These last two weeks have been extremely busy. The PSSAs were a challenge 7 days of schedule changes, hard work, and long testing times. But our Macaws did an amazing job, and we are so very proud of all of their efforts! Even with all of the testing, there was still all sorts of learning going on! You can check out the video below to hear all about our specials and math classes.

ELA, Social Studies, and Science by Lucca and Aryanna

Hey parents this is what we did on the macaws team this week in Ela, Social Studies and Science.                          

ELA: In ELA this week we did ELA PSSAs, Blookets, and trashket ball. We also started doing research on our fruits and vegetables persuasive writings.

This week in Social Studies we started a project where we were sorted into groups to study individual regions of the U.S.A.

In science we wrapped up food chains and food webs and then we took the Science PSSAs.

It is very hard to believe we are in the final stretch with only 16 more days left in fourth grade! Our Macaws have grown and learned so much, but there is STILL more to learn. Even with all of the fun events that we have coming up, there's a ton of learning still left to be done. Please talk with your child about that fact that we need to put first things first and get out important work done before we can have all of the fun. Special events coming up include:

• Friday, May 12 - The Fun(d) Run (AM) and the Brain Show assembly (PM) - Click Here to contribute!

• Friday, May 19 - Leadership Assembly

• Tuesday, May 23 - The Bear Creek Bash (raindate of Wednesday)

• Tuesday, May 30 - End of Year Team Party

• Wednesday, May 31 - Last Day of School with an Early Dismissal at 12:30 

Thank you to everybody who has already volunteered to either help out or send supplies for our end of year celebration. If you haven't had the chance to fill out the form and would still like to help out, please click here! We appreciate all of you and everything you do to help us make some amazing Macaw memories!

We are back on track with our bi-weekly updates, and we give a special shout out to the newest members of our Macaws News Team! You can check out their update about Specials, ELA, and Science by watching the video below. 

Our Math and Social Studies classes we just as busy and fun as our other classes. In math we are continuing to understand fractions and decimals by talking about how they are different ways to write the same values. We're also focusing on how fractions are just another part of the number line and not some totally weird thing that happens in math! It was mind-blowing for some of us to realize that fractions and decimals are just located in the spaces between whole numbers on the number line. We've also been previewing our geometry unit in Ms. Reighard's class and starting our Geometry unit in Mrs. Sweigart's class. So far we have focused on measuring angles mathematically and with protractors, and we're also looking at and using the formulas for finding the area and perimeter of quadrilaterals.

In Social Studies, Mrs. Towsen's class wrapped up their Junior Achievement sessions with Mr. Miller. We are so appreciative that he volunteers his time to come in and teach these lessons. While Junior Achievement happens during social studies, it also covers important science concepts like how natural resources drive the location of businesses. We learned about the qualities of business leaders, profits and loss, and the challenges of running a business. Our fourth graders will build upon those skills in 5th grade as they travel to JA's BizTown and run the city for a day! In addition to Junior Achievement, we have also started our travels around the different regions of the United States. The students will be taking a closer look at the states, their physical features, their businesses and industries, and the cultures that make each region unique.

On top of all of this learning, we have some other great things going on. Our musical macaws are continuing to earn their belts and prepared for their upcoming concerts. We are enjoying watching the Pittsburg eaglets grow bigger and stronger, and we enjoyed the opportunity to try out some VR goggles. There are also so many exciting things going on in this last month and a half (!!!!!!!!!) of school! Here's what we have in the next two weeks!

• Monday, April 17 all orchestra students will be leaving Bear Creek at 1:15 for their dress rehearsal at the high school. 

• Tuesday, April 18 - Orchestra Concert at 7 PM at the high school. 

• Wednesday, April 19 - all Macaws classes will go to the Book Fair

• Monday, April 24 - Spirit Day - wear red

• Tuesday, April 25 - Thursday, April 27 - ELA PSSA tests

• Tuesday, April 25 - PJ Day

• Wednesday, April 26 - Tie Dye Day

• Thursday, April 27 - Blue and White Day

• Friday, April 28 - Orange Day

Thanks to everybody who has already volunteered to donate snacks or drinks for our testing days. We are very grateful to have these things on hand for these very long mornings!

Be on the lookout for our next update where we will share the special events for the first two weeks in May!

