Mr. Smith's Class Newspaper

Every week we write our newspaper, The Fourth Grade Times. Usually working in pairs, kids write first on paper, then they type the stories on computers. After checking for mistakes, writers deliver their stories either on a disk or via the network to the kid editors. Editors copy files directly into the newspaper word processing document. Finally, editors arrange the stories, try to correct as many errors as possible, meet with the writer if needed, then they print the final copy. This is an authentic learning project much like working for a real newspaper -- all writing, editing, and the final printing must be finished by our deadline, which is about 2 hours! When the paper is published, writers read their stories aloud and explain what fixes or edits might be made. Then the whole class offers comments and questions that the writers must answer. Examples of some of our newspaper writing will appear on this page all year long. We hope to improve with every issue.

Mrs. Krauss’ Box by Tomeisha and Nikki
Did you ever hear of Hazelnut butter or Marionberry jelly? Well Mr. Smith's class has. Last Thursday we received a box of two kinds of spreads. This box was from a women named Mrs. Krauss in Oregon. The stuff that was in the box was Marionberry jelly, Hazelnut butter, Hazelnut nuts, and a nutcracker. She helped us understand all of this stuff by sending us a voicethread. She told us about her pets Atticus, and Frisbee. She showed us about her garden. She had flowers and weeds in her garden and asked us to come an be her garden slave. Also she collects goofy post cards and she sent us one about a little guy fishing for fish and he caught a HUGE Bass. She was thanking us for doing such a good job in the video confrence by sending the surprise. The voicethread she sent is this link: Mrs. Krauss' Voicethread.

What is Vegemite? by Victoria and Jessica
Two weeks ago we got an Australian food called vegemite. It was sent by a airplain by Mrs. Lowe's class. It was sent because people were talking about it on their blogs so Mr. Smith asked if Mrs.Lowes could send us some vegemite. Vegemite is salty and it was black. Vegemite is one of Australia's most famous spreads. We sampled it on crackers and bread. Mr. Smith made a video of us eating it. After we tasted it we had to give it a thumbs up, down, or medium. Ten people thought it was good, seven people thought it medium, and four people thought it was bad! The video is HERE.

1001 Tales Voting by Mercadees and Raven
Well hey there guys we are going to tell you about 1001 Tales voting. This is a project we are doing with Mrs. Lowes class in the western side of Australia . We voted on their stories and they voted on ours. The way we voted was that Mr. Smith had a calculator, and then we had to write all of the names down. Then we had to follow all of the steps to judge the stories and they are 1. Make sense, 2. Describing Words, 3. Improved, 4. Pictures in your mind. We had to vote what they did right. We had to pick numbers 1-5 to vote. The top 10 writers from Australia were 1. Katie, 2. David, 3. Sumati, 4. Molly, 5. Lara, 6. Euan, 7. Davis, 8. Cagla, 9. Isobella, 10. Celine. Katie and David are top 2 writers because their stories make sense and it had a lot of describing words they improved and last but not least their story made pictures in our minds the best. We will put the top 10 writers from Australia on Smithclass wikispaces Hall of Fame. Mercadees and Raven think that this is a good project because this is one opportunity to work with kids from the other side of the world!

Blogging Friends by Kayla and Leeann
Who would ever know Mr.Smith's class would have blogging friends in New Zealand? Recently on our blogs Mr. Smith has put on the days of the week in Chinese and The XO video. We have been going to Mr. Greenberg's blogs more often to put comments. Livewires have became our newest blogging friends from New Zeland. We like leaving comments on peoples blogs around the world.Mr. Smth is a really great teacher who lets us do interesting stuff! Something brand new that Mr. Smith is going to put on our blogs is questions about pumpkins. Livewires sent us them. These are 4 of the questions they sent us:1)Do you grow pumpkins in your country? 2) Do you eat pumpkins in your country? 3) How do you eat pumpkins in your country? 4) What else do you use pumpkins for? That's just 4! Until next time folks!!!

The XO Laptop Computer
by Shai’anye and Emily
We had News 3-13-08. Our day got a lot better when we got to use the XO laptop. The XO was invented for every kid in the world to have one but mainly in poor countries. Mr. Smith did a get one give one free deal. But he gave one of them to someone else in the world! We got the XO on March 6, 2008. The little keyboard is green and rubber. The computer has a built in camera and video camera. The rest of the XO is green and white. It is different from the other computers in our classroom because the XO has a camera, it is small, it's rubber, and it h has a lot of games. The kids that got to use it first were Shai'anye and Emily. They used it to write a newspaper story. We learned how to do a video, how to take a picture, how to do turtle art, listen to music, and use the paint. The XO runs on Linux . We think it is better than windows.

The Witches by Tomeisha and Jordon
Have you ever heard of witches being real?! Well we have. The author of this interesting book is Roald Dahl. Tomeisha says that this author is interesting, serious, and silly. Jordon says he is interesting and funny. Here are some details from the book that we read: All of the witches were listening to the GRAND HIGH WITCH say horrible things about the children such as, " They smell like dogs droppings". As the crowd was chanting whatever the GRAND HIGH WITCH said they would chant it back. They started saying, '' Pooooooo"! That is an England word for poop. Or should I say Inkland. I get that from the GRAND HIGH WITCH. The GRAND HIGH WITCH said, " Talking about children is making me sick". Then she said, " Fetch me a basin''! She said that because she was getting sick. The plan of the witches for the children was to buy sweet shops [or should I say sveet-shops] and put something they call FORMULA 86 DELAYED ACTION MOUSE-MAKER in their chocs and sveets. This interesting formula allows the children to eat the witches sveets and chocs and turn them into mice!

