing)
• how to do a google search that will get you the information you want (technology, comm arts)
• how to find images that are legal for you to use in your presentation (technology, comm arts)
• how to use Tagxedo (technology, vocabulary)
• how to use Vocaroo (technology, speaking)
• how to create a Google presentation (technology, writing)
• how to work together as a team (social studies)

Whew! That is quite a list, and we're pretty sure we missed a couple of things. But this project is a really great example of how you just can't "do reading" - when you're reading, you learn better if you have a purpose. And, it's a great way to see what a great job 4th graders can do when they put their minds to it. Check out the pictures below to see us working together on the last few steps of our project, and be sure to check back soon for our slideshows!

Back to School Spirit!

I don't know about all of us, but many of us were very happy to be back to school after our long holiday break. We jumped right back into the swing of things working on Social Studies projects and nonfiction reading skills, writing about the water cycle and drawing diagrams to help us solve problems in math.

To celebrate a successful mini-week back to school, Bear Creek had our first school spirit day of 2013 with Crazy Winter Hat Day! Lots of kids in the Bair's Den and on Team Kit Kat got into the spirit of the day, and you can check out their crazy hats in the slideshow below.

Holiday Fun!

The week before Christmas we had a great time here in the Bair's Den! The teachers kicked off the fun with an Ugly Sweater / Outfit celebration on Wednesday. They sure did look crazy!

On Thursday, Mrs. Bair's and Miss Conrad's math class started counting the links they earned to create their December chain. Students earned links by correctly answering questions, taking risks, and showing great problem solving skills in class. The final chain stretched almost all the way around the room! As a matter of fact, it was so long we didn't have time to count the entire chain!

After math class, we got together with the rest of 4th grade and some of our 5th grade friend for the Bear Creek Carol Sing. The orchestra, band, and 6th grade chorus lead us as we sang holiday songs, and even the teachers joined in the fun!

Finally on Friday our team had a great time during our holiday parties. You can see all of the fun we had in the slideshow below. We hope everybody had a wonderful break, and we are looking forward to exciting things to come in 2013!