Better late than never is the theme for our latest update! Weeks 30 and 31 were chock full of learning, having fun, exploring new activities, and switching up our news teams! We are so proud of our students' dedication to helping you learn what's going on in our classes! You can check out the update for ELA and Math and the update for Science, Social Studies and Specials by watching the videos below. As you can see, we are learning many different things in every class! We are especially grateful for our Junior Achievement volunteers who come to our Social Studies classes to help understand important financial and business ideas!

The nice weather had everybody excited this week, but keep an eye on those forecasts. Dressing in layers is your best bet this time of year because it can be beautiful and warm out but very chilly in the building. Please continue to make sure any sweatshirts have names in them in case they get left outside and need to be claimed from the lost and found table.

We are now down to less than 40 days left in 4th grade, and we have our PSSAs coming up. PSSAs will be help Monday - Thursday the weeks of April 24 and May 1. If possible, please schedule any doctor's appointments for after noon on those days or on Friday those weeks. We appreciate your help with this so we don't have to drag the testing out longer than it needs to be. Please be on the lookout for requests for snacks and drinks for these two weeks. These help make the time a little more bearable. Also be on the lookout for school spirit days! We like to keep that week as light, fun,  and comfortable as possible!

Thanks for all of your support as we get through these two weeks and on through the exciting times in May!

Welcome to weeks 28 and 29! Just when you think things can't get anymore exciting..... they actually do!!! These two weeks have been filled with some amazing learning opportunities and lots of fun.

You can check out what we did in Social Studies, Science, and Specials by watching the video below. Please be sure to ask you Macaw about the amazing Lego WeDo activities we did to think about humans have to deal with the Earth's changes. We had so much fun building and coding our floodgates and earthquake simulators! We realized that, while people can try to protect themselves from Earth's changes, there's nothing we can do to stop them. 

In math we focused on measuremnt and converting. We looked at the characteristics of objects that can be measured, the tools we use to measure, and the standard and metric units. We'll be using these converting skills to solve some REALLY hard problems next week!

Our ELA focus is genres! Classes are working on the genre version of March Madness. Be sure to see which books your child recommended to be on the bracket! Our goal is to not only learn the characteristics of each genre, but to also help our students find books that they love and would like to read. 

In addition to all of the learning, we had some amazing opportunities! We wrapped up our One Book, One School events with an author visit from Sarah Weeks. She explained how she works through the writing process to create and publish her books, and she also answered many of our questions about how and why she wrote Save Me Seat the way it was written. We really enjoyed learning from her, and we are so grateful for our Bear Creek PTO for providing us with this opportunity. Then, we had Pi Day!! Students at Bear Creek could pay $1 to throw a pie at a teacher. Both Ms. Reighard and Mrs. Sweigart got pied!!! You can watch the full Pi Day Video by clicking here! It was fun, but more importantly we raised of $700 for the Four Diamonds Fund! All together, with candy grams and Pi Day, Bear Creek raised $3780 for the Four Diamonds. We are so lucky to be part of such an amazing community that helps support an amazing cause that benefits students who go here!!! A long weekend, and two spirit days wrapped up these great two weeks.

It is hard to believe that we only have 49 more days left in 4th grade!! It will be an exciting, busy time, and we can't wait to share all of our adventures with you!

It has been a CRAZY three weeks for the Macaw team. So crazy, in fact, that our news team could hardly  meet together to create their reports! But we were finally able to meet, and we are excited to share all of our news and special events with you!

The week of February 13 was short, but intensely busy! We had our Valentine celebration with delicious treats and lots of stickers, pencils, and fun. On Wednesday, we had our Field Trip, and we learned so much about our beautiful state capitol building, the history of Pennsylvania, and all of the creatures native to our state. Thank you to all of our amazing chaperones for going along so we could have such an incredible experience.  

Looking for an update on what's going on in our STEM classes?  Check out the Flip video below for our update. All of our Macaws had an amazing time participating in the Challenge 24 tournament this week. Congratulations to Angela, Natalie, Jace, Dominic, David, Tyler, and Adalyn for making the school finals of the competition! We are so PROUD of all of you!