Art This Week by Logan
Hi, I am going to tell you what we did in art this week. We painted a abstract face with different shapes in the background. Abstract means a painting or drawling that is not symetricail. The colors that we had to chose from were red,blue, and yellow. The project was called Pablo Picasso. We did a value scale from lightest to darkest and the different colors were black and white. I say that the project was messy because we got paint all over the place. Mr. Schisler wanted us to know how to paint a Pablo Picasso painting because we do not know that much about it.

Amazing Spiders! by Mercadees and Leeann

Our story this week is when we did a reading assesment on the amazing spiders. The insect story we read on March 11, 2008 was called the amazing spider. This test that we took was about reading. Three things that we learned about what spiders do to held us is they don't harm your plants in the garden they keep them alive. They barely bite people,and the female is larger them the male.Spiders are born in a eggsack it holds thousand of spider eggs, the name of baby spider are called spiderlings. spiders can live intell they are 10 ,or, 11 years old. The best summary in the spider story is it says that spiders are more interesting then what people think!

$10 Math Problem
Leeann has $10. She spends $1.17 for pencils, $2.19 for paper, and $1.69 for erasers. Then she loses $1.71. How much money does she have left from the $10?

Mr. Greenberg Video by Anasia and Kayla
Have you ever been in Connecticut and Missouri at the same time ? Well Mr. Smith’s class has. They were in their class on March 4 talking to a class in a different time zone, useing video. Can you belive it? We can it is the truth we was calling a different class on the computer. We had to go to Skype to talk to them on the camera. They are in the eastern time zone. So when we called them it was 11 o’clock here it was 12 o’clock there. The activity we did with this class was I am an Unknown Number. Here is how you play this game: you have to write down a math problem. Here is an example. I am an Unknown Number me x me =81 What am I? The me is the number 9. To do all this we had to hook a camera up to the computure. Next turn on the projecter to the smart board. After doing all this we had o write down a math problem. The student that liked to be at the camera the most in that class was Hannah and Riddrick. These two students are from Mexico. Mr.Greenberg gave us an hard question it was ottffsse - what is the next letter? It is this because you had to count if you put the word 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 you get it ? I think that Hannah and Riddrick did good. Mr. Greenberg was a magician before a teacher. Next time we talk to them he is going to do a magic trick for us. This will help him be a fun teacher by doing tricks for his students. That is what we did with Mr. Greenberg’s class Bye.

The BIG Salad Party
by Dee and Junior
Come on down to Mr.Smith's 4th grade for a salad party! Before the big salad party we did other science with Pakistan we did a plant project with them and we are still growing some plants. The Pakistan kid sent us some voicetheard, one of the flower were Roses. The Pakistan kids said the Roses are the queen of the flower. The second Pakistan kid did a venus fly trap. The Pakistan kid said if a insect gets to the middle of the venus fly trap ,it will close with the insect inside. Back to the salad. The items we needed to make the salad party happen were: almonds, peanuts, s unflower seed, dried crandberries, carots, lettuce, olives, radishes, and cucumbers. We think the tasty parts of this salad were the cheese ,lettuse, and carots. We even brought big bowl, plastic forks, and small salad bowl. Creighton brought salt and pepper. Mrs. Huseman's class came to get some salad too.

Radio Pledge of Allegiance
by Nikki and Shayna
It all started when Mr.Norman from khbl 96.9 emialed Mr. Smith. Mr.Norman asked Mr. Smith if his class would Sing the pledge of allegince on the radio. Mr. Smith emailed Mr. Norman back and he said yes. So Mr. Smith said class guess what and Mr. Smith said Mr.Norman just emailed me and asked if we would sing the pledge of allegince on khbl 96.9. So Mr. Smith class got very happy. Mr. Smith said settle down and get in a big circle. So the class got in a big circle and Mr. Smith put the miniture micrphone in the middle. Mercadees the class president said this is the pledge of allegiance by Mr. Smiths 4th grade. then everyone in our class started to sing the pledge of allegiance. When we got done Mr. Smith turned the radio to khbl 96.9. and we heard the pledge of allegiance at 1:15 in the afternoon.

Pakistan Plant Project by Tomeisha and Mercadees
Howdy guys our story this week is about us doing a project about plants with Pakistan. Did you know that Pakistan is located middleast part of the world? In the project with Pakistan there are five steps to the plant project the first step is to pick a plant or tree and find research on it. The second step is to find a picture of your plant or tree and draw picture of it. Next you make a voicethread podcast on the information that you found on your plant. The third step is to play games on plants from cool websites. Now the fourth step is to grow plants in your classroom . Oh ya we are growing 3 types of flowres and they are Wheat grass, Scarlet runner ,and then the last one is Radish! Some of the examples of plants that the kids have chosen are Zinnia , Pin Cherry tree, Venus Fly Trap, Milk Weed plant,and a Palm Tree.
Now the last step is to make a big huge SALAD!!!!!

