The fourth grade had a wild and crazy time last week. They saw all their hard work come together in the Insect Expo. They met and completed a project with their pre-K buddies. They also had an opportunity to meet some of the seventh-graders and complete a project with them. Talk about ONE SCHOOL!
The Insect Expo on Monday morning was the best it has ever been. Mr. Kinney and his seniors came up with a great idea to present the information about the insects in a much better fashion than we had used before. Mrs. Moore came up with a new idea on how to make the insect drawings for the fourth-graders more artistic than a pencil sketch. The paintings turned out amazing! Mrs. Sirmans was key in helping the students understand about the order of their insect. She has transformed our Science Lab into an amazing area for learning when it comes to Science. Mrs. Kinney helped teach the fourth-graders how to use the Keynote and iMovie apps on the iPad so they could create an informative presentation about their insect that would run during the Expo. It doesn’t stop there with the technology. Mrs. Anthony taught the students how to use Google Docs and had them work in their group of three to create a fictional story about their insect. Students worked on their story at home and in class to create a memorable piece of the project. The best compliment I heard during the Expo came from senior Sam Mathis, who said, “I am impressed by how much these fourth-graders know about the insects. They know more about them than we do!” As their teacher, that was the icing on the cake for me throughout this whole project.
The week only got better from there. The fourth-graders met their pre-K buddies on Wednesday. We were able to participate in the Color Parade that has been going on for two weeks. Wednesday’s color was blue, and all the fourth-graders dressed in a blue shirt. The excitement from our school's youngest members was amazing to see. They LOVED working with the oldest members of the Lower School. As a group, the students created a Keynote presentation. Many took it a step further and created an iMovie project focused on the colors they had been studying so far. It was great to see both sets of students really engaged and teaching one another about the colors and how to use the iPad. Mrs. Ray’s Rays of Sunshine, along with Ms. Sunny and the fourth-grade class, are going to have a fantastic year working together and playing together.
The fourth-graders rounded out the week by hosting a group of seventh-graders, who spent the day completing community service projects and other activities around Rome. The seventh-graders, captained by Mrs. Peroni, Mrs. Major and Mr. Nealis, shared the book “The Dot” by Peter Reynolds. The theme of the book is to encourage creativity, which is what the seventh-graders did all day. During their time with the fourth-graders, they combined all their artistic talents and visions to come up with an original painting. Together, they created an inspirational saying to be added to the painting at a later date. They turned out beautifully! The fourth grade thanks the seventh-graders for sharing Dot Day with us. It was a perfect end to our wild, crazy, one-school week!
