Friday Singing Songs

Hello!
I recorded the songs that you sang with Lighthouse last week. While the quality is not the best, they are still fun to hear. Remember, to listen you need to right click on the links below, choose "Save target as", and save them on your computer. Let me know how it works out by posting a comment. Have fun,
Mr. Willis

Deck The Halls
Dreidel
Jingle Bells
Rudolph

Friday Singing

Hello!
I enjoyed hearing you all sing the festive holiday songs in the gym last week. I also had a great time sharing cookies and one of my favorite books in our mixed group afterwards. I want to know what book you heard in your group and I want you to post a comment about it. It could be your favorite part, a funny part, a part with excellent descriptions or a connection you made. I look forward to your thoughts,
Mr. Willis

Government Interviews

Hi everybody! It’s Laura. I am doing an article about our study of government. In our study, we watched videos, we made posters, pretended to vote, and we also made papers of the three branches. In my interview you will hear Me, Liam M., Robbie, Julia, Adam and Zach. I am going to ask them a couple questions. If you are wondering what they are then you will just have to find out yourself.....

Government Interview

Garden Festival

Hello! My name is Sophia. I am from Williston Central School. I am in fourth grade, in Pinnacle House, and in Mr. Willis’s class. Almost every year we have a big garden festival. Lighthouse and Pinnacle got together by the garden and sing songs, recited poems that we had written, and more! All morning, people in the cafeteria had been making lots and lots and lots and lots of vegetable soup. Almost all the vegetables are from the garden! For lunch we all got in the cafeteria, and ate the soup and more treats. (Like zucchini cake) This year there was a slide show of pictures of us working out in the garden! If you click on the link below, you can hear some interviews that I took on the day of the garden festival!

Garden Interviews

Four Winds

Hello, again, this is Zachary! No, I’m not going to talk about anything I have already posted on the blog like the Garden and Work Together. This time I want to talk about Four Winds. Four Winds is a program and a class about the enviornment and is run by Mrs. Colt and Mrs. Parker. Four Winds always has a main topic. The main topic will be answered in the interview. I have interviewed two new people this time, Laura and Sophia. I hope you enjoy it! Now that’s enough of talking, let’s get interviewing! Click on the link below:
Four Winds

Newton Rules!

Hello Scientists!

Now that your first two days of science workshops are finished, it's time to post your reactions and what you learned. You will be working with Ms. Peterson's class on a similar question and helping them post. Here are your tasks:

1. Tell us what law you were studying.

2. Share your favorite experiment and tell us a bit about what you observed and what you learned from it.

3. Did you change the experiment at all and get different results?

Good luck being teachers,

Mr. Willis

Sir Isaac Newton

Election Projects

Election Article
By Nathalie and Hanna
My name is Nathalie and my name is Hanna and we are in 3rd grade in Mr. Willis’ class. We are studying elections. We started on September 1st 2008 and now it is November 11th 2008. We did it with our class. We were learning about the Election because it was very important because he wanted us to learn to vote so when we get older we now how to vote. It was very fun to learn about it. We got to take notes about the three branches of the government. We also got to make campaign posters. We got to make them with our table groups. We were going to make a classroom constitution with the phrases that we used to make our posters. We read some books about the federal government. We saw some slide shows about how a bill turns into a law in the classroom. We saw the slide shows with our whole class. Our favorite part was when made posters because we got to design our own picture. The names of the three branches are the legislative, judicial and the executive. Our second favorite thing was taking notes because we could decorate them. One time we wrote about the three branches. The first one we wrote about was the legislative, and then we wrote about the judicial, then the executive branch.

Celestial Excitement!

Hello class,
The CQ I want you to look up has to do with a special sight in the night sky. It has been visible since the past weekend so you may have seen it. If not, you can try tonight, but I think that it will be too cloudy. Never fear! Follow the link below to learn about what you have seen or what you can still see when the sky clears. Be sure to click around to find the sky charts and links to photos of the event. Post the name of the event and the names of the objects involved. Feel free to add comments about your own observations.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Mr. Willis

Challenge Questions!