In our ELA classes, our Macaws have been extremely busy working on all sorts of reading and writing skills. To celebrate Groundhog Day and practice the compare and contrast style that authors use, our Macaws wrote pieces comparing and contrasting groundhogs and prairie dogs. Here's hoping we actually get an early spring, despite the groundhog seeing his shadow! The students have also been working on other informational writing pieces, as well. In reading, we were exploring character traits, working on summarizing, and taking a closer look at different genres to establish our March Madness reading brackets. Which books will come out on top?!?

We have a few special events coming up next week!

• Monday = Blue Day - wear your blue to celebrate our school as we enjoy an author visit from Sarah Weeks, the author of Save Me a Seat.

• Tuesday is Spring Picture Day. Information sheets came home on Thursday.

• Thursday is Dress Your Best spirit day, and it is also an early dismissal for conferences. 

• Friday and Monday students will be off for conferences and a day off that we didn't need to use for severe weather make ups!

Specials by Aryanna and Olivia

P.E

Our whole team did hockey and we also did volleyball next.We were sorted into a team by color and Mr. Klose and Mrs. Black Told us where to go and then we played the game of hockey. For volleyball we were sorted into teams and played catching games. Last gym class the girls did cup stacking and the boys did shuffleboard

Library & Technology

In Library and Technology we are doing a research project on a wild animal of our choice Olivia is doing a giant panda and I am doing a Galapagos tortoise.

Music

In Mrs.Towen’s class and Mrs.Reighard’s class for music we are singing a song called “Benji and the bear” In Mrs.Sweigart’s class and Mrs.Horner’s class we are singing a song about an orphaned bird. This week we started learning about woodwind instruments. We also took our music assessment.

Art

In art class we are learning how to draw an ellipse and incorporate it into a 3D mug of hot chocolate. For the hot chocolate mugs we have to add a pattern in the background too. We also started to plan a pinch pot clay project.

Weeks 23 and 24 (can you believe it???) were packed full of a lot of hard work in every class and subject area for our Macaws! We were excited to conduct a plate tectonics experiment with graham crackers and Cool Whip, create our own water bottle stickers, learn the official rules for our upcoming Challenge 24 tournament, start exploring Greek mythology, and work on our writing challenges. You can check out this week's News Team updates from both of our News Team 3 groups by watching the videos below!

As Anna mentioned, we have a LOT of special events coming up! Check it out:

• Tuesday will be our Valentine's Exchange in each of our classes. Students can bring their valentines and boxes in starting on 2/13. Tuesday is also a spirit day, so wear your Red, White, and Pink!

• Wednesday is our Field Trip. Unless you selected a school lunch, all students will need a packed, disposable lunch. Students should wear sneakers since we will be doing a lot of walking and be on our feet most of the day. No money or electronics should be brought on the trip. Parents joining us as chaperones should report to Mrs. Horner's room at 8:30 for our pre-trip meeting.

• Thursday is PJ Day and an early dismissal! 

• Friday and Monday are days off of school. We hope everybody has a relaxing weekend!

• Friday 2/24 will be another spirit day - Career Day! Dress for the career you'd like to have when you grow up.

Spring conferences are just around the corner. These conferences are optional unless your child's teacher contacts you. Teachers will be in touch in the next two weeks if we would like to meet with you about your child's progress in 4th grade.

It's hard to believe that we are half way through fourth grade!! Our Macaws have been busy learning and growing in so many different ways they hardly seem like the same group of students who started with us 22 weeks ago!

Thanks two our News Team #2, you can check out the updates for specials and math and science by checking out the Google Doc and Flip video below. In both Mrs. Sweigart's and Ms. Reighard's STEM classes we are learning the foundations of multiplication by learning divisibility rules and finding factors and multiples of different numbers. In Science, as HanHan and Jack mentioned, both classes have started our unit on the Earth's Processes. We're learning about how the Earth uses energy to change itself. We started with a foundation of the 4 Spheres - the 3 non-living and 1 living pieces that make our Earth the amazing place that it is. During this science unit, we'll be talking about the 3 non-living spheres: the geosphere, the atmosphere, and the hydrosphere. This week, we focused on the geosphere by beginning to look at plate tectonics, and how our Earth uses kinetic energy to change itself in slow and quick ways. Students in Ms. Reighard's class should be studying each night to prepare for their continents and oceans quiz that must be taken by February 8.

