Newspapers in Education

The results are in! We worked very hard on our editorials for the Newspapers in Education contest in the Bangor Daily News. The students were asked to describe their favorite subject and give three reasons why it is their favorite. All the students had excellent reasons to support their choices. On Wednesday, we got to see Nathan's editorial in print. His writing was selected as one of the runners up for the third and fourth grade group. To celebrate, we had donuts and juice as well as a small award ceremony. Mrs. McHugh came in to help present all the participants with certificates. Congratulations, everyone!

All the entries can be viewed on the NIE section of the Bangor Daily News. Click on the link below where you will find a search bar. Type in the name of the student whose entry you'd like to read. You can also search by school or town. I am very proud of everyone who participated! 

http://nie2012.bangordailynews.com/

Spirit Week

Recently at Asa, we showed our spirit by participating in a week of themed days. It was a fun and exciting week of showcasing our creativity and resourcefulness. Check out our pictures! 

Pajama Day

Duct Tape Day

Crazy Hair Day

Time Travel Day

Green Day

News Worthy!

Over the weekend, the University of Maine in Orono held an engineering expo. The expo is designed to get students interested in the field of engineering. Asa Adams student Law, along with his mom and brother, attended this event and were even featured on WLBZ Channel 2 News! Check out the full article and the video here:

Click here to see Law and his family on the news! 

Our Heroes!

Each year, the fourth graders at Asa Adams do a hero unit in Language Arts. In reading, we break into small groups and read one of the following books: Lost on a Mountain in Maine, The Courage of Sarah Noble, and Abbie Burgess. As we read, we answer questions in response journals and chose words to study for vocabulary.

The writing piece of this unit is a biography of a person that each student chooses as their hero. We have a wide variety of heroes that were chosen. Some are moms, dads, uncles, pastors, and grandparents. The students have been working very diligently and through their writing, it's obvious that they respect and admire their heroes. As a culmination activity, we will invite our heroes in for a special reading of the biographies that the students composed. The date for the presentation has not been set as we're still working very hard on writing.

As a lead up to our hero unit, we read books about and discussed heroes such as Nelson Mandela, Ruby Bridges, Martin Luther King Jr., and Amelia Earhart. Since we've also been reading stories from Greek mythology, we discussed heroes such as Odysseus, Perseus, and Heracles. The students had very interesting insights about heroes. They decided that some people are heroes, some people are noteworthy, and some are just famous. We discussed character traits of heroes, as well which many of the students have also included in their biography writing.

We are very much looking forward to celebrating our heroes and will keep everyone updated as to when this celebration will take place.

A New Pet

A few weeks ago, our class began talking about getting a critter friend to keep in our room. After checking with Mrs. McHugh, it was determined that we could have a hairless, furless pet. And so the search began!


Andy suggested that we get a bearded dragon. It was a great idea! The lady at the pet store explained that bearded dragons are not nocturnal, so they would be awake during school hours and they are easy to maintain. I just about had the little guy out the door until she mentioned that bearded dragons can grow to be 2-3 feet long. That was a deal breaker!


Fortunately, she had a lovely leopard gecko that she said would make a great classroom pet. Although they are nocturnal, the gecko would adjust itself to our schedule and after two or three weeks, it would start to be awake more during the day. Leopard geckos also stay at a reasonable size, only growing to a maximum length of 9-10 inches. 

Needless to say, the class was ecstatic when they came in on Monday and saw our new friend. We all crowded around her tank in our classroom library and talked about how to take care of a leopard gecko. Eva and Sam, having owned and handled lizards before, became the class experts and have helped us learn even more about how to best treat our new pet. On the first day, everybody who wanted to got to touch the lizard and some lucky people even got to hold it! We watched, fascinated, as it ate some crickets and worms for lunch. 

 

Andy is shaking the insects in a calcium powder. 

Munching!

Our only problem was that our lizard needed a name. And that created a bigger problem because we didn't know the its gender. Luckily, our leopard gecko owner's manual showed how to determine the gender by looking for a series of ridges at the base of the tail. Since our gecko didn't have those ridges, we decided that it must be a girl. Each student then contributed a name suggestion. Some popular ones were Scylla, Serquet, Monty, and Bella. In the end, Scylla won. Scylla is the name of a monster from the story of Odysseus. As he sailed by Scylla's cave, each of her six heads shot down and ate sailors from Odysseus's ship. While watching our Scylla eat, Andy said it reminded him of how Scylla ate those sailors. 

Today we gave Scylla a shed box filled with damp moss. This little container will help the process of shedding go smoothly and ensure that no pieces of skin are left stuck to her.  If that were to happen, layers of skin would build up and possibly cut off blood flow in places like the toes. 

Check out this (blurry and shaky) video of Scylla eating!

Thanks for the picture, Andy!

Care Buddies-Part 2

Just before going on winter break, we invited our care buddies from Mrs. Lynch's room to watch us perform the winter poems we had memorized. Our buddies were a great audience, applauding and cheering after each poem was read. The fourth graders designed posters to use as backgrounds as a way to enhance their performances.

After the poetry was finished, we accompanied our care buddies back to their room where we helped them decorate gingerbread people. Our fourth graders has already worked on decorating gingerbread people in a different way. They were asked to research a country or region and then dress their gingerbread person in the style of clothing worn there. Unfortunately, they weren't edible like the ones we got to make with our care buddies.  The process of putting on frosting, chocolate bits, and sprinkles was messy but fun and the finished product was creative and tasty. It was a great way to end the day before vacation.

Care Buddies-Part 1

Care Buddies is a partnership between two classrooms, usually the older students acting as mentors to the younger students. Our fourth grade has had the pleasure of working with the four year olds in Mrs. Lynch's Pre-K program. During our first get-together, the four year olds chose books for their Care Buddies to read to them. It was hard to tell who was having the better time, the four year olds or the fourth graders!