Embedding Blog Turtles by Anasia and Junior
Today in this story Junoir and I are going to tell you about Anasia's Turtles. One day Anasia went to Mr.Monson's blogs. I had to click on one of his kids names. Because I was going to read one of there blogs I picked Cynnamon's. On her blog she had two turtles on there aslo a tree frog. When I was feeding her frogs I clicked on the word abowman. It took me to another site. Next I clicked on the word turtle and under the turtles I clicked on Cuctomize your turtle gadget. I had to choose there color and food color. Then I had to copy a code go to my blog then to artical and paste the code. Then I had to write a blog about it. On the computer screen they looked like a light green and green turtles. Now on my blog you get to feed and move two turtles around. I was realy happy to get them on my blogs. If you want to know how Mr.Monson is his a teacher from Minnesota. Now everybody wanted one. You can get fish,pengin,a tree frog,spider,turtles,and x-ray. I think i'm going to get the tree frog next time. Zei jian!

Doing a Line Plot by Dee and Josh
A line plot is a kind of graph that uses x's to show you what people did on certin days.There are other things you can use for line plots for an (Example shoes sizes, numbers of pets, numbers of books read in a week).The letter poeple usauly use is X's. The information we used tells how many poeple did somthing. WE put the informtion in a chart. If you don't check your line plot you might get it wrong because the numbers might get mixed up, also the wrong number of x's.

Philippines Visitor by Emily and Shayna

This AMAZING story is about when Shayna’s Aunt Brenda came all of the way from the Philippines to America!!! Brenda wanted to teach us what we need to know if we go to the Philippines. When she came to our class it was on January 14, 2008 on a Monday. The first thing she told us is the Phillippines capital is Manila. The Philippines has 7,100 islands. After she said that she showed us a map. Emily raised her hand and asked “ What is your name?” She said “ I am so sorry. I forgot to tell you my name. It is Brenda." She taught us her favorite dance was the Running Man. It is like running in place. Next she told us how to say a lot of words!!! She said she misses the malls. She said they are HUGE!!! In the Philippines 1 American dollar is worth $44 in the Philippines money!!! She told us she mainly eats rice and meats. Next she told us how to say some Filipino words. This is how you say dog, asso. If you want to say cat this is how, pussa. She said she would like to come back sometime!!! We all hope she comes back!

Eraser Kindness
by Kalin and Cheyenne

Today we will tell you about a video called Erasers Gone Crazy. We watched the eraser
video on Mr.Smith's Fourth Grade Blogs. The main characters were Mrs. Fingerstand and the evil erasers. Mrs.Fingerstand was a finger with a flat nose, biglips, and white hair. The erasers had mean looks on thier faces. The colors of the erasers were red, yellow, purple, blue and pink. The main idea of the video was be kind to your erasers. In the video Cheyenne's favorite part was when the erasers erased Mrs. Fingerstand's hair. Kalin's favorite part was when the erasers erased the art work. We were very suprised of how mean erasers could be. If you would like to watch this video go to Mr. Smith's fourth grade blogs. Whatever you do be kind to your to your erasers!

Math Video Wrestling by Leeann and Anasia
Today in the newspaper Leeann and I are going to tell you about Math Wrestling. The class we played with in a video conference was Mrs.Black's class from Naches, Washington. The people that played first in Mr. Smith's class was Tomeisha and me Anasia. To play this game you need to have cards an a piece of papar. Each team needs to have 4 cards to turn over so you can see the numbers on top. After they turned over the cards, you put 2 little numbers together to make 1 big number. One example of 4 cards we had was a 9,9,8, and a 4. We put the 9,4 together and the 9,8 together. To make 94 and 98. Then we put 94 and 98 on top of the paper. Next we put under each number what made up the numbers. Such as 94 makes 90+4. Under 98 we put 90+8. After that we had to multiple 90x90 because we had to multiple the numbers that make up 94 and 98. Then you 90x8 that equals 720. The first multiple equals 8,100. Then you do 90x4 thats 360. Last but not least 4x8 that equals 32. At the end you up 8,100 +720+360+32= 9,212. Who had the biggist number at the end won the game. We lost and they won.

Making Pie Fractions
By Mercadees and Creighton

This weekly story is about Pie Fractions! Some of the fractions you can divide a circle into are 1/3, 3/4, 1/2, 6/14, 8/16, 6/16, 7/10, and 8/8! The point you should put on a Pie Fraction is in the middle of the circle. Here is how you make fourths out of a circle...First you make a circle then you draw lines vertical and horizontal.

If you want to make eighths all you have to do is to draw fourths and divide them again. Now if you want to make thirds you make a circle you make a Y inside of the circle now you have 1/3. Ok now we will tell you how to make sixths ... first you make a third then you make a line through each of the thirds and you have sixths. To show that 2/4 is bigger then 1/8 is to draw them out and you see that 1/8 is very small and 2/4 is half of the circle.

Goat for Christmas by Allison and Raven
This story is about 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade buying two goats for Malawi. Malawi is a country in Africa. A family in Malawi might use a goat for getting milk and making cheese. These two goats cost $150. So far we have brought in $162.30 for the goats. The teacher who had this good idea is Miss Huseman. The way we got the money is by 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students and teachers brought money. We are giving the goats to the poor because they do not have a lot of money. The goats are for making milk and cheese. We hope that the poor are happy because we gave them two goats.

Pakistan Video by Mercadees and Shayna Our story this week is about when a class of Pakistan students sent us a video for Christmas! Miss Elahi and her fifth grade class are the people we know in Pakistan and the name of their school is Disovery Centre Smart School. They were in a very special project, the project was THE MONSTER PROJECT. On Monday December 17,2007 Miss Elahi's class sent us a video of them singing Christmas song, the songs they sang were... Jingle Bells and we wish you a Merry Christmas. The reason we think Pakistan kids should speak English is because English people wouldn't understand them. The reason we are worried for our friends in Pakistan is because their country is right next to Iraq and there is a war going on there.