Our ELA classes were just as busy as our STEM classes! Both Mrs. Horner's and Mrs. Towsen's classes have been working on and wrapping up summarizing the last two weeks. Not only have they been practicing summarizing during reading, but our Macaws worked on applying those skills when reading their Social Studies texts as well! Next up, the students will be learning how to determine the theme of a stories. Our Macaws are also dabbling in persuasive writing and speaking, so be prepared if your Macaw tries to use their new skills to convince you of something!

There were also many other exciting things going on this week at Bear Creek! Many, many of our Musical Macaws got their notifications that they will be starting band and orchestra this week! All orchestra students will attend on both Days 2 and 5. That means they will need their instruments three days per cycle. Because of the number of band students, those musicians will attend on either Day 2 OR Day 5. Please check your child's homework folder to see when they will need to bring their instrument. 

Another BIG announcement this week was the announcement of our One Book, One School book, Save Me a Seat! We had a fun and exciting assembly to reveal the book, and we all received our copies, along with some M&Ms, Friday morning. Reading begins on Monday. Please remember - the big WHY of this program is to encourage families to read together. You can read to your child, your child can read to you, or you can listen to recordings that the students know how to find in Schoology. Your family can talk about the different questions found on the yellow guide paper, and our class will be competing in an online scavenger hunt to tackle tasks about the book. 

We celebrated Winter Hat day last Friday, and this Friday was Blue and White day to go along with the big reveal. Coming up we have a TON of spirit days in February. This Thursday, 2/2, is the 100th day of school. Students can dress like they are 100, bring 100 of something, or wear the number 100. February 10th will be jersey day, February 14th will be red, white, and pink day, and the 15th is our field trip! Finally, Candy Grams will be on sale again this week. For $1, students can buy Hershey Bars or Airheads for anybody at Bear Creek. Once again all of the money raised with go to the Four Diamonds Fund, which supports children with cancer and their families. We have TWO Four Diamonds Children who attend Bear Creek, so let's show them our support!

It was a busy two weeks as we got back into things after our holiday / winter break!  We already had our first spirit day, Blue and White Day, we've had many of our musical macaws getting their yellow belts, and our members of the Chess Club started practicing for their competitions! There are so many exciting things going on here at Bear Creek!

You can check out the reports from our News Team to get our updates for Math and ELA in the Flip Grid and Google Slide below. In addition to those two subjects, we've been very busy is Social Studies and Science as well!

In Science, both classes are wrapping up or have wrapped up their energy units. Ms. Reighard's Macaws completed building their parallel and series circuits, and we also took a walk around the school to see how Bear Creek could be compared to an electrical circuit. Mrs. Sweigart's Macaws began their unit next unit, Earth's Processes, by looking at the 4 different spheres of living and nonliving things that make our Earth the wonderful home that it is! In Social Studies, all of our Macaws are learning about the four branches of government as we prepare for our field trip to Harrisburg on February 15. Thank you to everybody who has volunteered to chaperone! We will be in contact shortly to let you know the specifics of the day. 

Don't forget that school is closed on Monday, January 16 for the federal Martin Luther King, Jr. observance. We will see everybody back here on Tuesday!

Just when it seems like time can't go by any faster, the month of December is gone in the blink of an eye! You can check out what we've been working on in all of our classes by watching the videos below! We had a great time celebrating this last week with all of our different spirit days, our Bear Creek Carol Sing, the Student Lighthouse Door Decorating contest, and holiday parties on Thursday. While a Virtual Day is certainly not how we hoped to close out 2022, we're glad that we can do some work and not have to make up the day later in the school year!

We hope all of our Macaw families have a safe and warm winter break. We will see everybody back here in 2023!

It has been a busy two weeks since we came back from our Thanksgiving break! In addition to all of the student updates you'll read and see below, we have been working very hard to prepare for our student led conferences. We know you are going to be so proud of what your child has prepared and has accomplished so far this school year! We can't wait to see you at your conference. :)

Specials by Natalie K. and Natalie Y.

In The Macaws team class for specials in Physical Education, they have been practicing basketball skills like stations, shooting, strategies, dribbling, relays, and an exercise video.

The Macaws team for library has been researching the assigned scary animal they got from  Mrs. Hibshman (the library teacher). They are also finishing that up.

The Macaws team for technology has been using Scratch. Scratch is a game that allows you to create other games of your choice. In Scratch, we have been coding a maze game, and also, people that are finished are working on publishing their maze to Scratch. When you publish something to Scratch other people with their own Scratch account can play the game you coded.  

