The Willoughbys!

We've been reading The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry, and that is the source of our favorite vocabulary words this time!  Here are a few that we've found delight in:

alabaster

cryptic

diabolical

glutinous

obsequious

winsome

One of the great things about this book, is that the author includes a glossary of great words in the back of the book.  Of course, her definitions are silly, and we've had fun with them!  Check out dictionary.com for the real definitions of these words, or ask a fourth grader from Room 404!


Happy Learning!

Our Favorites this Month!

We've voted on our favorite words for the month, and here they are:

scour [skou-er] to move about quickly, especially in search
jacquerie [zhahk^uh-ree] 

the revolt of the peasants of northern France against the nobles in 1358

maieutic   [mey-yoo-tik]

of or pertaining to the method used by Socrates of eliciting knowledge in the mind of a person by interrogation and insistence on close and logical reasoning.

 

It's been a great month of learning in Room 404!   

It's What We Are

jeunesse doree  [zhœ-nes daw-rey]  French.

wealthy, stylish, sophisticated young people

Words of Winter

We're showing our northern Wisconsin preferences this week, as we chose two words from the past two weeks that are our favorites!  Here they are:

deke [deek] v:  to fake (an opponent) out of position (as in ice hockey)

sastruga [sas-truh-guh] n: a wavelike ridge of hard snow formed by the wind-usually used in plural

We're looking forward to using these new words in our conversations!

Happy Learning!

Holus-bolus

Hello!  Do you know what this word means?  Ask a fourth grader from our room, and you'll find out!  It was our favorite word this week!  We had another busy week of learning, and let's just say that we had a lot going on all at once.

The entire fourth grade class held its annual spelling bee, and I'm happy to report that we had a winner from Room 404!  That person will be going on to the next level of competition.  Such smart kids.

Happy Learning!

WOW!

OK...here we go...our first WOW!  (Word of the Week).  After learning seven new vocabulary words this week (we included the weekends as well), we chose the following word that we liked best:

popinjay  [pop-in-jey] n:  a strutting supercilious person.

For the record, we also really liked the word supercilious.

Happy Learning!

Surprises!

Milk left in a desk over Christmas vacation will spoil! We found that out the hard way! Surprise!!

We've started a Word of the Day activity that will increase our vocabulary skills. We are using a Word of the Day calendar that I got as a present, and we will learn one new word each day. At the end of the week, we will post our favorite word, therefore picking our WOW (Word of the Week).

Happy Learning!

It's a New Year!

Here it is...a brand new year!  Welcome to the first blog on our page "Fourth Grade Happenings".  I hope to use this blog to keep everyone up to date as to what we are doing in the classroom!  To begin with, be sure to visit our awesome LibGuide page that has been created just for this class of 2011-2012:

Our Awesome LibGuide

Just as this year is new and exciting for our students, it is for me as well.  As many of you know, I have been the district's elementary Library Media Specialist for the past two years.  Before that, I taught Grade 5 for 18 years, and actually started my teaching in Grade 4, for one year, during the 1990-1991 school year.  It is exciting to be back in the classroom, working with a wonderful group of students!


I am looking forward to continued learning in this new year!