Our City Podcast by Kayla and Jordon
If you want to learn more about Hannibal listen to Our City Podcast. The name of the program we used to make our first podcast is Audacity. The main website that we put this program on is the Our City Podcast website. The city we mainly talk about is Hannibal MO. The first explorers to come by were Father Marquette and Louis Joliet. The first steamboat in town is the General Putnam. In 1830 Hannibal had a population of only 30 people. Right now we have a population of 18,000 people. We have 2 bridges, one for trains the other is for cars and trucks. A famous author that lived in Hannibal long ago was Mark Twain. The famous poet that our school is named after is Eugene Field.

New Blog Friends By Emily and Leeann
This newspaper story is about what we have done on our blogs. We have been getting in contact with people in Australia and New Zealand. The classes names that we are in contact with are Mrs. Lowe's in Australia and the Livewires in New Zealand. The kids in Australia are in fourth grade. The kids in New Zealand are in third grade. On New Zealand's blogs they have pictures of them while they are on field trips! On Australia's blog they have pictures of holiday greetings! The kids blogs we have left commets on are Oliver, Hannah, Jessica P., and the whole class blog! The whole class said it is interesting to see people do blogs on the other side or the World!

Snow Play ! by Cheyenne and Tomeisha
Today we will tell you about our snow play. On Saturday December 15 it snowed and the roads were iced. We estimated that about five inches of snow fell on the ground. With all the snow on the ground it made the town look really pretty and white. At school when there is snow on the ground we watch a movie instead of going outside for recess. Cheyenne and Tomeisha think that watching a movie for recess was boring. The class agrees with us too. On Monday we went outside and played in the snow and we thought that it was very different. We did a couple of things in the snow. First we made a figure eight. Only two people said they liked the figure eight best. Second we got to hit Mr. Smith with snowballs. Only one little snowball hit him. Mr. Smith thought Tomeisha hit him with a snowball but, it was really Junior. There were nine people that liked the snowball fight the most. Last we had the race. Kayla was last. Anasia was the winner of the race. Mr.Smith took a picture of Jessica and Mercadees on the spider. Mr. Smith also made a movie of all the activities. When we came back in we sent the videoes to Pakistan, Washington, and Michigan. We can't wait to play in the snow again.

Little Red King Fu by Nikki and Leeann This story is about Little Red Riding Hood Kung-Fu. We saw the video on November 27 of 2007. Little Red was different in this story then the Red riding hood story because she learned Kung-Fu, she had a fight with the wolf this time. The wolf was biggest but not the strongest. The one that had the hardest time was the wolf because he gets beat up by little red. The wolf might not say I will eat you anymore. These are the kung fu moves she made on the wolf: Grandma's basket, Grandma's back massage, and Grandma's lullaby. These are the moves she learned in her Martial Art School. It was a funny video!

About Barack Obama by Emily and Dee This story is about Barack Obama running for president of the United States of America. Barack is from Chicago, Illinois. It is in the North of Illinois. Barack is a Democrat. The main thing he wants to do if he becomes president is to stop the war. He also wants to get people health care and stop air pollution. I think kids would vote for him because he would change things. If you want to know more information go to www.barackobama.com. That’s the end of our story now!

By Shayna and Shai’anye This story is about adding and subtracting fractions. When we said the word fraction we mean like if you have 3 pieces of pie and took 1 away it will be 1/3 missing. The top fraction number is Numerator and the bottom fraction number is Denominator. When you add fraction you add the top numbers like 3/8 + 1/8 = 4/8. You would do 2/5 + 1/5 = 3/5, 2/8 + 3/8 = 5/8, 5/100 + 20/100 = 25/100. To take away you would do 35/100 - 30/100 = 5/100, and 8/15 - 4/15 = 4/15. We think fractions are not really hard.

Where is Naches, Washington? by Tomeisha and Emily

This story is about Naches, Washington. Naches, Washington is in the northwest of the USA. The class we are in contact with is Mrs. Black’s class. Highway twelve goes through Naches. It is about 2,100 miles from Hannibal. A park that is South from Naches is Dome Park. Naches is a very small town. It’s population is six hundred people! One thing we learned from Mrs. Black’s class in the video conference is that they call lightning bugs fire flies.

Indian in the Cupboard Update by Kayla and Leeann
This is a WONDERFUL story about our WONDERFUL book Indian in the Cupboard. In the chapter Thirty Scalps Omri learns Little Bear took 30 scalps which means he grabbed them by their hair and chopped their hair off. He realized that he was a little bit afraid of Little Bear. Little Bear wanted a white mans gun. The sad news is Omri gets sad that Little Bear's wife is dead. I think Omri will make a horse for Little Bear next.

by Kalin and Junior
This story is about how our teacher got in a bike accident on River Road. Mr. Smith had his terible accident on October 25,2007. At the time of Mr. Smith's accident his wife Mrs. Smith and him were riding their bikes down a big hill by River Road. Mr. Smith was going about 15miles pr hour on his bike. When he crashed he hit his head his elbow his knees and his side. When Mr. Smith had his accident he broke his pelvis bone that is around the leg parts. Mr. Smith will be in a wheel chair for six weeks or less. Mr.Smith feels that he wants to be walking around but he feels it will be a good lesson for him to use a wheel chair.