Hello Class,
I did a quick search about bread yeast after the busses left and I got so excited that I had to post. Here is a link that gives some information and an experiment! I hope that someone tries it out and posts their results:
Yeast experiment
Remember that I also asked you to research some facts about why we use pm and am when telling time. Happy hunting,
Mr. Willis

Thailand

Hello Travelers!
I think that you are quite fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn about another country and its customs. You have learned about this country in a variety of different ways. I have enjoyed seeing some of the activities you have done in your Writer's Notebooks, but I would love to learn more! Please think and reflect about your time with Senorita Memoe, then write a post that tells others what you have enjoyed the most. Please give a specific example of what you did or how you learned that explains why you feel that way. As always, I encourage you to respond to what others post. Happy writing,
Mr. Willis

Campaign Ads

Hello Families,


As part of our election study, student groups worked together to create posters and ads in the spirit of the election campaign. Table groups were assigned a topic from the conversations that we had when setting up our Classroom Constitution. They then had to create a poster that advertised their idea in a way that would make others want to vote for them. Some groups took it another step and recorded "commercials". Below are some links where you can click and listen. Post your comments and your reactions to our campaign activity.
Mr. Willis

Have Fun

Work Together

Election Day!

Hi Class,

Today has already been very exciting, interesting and informative. Our trip to the Armory to see the actual ballot and to witness the privilege of voting in person was wonderful. I am proud of you for being so involved and interested. Our Kids Vote time was excellent too! I can't wait to see how the vote turns out for the organization we will raise money for. Here is your assignment:

1. Post a comment about your election day experiences. Share how you felt, what you saw, what you learned, or what you found interesting. Remember, no political opinions here!



2. Visit the Scholastic News page for all your election needs.



3. Visit election results for a very complete page on results. Don't forget to do your map!

4. Here is another great site geared towards children : PBS



Post how you spent time on these sites and how your election night went!



Mr. Willis

Monday's Work

Hi Class,
Your task for today is to make sure that you and your partner have visited the blog together and posted for a topic or topics of your choice. You will need headphones to hear Carly's report. You can borrow one from another computer in the room and there is a box of extra ones in the TA closet. Any that are taken from there should go back in the box and stored. Another idea for a post is to visit the star chart link (not the National Geographic one) and click on the October chart for the Northern Hemisphere, which is where you live. The PDF one works best if you zoom in past 100%. What are the names of the constellations that have the Little and Big Dippers in them? You can post their or here. Have fun!
Mr. Willis

Friday Morning Mix Up

Hi! My name is Carly. I did a news report about every Friday morning in Mr. Willis’ and Mrs. Peterson’s classroom. I am in Mr. Willis’ class, in fourth grade, and in Pinnacle house. I recorded a story about projects we did together and I interviewed some other kids. I hope you enjoy it!

News Report
https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/241369/Carly%27s%20wav.wav

The Night Sky

Hello Class,

We have been talking a lot over the last few days about the night sky. I have asked a Challenge Question about the full moon name and we were discussing the Big Dipper. I have included some links below to help you gather information about these topics. Your task is to visit the sites and post an answer about the name of the October full moon. I want you to post the name of the full moon for your birthday month too. What name or names do you like most? I'll give a task for the star charts later. Good luck,

Mr. Willis

Full moon names

Star chart

National Geographic Star Chart

The Garden

Hello, everyone! This is Zachary from Mr. Willis’s class in the house of Pinnacle! I am going to interview two people after I tell you about the topic. What I am here to talk about is the garden at Williston Central School. Many students from the School go out to the garden two days a week. They go out Tuesday and Thursday. Here is my interview about the garden. Click on the link below:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/241369/Zachary%27s%20Garden%20Interview.wav

Four Winds

Hi Class!


I'm really excited for our blogging adventure. Your first assignment is to post a few sentences about your favorite part of our first Four Winds session. You may also add facts that you learned during the lesson. Here's a photo to help spark your memories if you are stuck. Good luck,

Mr. Willis