Texas Independence

"Remember the Alamo!" That's what the soldiers cried out during the war when Texas was fighting for their independence. Back in March of 1836 the Mexican Army attacked an old mission called the Alamo. The Texans lost the battle because they only had about 200 men, and the Mexicans had about 5,000. One woman, Susanna Dickinson fled the Alamo after Santa Anna told her to tell Sam Houston what had happened.  Houston was the commander of the Texas army. He organized the Texas soldiers, gave them better training, and headed to Harrisburg to fight Santa Anna and the Mexican army. Later, at the Battle of San Jacinto, the Texans completed a surprise attack on the Mexican army. Eventually, Santa Anna surrendered and signed a treaty allowing Texas to have their independence. The Texas army was able to continue fighting because they wanted to remember their friends and family who had died at the Alamo for their freedom. "Remember the Alamo!" was the battle cry that led them to victory over Santa Anna and the Mexicans.  

Writing Wednesdays

   Yeah! On Wednesdays we get to do writing rotations. This is where we go to different classes for thirty minutes to help us become better writers. We made some treasure chest folders that we carry to each class in order to keep up with all of our papers. All of the fourth grade teachers teach us about writing. Each week we focus on a different writing trait for the TAKS test. 

   The first week, we learned about main ideas. Mrs. Brown taught us about staying on topic. Mrs. Nelson told us to narrow the topic down. We really liked when Mr. Simmons imitated the dragon falling to the ground, and he really collapsed. 

   

   The second week, we learned about organization. When we were in Mrs. Chandler's class we practiced using transition words like: first, next, then, after, and finally. Mrs. Braymer taught us about putting things in chronological order, which means to put things in time or number order. 

   We like writing rotations because it makes the day go by faster. We think all of the schools should do rotations. Our class is looking forward to learning about the next four writing traits.

Millipedes

"They're tickling me," shouted Adrian. In Mrs. Braymer's class today, each person was given the choice to put on gloves and pick up the millipedes. Some students in the class were scared to hold the millipedes because they were frightened the critters might squirt them or crawl up their arm. While observing the millipedes we discovered that the antennae are longer than their legs, some will coil up like a rolly polly, they have exoskeletons (which means they are hard on the outside), and they hide under the moss and soil. We really enjoyed holding our millipedes. Check out our pictures, and you'll see our excitement!

Shape Monster

Wow! Look at all of those different monsters! On Monday, Mrs. Braymer's class reviewed all of the two dimensional shapes, angles, and lines that we've learned this year. First, in our JAM (Journal About Math) Journal, we drew all of the shapes, lines, and angles that we could use to create our shape monster.  Next,  each one of us sketched our own monster, but we didn't show it to our friends. Then we wrote a story about our creature with descriptions of how they looked. After that, we got with a partner and took turns reading our stories. While we read, our partner had to draw our shape monster. Finally, we compared our original drawing with our partner's drawing. We were able to see if our story had good or bad details based on our drawings. 

Mrs. Braymer's class would like to thank Ms. Bontrager for this idea!