Mr. Meyer on Video by Mercadees and Jessica

Our story this week is about when Mr. Meyer called us using Skype. The person who came on our video computer was Mr. Meyer. Here is were Mr. Meyer's class is located it is in Michigan and the grade he teaches is 5th. Here is what Mr. Meyer look's like he is 36 years old ,he has brown hair, he has a normal shaped head , his eyes are in normal shape, he has a normal shaped nose, he has a meadum voice, and he seems really nice. Here is what Mr. Meyer told us on the video it was that he would give us a call back and let us see his 5th grade class. it was really clear when Mr. Meyer called us. Our whole class thinks we should call his class agian!!! (Mr. Meyer's web page)

Monster Project Update by Cheyenne and Leeann
Wow these monsters look weird! We started a project called the monster project on October 1 2007. Some classes in the USA make a monster and send it to Mr.Smith's webpage.So far there are 18 monsters on the monster page. We are still waiting for 4 classes to send in their monster names.The names of the monsters are Pella-Tron, Kombo Kreature, Ms. Dead-Eye, Soskay, Goggle Zoggle, Paper the monster,Bilbatauri Nussa Chauri,Big pop in the house, Jonny Thebes, Takushaku, Mr.Ugly, Fujigon, Mr.Megazilla Monster,and Mr.Firehorns. It took us awhile to get in all the monster names and pictures. We can't belive that some people do not have a name for their monster. If you want to see these monsters go to www.smithclass.org. We think that either Big pop in the house or Saskay will win when we vote for a monster name. We will have to see what will happen next. I hope we get all the monsters name's in soon.

Do You like Symbolic Monarchs if so . . .then you’ll like this story! The word symbolic means a paper Monarch that stands for a real Monarch. All Monarchs migrate to Mexico and they all huddle on trees to stay warm during the winter. The place our paper Monarchs go in the winter are to other kids down in Mexico. The real ones go to Angangueo in Mexico. If you want to know how to make a symbolic Monarch ... you take a peice of paper shaped like a butterfly color it then cut it out then put a picture of your face then you have a symbolic monarch butterfly. On the back you put a tag about your school and email address. If you want to know if we get our butterfly’s back in May our anwser is no because we will get a different butterfly back from Mexico!

This year we are doing a project called the Monster Project. Let's see the movies! The videos are for the Monster Project. The first video we made was called Scary School. We made it on October 10, 2007. The kids that were in the video were Emily, Anasia, Cheyenne, and Mercadees. We learned that when you wear a Halloween mask you have to talk really loud! The main events in the story are the science project, the potion, and the melting witch. The moral of the story is that the good witch doesn't always win. The other videos we made are Hannibal Star Wars, Monster Magicians, and The Monster Brothers. If you want to see the videos go to www.smithclass.org. Then you go to projects, then go to Monster on the Net: 2007, then go to vidoes and stories and you can see the videos!

Meyer’s Video Answer by Kalin and Dee
Mr.Smith sent a video to Mr.Meyer's of us in the math center one morning. Mr.Meyer's Class is located in Michigian and he teaches 5th grade. Mr. Smith said the kids have no idea what they're doing but he was joking around about the kids being confused. Mr. Smith asked the Michigan kids to say what the Hannibal kids might be doing in math center. Mr. Meyer's guesses were: they could be doing mesuring perimeter or area, observing geometric shapes, or building shapes using blocks of real life things.

Oh another thing about Mr. Meyer's class is that we watched a video on their blogs of a man dressed in a bigfoot suit. The other bigfoot video might be real and it might not but it was fun to watch.

Mrs. Black’s Monster Math By Jordan and Logan
The story is about Mrs. Black's monster math. She is teaching fourth grade. And she is in Naches, Washington. The problem that she sent us was to see if we can use monster votes to find the Maximum, the Minimum, The range, and the Mode. We did and the answer of the biggest is 67, the Minimum is 2, the differants of the biggest and the smallest is 65. The ones that appear most are14, 15, and 24. We were supposed to find the answer of the Maximum, Minimum, range, and the mode. The average was 27.85. Our class was more correct than Mrs. Black's class. It was nice of Mrs. Black to send us the math problem!

Fall Creek Hiking by Cheyenne and Mercadees

On Friday October 5, 2007 we rode on the bus to Fall Creek for our hike . We needed to take a clipboard, water bottle, data sheet, Fall Creek map to show us where we need to go, a backpack, sturdy shoes, long pants to keep away from poison ivy, ziplock bag , and sketching paper. These are some extra things we could bring: insect lotion, compass, camera , binoculars, and flashlight . Six parents went on the hike and their names are Mrs. Golian, Julia, Tysa, Mr. Hinton, Mr. Hartwig, and Junior ‘s dad. The surrondings in the first half of the hike were bunches of trees and thorns. There were animal tracks here and there , there was dirt on the ground, it was about 90 degrees outside. When we got done with the first half of the hike it was 11:04. When we finshed the hike it was 1:42. The total elapsed time of the hike was five hours and ten minutes. Some main features of the second part of the hike were the new bridge and the old bridge, rock pile, water fall , and the frog pond. Kids saw snakes and frogs. Junior’s dad killed a water snake. We think we should go hiking every month because it is intresting.

Making Trail Mix by Jordon and Raven
On Tuesday Mrs.Mannigel came and showed us how to make trail mix. The ingredients were cearal, dried apples, dried cranberry , dried apricot, pretzals,and nuts. First we put in cearal then dryed fruit then pretzals then nuts. In the juice was pomegranet and cranberry juice. The trail mix is for the hike. Besides trail mix we talked about the major bodyparts for digestion. They are the large intestine, small intestine, mouth, and stomach. We did an activity for the main bodyparts. We had a fake apple and put it in the mouth first then the stomach then the large intestine then the small intestine down a line of kids pretending to be digesting.

