The News from Room 32

Room #32 was busy:

~meeting the new class plant, “McPrickle”

~learning how a bill becomes a law

~putting together posters on the 3 branches of government

~presenting their projects on famous Mainers.

A busy week!

The poets of room #32 have been busily writing, revising and critiquing poetry this month.  Take a listen to a few of the poems we’ve written:

Click here to take a listen

SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — Jay Whitesell, a fourth-grade student at Marshwood Great Works School, won the school-level competition of the National Geographic Bee on Jan. 5 and a chance at a $25,000 college scholarship.

Owen Himmer came in second and Elijah D’Aran came in third in the bee.

Sixteen Great Works students competed in the bee, held in the school library. Students answered oral questions on geography, competing in the first round of the 24th annual National Geographic Bee. Thousands of schools around the United States and in the five U.S. territories participate annually.

The school winners, including Whitesell, will now take a written test and up to 100 of the top scorers in each state will then be eligible to compete in their state bees March 30.

The National Geographic Society will provide an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., for state champions and teacher escorts to participate in the national championship rounds in May. The first-place national winner will receive a $25,000 college scholarship, a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society, and a trip to the Galapagos Islands.

The moderator for the Jan. 5 bee was Grace Jacobs, gifted education specialist, and the judges were Lori Girouard and Elizabeth Morrison. Teachers and many parents and grandparents attended the event to encourage the students.

Other students who competed included Liam Coomy, Liam Cannon, Robbie Christian, Linus Manchester, Arian Pulkinen, Chloe Young, Gaby Barber, Jason Glidden, Halliday Dinsmore-Patch, Jessica Reunig, Sophia Freeman, Katie Taran and Simeon Babineau.

Anyone can test their geographcy knowledge; there is a National Geographic GeoBee Challenge app with more than 1,000 questions culled from past bees.

We got right back to work this morning!  We’ll be writing poetry this month, so we started out by reading published poets…

Mrs. Manero’s class joined ours for some square dancing this morning.  It was a wild and wonderful time!

Students did a little multiplication wrestling today in order to prepare for the big event coming soon:  multi-digit multiplication.  We had some very competitive matches:-)

We’ve completed 3 fun landform projects in the past week:  relief maps of the United States, clay landform reference sheets and fantasy islands.  Check them out!  (Click on a picture to see it in more detail.)

Skull Island, by Jay W.

Taylor Swift Island, by Sophie and Audrey

Death Star Island, by Owen

Beiber Island, by Kaia

Scorpion Island, by Damien, Alex and Steven

Gleek Island, by Jason G. and Chloe

Under Sea Island, by Jeremy and Jason D.

Haunted Island, by Jay Nelson

Cat Island, by Thomas

Clubhouse CLuster, by Ruby and Halli

Muppet Island, by Lilly and Jessica

Gulf

Volcano

Oasis

Tributary

The United States of America in relief

Students have been creating relief maps of the United States out of clay.  So far they’ve  gotten the plains in – now on to the plateaus…

The writers of room #32 have been busy writing paragraphs.  A few students wanted to share.

Click here to hear Audrey

Click here to hear Jay W.

Click here to hear Ruby

Click here to hear Damien

Click here to hear Jay N.

Click here to hear Halli

Click here to hear Sophie

Click here to hear Chloe

Click here to hear Lilly

Click here to hear Jason G.

CLick here to hear Colin

Friday was opening night for this year’s community musical, “The Jungle Book”.  Lilly, Jason and Kaia looked great!