California Missions and More (student submissions)

Musical

Hi, I am the yankee framer. Not the baseball player. I am one of the yankees that come to California as a place of “Golden Opportunity.”  I like to farm a lot.  I meet President Polk. He wants to own California. He thinks that it will be a good place to Manifest Destiny.

HI my name is Akshaj. I am playing the yankee framer in our play. I am supposed to act like I don’t want to be a farmer. No offense but (I think the yankees have the best song!) I think the play will be enjoyable. I show up twice in the play. This play is very interesting. I thought that i will feel uncomfortable when I sing but it’s fun. Handing off to Daphne……………..

Our Class Musical

By:Daphne

Hi my name is Daphne. I wanted to tell you that in  our class we have been practicing our play called California Missions and More! My part in the play is the farmer’s wife. It is very fun. This week we were supposed to memorize our lines. Mr. Fassler told us that it is called “off script.” Off script means to memorize the script. In case you don’t know our play, is about some people making a movie. Briyonni and Keira are the directors. But they are not the real directors they are acting like directors. Also Mr. Fassler told us at his old school one class also did California Missions and More!  

 Our Class Play

                 by:Sierra

Hello! My name is Sierra. I am in the play California Missions and More with my classmates! My part is Johnson, the assistant director. June 2nd is when we perform the play for our school and June 4th is when we perform it for our parents. Right now almost all of us have memorized our lines. I am the only one who gets to use the script because I will actually have it on the stage when we perform it in case someone accidentally forgets their lines. I think everyone is happy with our play so far and I like it too. We have almost finished the choreography as well. Now all we really need to do is make the props and make the play awesome and epic! I think the parents and kids will appreciate it!

Math Menu!!!!

Math Menu by Jakob Brooks

        This year we are doing a menu math project for open house. It is basically just making a fake restaurant and a fake menu for it, but the catch is that you have to do math things in it. For example, you would have one-half of your desserts with chocolate and two-fifths of your appetizers with meat. The first step was to make a layout of all your food items on a rough draft scratch paper. Step 2 was to was to have all of those items with ingredients and prices. Step 3 was to have a piece of construction paper with the name of your restaurant and a layout of where the food will go. Step 4 was to have the food written out in the construction paper with prices and ingredients. Step 5 was to have a written history about your restaurant that had to be at least a paragraph. The fifth and final step was to have it colored in and finished.

          I think the most difficult part was adding all of the math components such as requiring number patterns and an equation with adding fractions. Some people chose to do everything online, but I chose to have everything hand-written. I thought it was easier to add the pictures and diagrams by hand instead of having to find the right picture, make it the right size, and have to print it out later.

Fun with Electricity

A little static electricity goes a long way.

 

Making simple, series, and parallel circuits with batteries, wires, and bulbs.

                                      

Can't keep a good balloon down.

After learning about magnets, we turned our attention to electricity. We started with whole group discussions about static electricity and the build up of electrons and eventual discharge often felt as a shock. This week we broke into our expert groups as students learned about and then shared with their teammates information regarding electric current, electric circuits, and next up are electromagnets. Students had a blast with energy sticks that allow students to see the need for a complete path for current to power a device and to easily test materials as conductors or insulators.

April is Poetry Moth

Acrostic by Aidan

Cheese pizza is my favorite food
Hello comes a friend at the door
End your talking so you start
End up making cheese pizza
Some salad would be nice
End up eating cheese pizza

Poem by Akshaj

Spider Cats
Spider Cats,
Arent they the best class pet?
With its venomous smile and it’s perfect purr
dont you think this animal is totally absurd.

Acrostic by Angel

Don’t take food from it’s
Owner. He’ll eat you like a
Nugget of candy
Under his bed he has
Toffee and it’s really
Sweet

Acrostic by Arianna

Love everything
Embrace yourself
To have fun

Acrostic by Briyonni  

  Pretty
  Encouraging
  Young
  Talented
  On the case
  New baby cousin

Acrostic by Daniel

End
Nether
Dragon
Eats baby
Rabbits

Limerick by Daphne 
"Pencil"

I lost my mechanical pencil
Then it  turned into a stencil
It ran away
But I caught it YAY, YAY!:)
Then it turned into a utensil.

Alphabet by Devraj

Awesome as a possum
Birds like bread
cats like milk and
deer like grass
elephants water and
fat people eat a lot

Haiku by Emi

Bright flowers blooming
in the light and the darkness
Blue, purple and pink

Acrostic Poem by Haley

Hyper          
Artistic        
Laughy          
Enthusiastic      
Young

Acrostic by Isabella

Canvases
Remarkable
Exiting
Art
Talented
Interesting
Venturous
Entertaining

Limmerick by Jakob

My face is getting blue,
I think I have the flu,
My name is Nick,
I’m very sick,
Because I ate a dirty shoe.

Poem by Jeremy

I have two friends one of there names is Dev I had another one but know he is dead
I think about him every night when I’m in bed.
But at least i still have Dev.