The Monster Project by Nikki and Emily

This year we are doing a project called the Monster Project. The main monster website is www.smithclass.org. What you do in the project is you describe a body part for the monster. Everybody sends in their descriptions then we all build a whole lot of monsters. Sixteen different schools are in the Monster Project. The youngest grade in the monster project is in pre school in New Jersey (Miss Hope). The oldest grade in it is fifth grade in Michigan (Mr. Meyer). Some of the people in the monster project live in Missouri, New Jersey, Texas, Pakistan, Japan, Michigan, New York, North Dakota, Taiwan, Japan, England, Pakistan and New Hampshire. The country I have not heard anything about is Pakistan. Pakistan is a country by Iraq. We are trying to have the monsters all built by Halloween.

Podcast to China By Anasia and Dee
Anasia sent her podcast to China on September 6,2007. To record my voice we used a micorphone,I had to practice 5 times. I had to say hi Haozon my name is Anasia. Heres the letter: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.Then I had to sing the alphabet. My purpose was to teach Hoazon how to speak English and his A,B,C's. If you want to listen to me, you go to www.smithclass.org then click on project. Then go to Class blogs and projects,then on Anasia-E click on My A,B,C's to China and you will hear my podcast. I hope Hoazon learns his A,B,C's and his English. A podcast is something you make and put anything you say on it. You can send it to anybody.

Japan E-Mail Pals
By Kayla and Tomeisha
This is a story about our class getting an email pal from Japan. Their group name is International Exchange Club. They go to Fuchinobe Elementry school and it is in Sagamihara City,Japan. Fifteen kids wrote to us. They are just trying to learn English. Their names are Sayuki, Yuka, Mei, Maiko, Maoka, Kanako, Yuuri, Ayaka, Kana, Anna, Miyu, Ayumi, Moeka, Natsuki, Suzuka. I learned that mine is ten, she is in fifth grade, she likes to jump rope, and she wants to be a nersery school teacher. And Tomeisha's email pal is ten, she's in fifth grade, she likes to dance, and she wants to be a dance teacher. Japan is in the Pacific Ocean. Japan is a group of islands. A good reason to visit Japan someday is beacause we want to see our email pals!

Marbles Math Problem
Dee has twice as many marbles as Shayna. Junior has twice as many marbles as Dee. Shayna has 14 marbles. How many marbles do Dee and Junior have all together?

Caterpillars are Here
by Creighton and Jordon

The caterpillars arrived in the office on Monday. The Monarch caterpillars came from the University of Kansas. The caterpillars will become Monarch butterflies.
Eleven Monarch caterpillars are alive in our class. The biggist caterpillar is 5.5 cm long. The next stage in their lives is to become a pupa. Then they will become an adult. After that they will dry their wings. Then they will fly to Mexico.

Our First Blogs By Cheyenne and Nikki
On September 5th 2007 at 12:00AM we started our first blog. A blog is where you type what you have been doing. You go to smithclass.org, click on projects, then click on class blogs and podcast,t hen choose a name and read. To get on a users blog and start writing you have to know thier username and password. Our first assignment was to write four random facts about yourself. Cheyenne was the winner of the third grade spelling bee. Nikki has one older sister named Amber and a younger sister named Hayden. Kids can comment another persons blog when they read it. Mr.Smith has to approve the comment or story before it appears on the internet.

Blogging About Taiwan By Leeann and Kayla
This is a story about us learning about Taiwan and blogging it. The program that we learnd about Taiwan on is called "Learn About Taiwan" .It has a map about Taiwan and all the cities in Taiwan. The capital of Taiwan is Taipei and 2,640,000 people live there. Taipei is in the northern side of the country. The main langauge in Taiwan is Chinese. and here are some examples, ni hao means hello how are you, xie xie means thank you, qing means please. People in Taiwan eat bread, soup, rice, and fish. A way that Taiwan is simaler in any way is their zoo looks like our zoo and has the same animals. We wrote the blogs about Taiwan on 9/10/07.

Raven’s Grand Slam By Raven and Junior
Our story is about Raven hitting a homerun. It was at Clemons Field. I hit it and it felt good. The pitcher was a fast pitcher. It was pitched to me 2 times. It was a high and straight ball. It was over the kids heads when I hit the ball. We did win the game and I hit 10 homeruns this year. My picture was in the newspaper. I was on WGEM t.v. I am glad about being on t.v.

TOM SAWYER - Latest Podcasts by Eriannia and Kylie
Wow there's a lot of new podcasts! Don't you think Eriannia?Kylie did a podcast on Tom Sawyer on Thursday April 12, 2007. Kylie got to wear the cool new headset also Alex got to wear them when she did her podcast on Ramona Quimby age 8. When the kids have the headset they look silly also this headset had very good sound when the children were doing their podcasts. Kylie's podcast was 4 minutes and 31 seconds long. Alex's podcast was 3 minutes and 32 seconds long. I think that podcasts are a good way to learn because it helps you with speaking loudly and clearly. When we use a podcast the children have very long pauses and your teacher can take the pauses out so it does not effect the podcast. That's how we make podcasts.

