What have we been up to lately??

Most recently, we had special visitors — a visit from Mrs. Irwin, our library expert, who taught us about finding reliable resources and how to cite the resources used for our research. We also had a presentation from Mrs. Haynes, our principal, who taught us about the 5E Lesson Cycle: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. She modeled how teachers use this framework to create meaningful lessons, and our students were inspired to design their own! The room was filled with energy and excitement as they began brainstorming creative ways to teach others about their enigmas using the 5E model. They are now in the process of designing their own 5E Lesson to teach our third graders about their Enigmas!

We’re so proud of how our 4th grade Horizon students are thinking deeply, collaborating effectively, and learning to share their knowledge in creative ways. Their curiosity and enthusiasm make every week an adventure!

November 5th and 12th

Our students have begun diving into researching their mysterious enigma topics, using the Depth and Complexity framework to guide their research.  They worked on crafting a driving question, identifying the big idea, collecting key vocabulary, citing their sources and uncovering fascinating details to help their future third grade students understand their chosen mystery.  Their curiosity and creativity are in full swing!

But first...we warmed up with an enigma BreakoutEdu!

October 22, 2025

Our fourth graders really impressed me with their perseverance in developing a driving question for their enigma project. They had to think critically of all the components of a good driving question.:

• Make the question engaging. The best questions are easily understood and interesting. 

• Craft open-ended questions. Driving questions go beyond fact-finding and reporting. 

• Elaborate their question possibilities by applying depth and complexity icons (Sample below)

They also stretched their logic skills solving this Breakout Puzzle!

October 8, 2025

This week students decided on which enigma to research.  They began gathering information from multiple sources about their topic, focusing on multiple perspectives (theories), unanswered questions, details and changes over time. Their frames will help guide them next week as they develop a driving question that will help them focus their research. 

But first...we warmed up our brains with the following Ted Ed Riddle! 

October 1, 2025

Our fourth graders warmed up their brains with some fun, but challenging games of SET! We then began our Enigma Project by completing "pre-search," gathering information about a potential research topic. This allowed them to explore multiple enigmas, review what information and resources are available, and helped them narrow it down to their top three Enigma choices.  Can't wait to see what they choose to research!

September 24, 2025

This week we began exploring Enigmas for our first semester project! They shared their unanswered questions through a gallery walk and then incorporated their curiosity and depth and complexity to formulate a working definition for what an Enigma is. Together we further examined the enigma of the Marfa Lights, located right here in Texas! Click below to see information on the mysterious lights of West Texas.  Students also worked hard to solve the Breakout Puzzle In Search of Bigfoot!

September 17, 2025

This week fourth graders worked on their inductive and deductive reasoning with various challenges. The biggest challenge was the hat challenge where they learned about the power of parity in mathematics (even or odd)! See if you can solve the puzzle below! 

We also continued from last week how to organize group work with different "thinking hats." They collaborated in small groups and completed their theme week planning process! Finally, we reviewed the creative thinking components of FEFO (Fluency, Elaboration, Flexibility and Originality) and practiced our flexibility with some Droodles! What do you see in some of the examples below?

September 10, 2025

Today we learned about the power of having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. We studied the science of the brain and how effective practice can help us improve and grow. We also learned about the power of GRIT and what it means to persevere and not give up, especially when things are hard. We always focus on how we can do hard things in Horizon and in life! We applied perseverance with a very challenging paper puzzle (see below)! I'm so proud that they didn't give up, and were determined to figure it out!

 We continued with our goal setting from last week and students created a personal goal and a collaborative goal based on Scholarly Behaviors. We will continue to check in on their goals throughout the year to reflect on their progress and encourage additional steps they can take to achieve their goals! 

We began learning about how to organize group work with different "thinking hats." Students collaborated in small groups on planning a theme week for school and looked at the planning process through multiple perspectives, or our "thinking hats." We will continue with this process next week!

September 3, 2025

It was such a great day in 4th Grade Horizon! I enjoyed getting to know all of your students and can't wait for the year ahead!  We spent time connecting and learning about the details of our class. and then we applied our critical thinking and collaboration skills to solve Einstein's Riddle. It was challenging, but all persevered and were successful! See the riddle below and see if you can solve it too!

We also worked on becoming more self aware with a personality test and talked about multiple perspectives. Finally, we challenged our brains some more with a fun Back to School Breakout activity! Next week we will continue using our personality quiz to set individual and collaborative goals that we will refer to throughout the year.