Poem by Joey

I need some food and milk,i’m super super weak,
I need something to hold me up before I go to sleep.

Acrostic by Jonathan

Jumpy
on your head
never mean
awesome
thinking
hopping on your head
a brainiac
never mean

Limerick by Keira

My house is in a town
My town has a clown
He is very funny
And he has a bunny
When he makes people frown

Concrete Diamante  Poem by Kiana



Alphabet by Madelyn

A little
Bird sings the
Cutest little song
Day and night
Every single day

Alphabet by Mateo

a wolf was on a hilll
but is was happy like a bird named bill
cause it was smiling
deeply in the grass it sang a song
every day it sang for hours

Limerick by Michaela

There once was a bat.
Then it saw a cat.
The cat ate the beast,
Oh, what a wonderful feast.
“Why, what a nice hat!”

Diamante by Mihir

                      snake
             Quick            strong
       deadly   fatal     killing
               ruthless cruel
                  rattlesnake

Alphabet by Olivia

Alexis and my sister went to
Bed as me and my parents went to
Crusty’s Pizza as
Dereck our babysitter watched my sisters
Eventually we went home and found my sister
Felica at the front door looking at us sternly as we saw Derek
Gnawing socks as we saw our dog
Henrald was  somehow blue and
I decided we’d never leave home without my sisters.

Diamante by Rohan

         Me
 fun athletic funny
nice sports kid
 friends family
        Me

Limerick by Sierra

Some people are not the same,
Others might think that’s lame,
But that’s okay
On a sunny day
I am sure you’ll find your fame.

Acrostic by William

   Walking is fun
   And healthy
   Legs walk for you and
   Kick for you.

Haiku by Zerlan

One big and old tree
 could help living creatures
  in this big planet

Al Capone Does My Shirts Book Trailers

Here are some book trailers that the class (and teacher) made after completing the novel Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko.

Genius Hour

After a long hiatus to our class blog, I wanted to share some notes about and photos of projects students were working on before and after Winter Break. With a pause in enrichments, we had some extra time to devote to student selected topics. We called this time Genius Hour. Ranging from 40-60 minutes 3-4 times a week, students had ample time to explore a subject they found interesting and get creative in a very hands on way. Some students tried out Makey-Makeys with no direct instruction. Makey-Makeys are simple color coded parts that when combined in “right” order allow electric current to flow through creating a circuit that can run a light or small motor. It was great to see the enthusiasm and even though there weren’t enough sets for each student that was interested to have their own, it fostered collaboration, patience, and teamwork.

                                     

Other students went the art route, yet in many different forms. Some students focused on holiday decorations and created a tree, colored construction paper chains, pipe cleaner bows, and even faux presents. Other students worked on a large mural and gained an incredible amount of respect from me when another student accidentally spilled water on it and they had to work on something else while it dried. Another student, when not assisting others, diligently worked on creating cardboard blades from a character in a game League of Legends. By the end, another student had created a cardboard mask/head from a different game. Even projects that weren’t aren’t specific had some type of flair.

                               

Some students gravitated towards cardboard and a group of boys made a jet pack and others laser blasters. Some students created a ping pong ball toss game using cardboard and a few girls took it further and created a target for a bow that shot unsharpened pencils.  In the final stretch of time, two more cardboard arenas were created, one for football and one for basketball, including raised hoops for the latter and advertising billboards for the former.

I was even impressed by those who started out simply wanting to play some games. A group of boys started by playing Connect Four, but by the end had created modified rules to make the game more fun and challenging. Another group of girls were simple passing around a putty ball, and when encouraged to think about ways to expand, created a styrofoam bordered arena complete with goals and the ability to play 2-on-2, much like foosball.

The process did require some patience on my end, as well as a willingness to at times let things get a little messy, and even a little more noisy than usual, but the final (and sometimes still incomplete) projects show that it was a worthwhile endeavor. I highly encourage offering time to your children to just mess around. With simple supplies that were found around the class as well as things that were being unused at my home, there was more than enough to stimulate curiosity and creativity. On a last note, if lack of cardboard is ever the determining factor, Costco will gladly give it away when asked. That’s an insider tip, just don’t tell anyone that you heard it from me.

              
                                                     

LPA Conference

Hi my name is Aidan and I had a great weekend in October. Let me tell you about myself before I talk about the weekend. Did you know I have a dwarfism! I was born with achondroplasia (man that’s a long word, mom had to help me with that spelling). No big deal. I’m just little and will always be little. I can still ride a bike, and build legos, and play sports.

Now for the weekend. Over a weekend this October, I was at a Little People of America Regional Conference right here in Sacramento. I met a boy named Peyton, who is about the same size as me. When I met him he was playing Minecraft on his iPad. There were lots of kids that were my size there. I had lunch with Bradley. I have known him since I was a baby. At the conference I hung out with lots of kids.

I went to a banquet with my family and there was a dance afterwards. I was so sweaty from the dance!

There was a photobooth there too. We had fun in the photobooth.

What a great weekend!