Taiwan Radio Ad by Emily and Dylan W. Our story is about the radio ad we made on March 16,2007. We made a podcast to make the radio ad but before that we sent it to the radio guy, David Norman, and he put it on the radio station. It is running every hour on the hour until midnight. It is on 96.9 on KHBL in Hannibal. The words to our commercial are: Ni hao, Hannibal! Im Chris Charlton, and I’m Emily Niffen. This summer, ten students are going to Taiwan! ALL THE WAY TO TAIWAN? thats right! We’ll be staying in the homes of email pals, go to Taiwan schools and eat strange foods, and speak lots of chinese. We need your donations to help make this trip possible. Please call Eugene Field shool at 221-1050. Xie xie and Zei Jian! Thats thank you and good bye in Chinese.

Taiwan Carnival by Kylie and Austin N
Wow!! This carnival was very fun! On Saturday March 10th 2007, People from my classes parents had suggested that we have a carnival to raise money for ten children to go to Taiwan. So we did and the ten children had to bake something to to serve to the people who decided to come. The carnival was at the armery in Hannibal ,Mo. There were games like the the dunking booth and balloon darts. The Taiwan kids parents had jobs at the carnival like Alex's mom worked at the ticket both,Kylie's mom worked at the decorate your cookie, and Austin's mom worked at the dunking both. Also the children had jobs like Kylie worked back in the kitchen with Bianca,and Gabby worked at the ring toss with Bianca too. There were raffle tickets and when it came time to do the raffle the Taiwan kids got on stage and said why they want to go to Taiwan. After the raffle we estimated how many jolly ranchers were in a jar and a little boy won the jolly ranchers. We made $1,859!

Pere Noel Letters to France By Casey and Austin F
Have you ever sent a letter to Pere Noel? Pere Noel is Santa Claus in France. We sent our Pere Noel letters to Grenoble, France to Mrs. Boursier's class. Europe is the continent where France is. The students speak french and some speak a little bit of english. The school that we sent the letters to is Cite Scolaire Internationale. I think Pere Noel will write us a letter that has all of the corections on it. The french frase that Austin F likes to say is oranges-des oranges. Casey likes-des cadeaux-it means presents.Au revoir!

Hike Report Writing by Emily and Austin F
Have you ever gone on a hike to Fall Creek? Our story is about the hike we took at Fall Creek. We learned about four kinds of writing two weeks ago and they are narrative, how - to, expository, and persuasive. A hike report is an expository. Mr. Smith gave us directions for breaking up our report and they were to do a report about the hike, put them in the right spot give details in your story, and to put spaces between your paragraphs. The order of the things we wrote are not just in any order they are in the wright order. The three least grate things that happened in the story are 1. Falling on the twelve steps you have to count. 2. Walking over the fallen tree. 3. And getting wet in very cold water. The season was fall when we got there and it will be spring when we go back. We predict that when we go back we will see flowers, leaves on the trees, longer grass and more Sumac trees.

E-Mail from Taiwan By Kylie
Have you ever Emailed a friend from Taiwan? We have in Mr.Smiths fourth grade class. We started on October 16 ,2006. Taiwan is in Asia it is an Island. The capital is Taipei. It is next to is the Pacific Ocean. Our Email pals school is Kang Chiao Bilingual school. Some talked about what subject they liked the best.And others talked about the monarch butterflies and they talked about thier famliys. Some girls had ties and white tshirts others had striped tshirts. Brian was holding a basket ball . One of chris's pen pals was holding something and his name is Oscar. Austin N's pen pal named YoYo was holding a basket ball. Alex's pen pal named Minnie is holding a book. One of Jimmys pen pals are holding a basket ball named Kevin. One of Casey's pen pals named Angela is holding a purse. One of Gabbys pen pals is holding a harmonica. And one of Eriannia's pen pals was holding a book named Sydney Yu. We will read books on the internet with these students. Some students had monarch butterflies in their picture. I went and looked at the pictures and read the names of the people who had butterflies. I saw Jessica and Kevin C. had butterflies with their pictures.

Groups of Cubes by Kylie
Have you ever done your fours and fives multiples? I have in centers.The center was math center we put cubes in to groups of fours and fives.And we taught each other. For example,I said show me 5x4 and he would grab 5 groups of four cubes and he would count them.And he would say the andswers 20 and I would say it was right. But some times we don't know the andswer so we count the cubes. And if you don't remember just practice alot by the grids Mr.Smith gave us. So we will be good in math because multiples help you get better in math and move on in math too.I belive that cubes is the best way to learn multiples. what do you think is the best way?

Chess Team Update - by Chris
Have you ever played chess? My story is about chess moves. The chess team is playing Grinnell. There has been 14 moves so far. Grinnell has taken 1 knight and we took a knight. They took our knight with the queen and now the queens ours. A knight moves in a L shape. The bishop moves in an angle. The chess does chess trash talk. Same with Grinnell. I they would look good if they got a new hair cut also they need to lose the sunglasses. They need to get a new camera with color. While I was typing this story they sent us a move and put us in check with their Queen!

Wow Reporters! My story is about Quincy newspaper reporters who came to our class room. Mrs. Pierceall and Ms. Coombes came to our class room to write about the video conference we had with Mr. Pittman. The kids that were in the room when the rerporters came were Travis, ShelbyT., and Patricia. We came up here because Patricia asked if she could come up and then Mr. Smith told ShelbyT. and Travis to come up and practice their book talks for Mr. Pittman’s class. At first Mr. Pittman didn’t answer on video. The second time he answered .That was Before the reporters had to leave to go back to work. We showed the reporters how we did a video e-mail. Travis and Kylee ran to get the reporters when they left. The reason why they ran to get them was because Mr. Pittman came on after the reporters left. They were out side when Kylee and Travis got a hold of them. Mrs. Pierceall Came back and talked to Zanasha on the internet. She talked really loud and that showed us how loud we should be when talk to Mr. Pittman. We had a connection with the reporters because we do the newspaper every Thursday.

