The Whipping Boy Projects

Today, I assigned the students their reading projects for The Whipping Boy. They have a choice of three projects: making a castle, a poster about rats, or a simile book. If they are researching castles, below are some links that may be helpful:

Castles for Kids
National Geographic: Ghosts in the Castle

The projects will be due the Wednesday after break. I'll have resources in my classroom for the students to use next week, to help them get started.

Christmas concert

Our school's annual Christmas concert was this past Sunday. Almost the entire class came, and they looked wonderful in their Christmas outfits. In music class, the fourth grade had been learning to play the bells, and they used the bells to provide music for the songs "Deck the Halls" and "Joy to the World." Afterwards, we enjoyed a delicious potluck dinner.

In science, we are learning about the weather. For the past week, students have been measuring the temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and air pressure using instruments they made like a barometer, anemometer, and wind vane. They'll conclude this unit by giving a weather report and becoming meteorologists. We've also been learning about what causes wind, different temperatures, and changing air pressure.

The class has been reading The Whipping Boy, a Newbery Medal book. It's an exciting book that involves kings and princes, outlaws, dancing bears, and runaways. While reading, the students have also been learning about plot maps and cause and effect.

This Friday, we will have a spelling test on words from the book. Each student has their own list of ten words. We will have tests next week in science and social studies, and next Wednesday is our field trip to see The Nutcracker on horseback.