Videomail to Taiwan by Chantyra and Carlos
Have you done a video email? We are making a story about video email. The people that did not do one are Mecedeez, Paul, Andrew, Tiara, Alex, Chantyra, and Shelby. P . The people who did one are Carlos, Autumn, Patricia, Shelby .T, Robert, AajaLee, Learnie, Kylee, Kody. Carlos sent one to Sabina but he also has to make one to Ting. Here's an example of how to video email a person : First you have to go click Sight speed then wait for a while. Then it will show your face on the screen. Then you type in a message and their name because they will not know who's it to. Then you click on Taiwan so it will go there. Then after that press record . then when your done press preveiw and if you like it send it. Patricia's message said Hi Tommy how are you doing this is Patricia. Why don't you like school? I love school because it's better than home.

Math Question: Mr. Smith rolled a bowling ball 20 feet. Alex rolled another bowling ball 2 and 1/2 times further. How many feet did Alex’s ball roll? Tiara rolled a ball 1 and 1/2 times further than Alex. How many feet did her ball roll?

Mississippi River Video Conference! by Shelby T and Autumn Did you know that the Mississippi River’s nick-name is Father of Waters? Our story is about the Father of Waters (Mississippi River). We did a video conference with Mrs. Black ‘s class. Our class did the video conference on Tuesday February 14 , 2006. The reason that we did a video conference on the Mississippi River is because Mrs. Black wanted to know something special about Hannibal. So we told Mrs. Black and her class about the Mississippi River. Mr.Smith set up the conference by first getting the students in the class that could speak loud and clear. Mr.Smith chose those people because Mrs. Black’s class could understand them better. Everybody in the class took part of the Mississippi River presentation. Some of the signs were The Mississippi River is 2,350 miles, 50 cities use the Mississippi River for drinking water , and the river drains about 41% of the U.S.A. We ended the presentation by singing Steamboat Bill, our class sang Steamboat Bill because Steamboat Bill was a Steamboat on the Mississippi River.

Live Video with Mrs. Black by Tiara and Candace
Cool!! we get to talk to people all the across the country! On February 7, 2006 we got to talk to our email pals in Naches, Washington. The class we did the confrence with was Mrs.Black 's class. The computer we used was a laptop. We also used a camera. The camera we used looks like an eyeball. The stuff we talked about was math, we also did math riddles. The people that are going to tell a riddle are Shelby T., Aajalee, Kylee, Robert, Shelby P., Candace, Danay, Leranie, Tiara, Mercedeez, and Chantyra. There were only a few people that got to say there riddle.Tiara got to say her riddle. Her riddle is "How is the moon like a dollar?" The answer is "They both have four quarts." Aajalee wanted to see Mrs. Black's face. So she got on camera. They asked her what her favorite subject is. Tiara and Candace want to would like to do something like that again. The next time we get to talk to them Tiara thinks we should sing them a song, or teach them a game that they have never learned before!! Candace thinks we should talk to each of our pen-pals face-to-face. [Go to our video page]

From Japan: Videos and Take-Tombo by Leranie and Kylee
Do you know what a Take-Tombo is? A Take-Tombo is a propeller on a stick. Our email pals sent us all a Take Tombo. The teachers name from Japan is Mr.Bono. There is a lady that speaks really good English. Her name is Mrs. Etsuko Kawamoto, she helps out Mr.Bono. The Japan students showed us how to say Japanese words such as cat, dog, bird, flower,goodbye, car, school, and hello. This is how you spell the words they would say like cat. Cat -Neko, Bird -Tori, Dog -Inu , Flower -Hana, Car- Kuruma, School- Gakko, Goodbye- Sayonara, Hello- Konichiwa. Our Japan e-mail pals were singing a song on the computer for us.They also played their flutes for us. They showed us a bean game using chopsticks. They also taught us how to use the Take-tombos. The funny part on the video we watched was when this boy had pulled up his pants and kind of jumped like a rabbit. Kylee thinks having Japan pals is a fun thing to learn different languages. Leranie thinks that it is great to have Japanese penpals.

Taiwan Travelers by Michelle and Brad
Our story is about Mr. Smith’s 10 children that went to Taiwan and back . The students came to our class were Karly , Lashelle, Eli, Dillan, Jeremy, Dakota, JaWan, Jessica, Dianna, and Daija were the students that went to Taiwan over the summer. Mr. Smith was refreshing the fifth graders’ memories with Chinese words and photographs that were taken in Taiwan. We saw movies of them writing in their Journals, we saw movies of them swimming at the water park in Taiwan, and we saw movies of them swimming in the Pacific Ocean. we saw all of that on the smartboard. The Taiwan travelers said that liked going to the water park because it was very hot in Taiwan, they also liked staying with their email pals, and the also liked playing basketball on the roof of their Cambridge Bilingual school roof. We arranged the 5th graders into groups so they could show some of their Taiwan souvenirs. The one main thing that most everonn brought was a little dragon. Another thing that was brought were frizzbies and photos. The 5th graders were in the room for about a hour and a half . It was really fun. We had a great time. The thing that the kids have to keep forever is their memories. Thanks for reading these reporters’ report!

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