 In the Macaws team in art, we have been making finger puppets. We have been making finger puppets out of model magic (kids' version of clay).  We are also finishing that up for some people. 

That's what we have been doing in specials for the Macaws Team.

You can check out our updates for STEM and ELA (Coming Soon) by watching the Flip videos below!

We have some fun and exciting things coming up these last few weeks before our winter break. Students will still be able to buy candy grams on Monday and Tuesday. All of the proceeds for this fundraiser benefit the Four Diamonds Fund. Next Wednesday and Thursday, the Bear Creek PTO is running their holiday shop. This event is stocked with great gifts for everybody, and all priced for under $10. Come out and let your child check everybody off of their shopping list. Finally we will be having a week of spirit days and our carol sing, holiday party, and movie morning. Specifics on the spirit days will be coming home with your Macaws on Monday if their Student Lighthouse Rep didn't have the chance to share today. It's amazing how time is flying! 

Our last two weeks were VERY busy as our Fearless Flock wrapped up the first trimester of fourth grade! Can you believe that we are already 1/3 of the way through the school year! We celebrated the holiday and upcoming break with a "parade" of Macy's Balloons, a candy corn electronic break out box, and two school spirit days: Tie Dye Day, and Multiples Day! Be sure to check out our pictures to see all of our Macaws having some fun.

Our news team was hard at working preparing their updates for you, but we do have to add a few addendums. Both Mrs. Towsen AND Mrs. Horner did, in fact, do reading AND writing the last two weeks. In addition to what was mentioned, students worked on descriptive writing by writing pieces about their Macy's balloons, and students continued to work on reviewing a variety of reading skills like cause and effect and sequencing. In math and science, we continued to talk about energy and place value as well as the items mentioned in our video. Please check out both our videos and the slideshow about our special area classes below!

As we return from the long Thanksgiving break, we will be starting to prepare for our student led conferences. Your Macaw WILL be attending their conference and leading the first portion of it. After the students complete their presentation, we will have time to have some adult conversations without your child if you choose. Thank you to all of you who have already signed up for conferences. Please use this link to sign up by the end of the day on Monday, 11/28. If you were unable to sign up, please contact your child's homeroom teacher or look for a note to come home sometime this week.  We are looking forward to meeting with all of you and having your child share all that they have learned so far this year!

Our news teams worked very hard to bring you this week's subject updates! You can check them out by clicking on the videos below. Thanks to Wes, Rylen, and Will for the Math and Social Studies update.  Thanks to Anna, Isabelle, Lucca, and Wren for their report on Science, ELA, and Specials!

Starting on Monday, November 14, families will be able to sign up for a time slot for your Macaw's Student Led Conference. You can find out how to sign up for your conference time, by clicking this link. If you haven't experienced a student led conference in the past, you are in for a special treat. Your child will be leading their conference on December 8 and 9. They will be sharing their growth and successes during the first trimester, and they will also share their goals for the next part of the school year. There will be time for any private conversations after your child finishes their portion of the presentation. We are very excited to meet with all of you and share the work our Flock has accomplished these first few months!

In addition to the updates below, we're excited to report that many of our musical Macaws are starting to pass their white belt tests! This is the first step in their journey to beginning band and orchestra rehearsals after the holidays, and we are SO excited for their growth! We are also in the stages for finalizing the details for our field trip to the state capitol and state museum in Harrisburg, which will be held in February. If you are interested in joining us as a chaperone, please make sure your clearances are on file with the district office. Paperwork will be coming home later in December or early January. Finally, it looks like the weather may be officially starting to feel like late fall. Please make sure sweatshirts and jackets are labeled with your child's name so we can return lost items to their owners!

Specials by Claire and Lidiana

Art: First, we learned about Mark paper scissors then we got to do free drow and/ collages.

Gym: We ran as many laps as we could in 5 mins then we played dodgeball for the rest of gym class. Mrs. Reighard’s class got second place for 4th grade’s fastest class contest this trimester.

For this week we played partite treasure but with soccer balls so we had to  dribble the soccer ball to our team. If all of the balls were taken from the middle we would steal from the other teams. 

Music: We learned 1 new song “pass the pumpkin”  and we did a 

rhythm thing for “pass the pumpkin”.

Technology: For tech we were learning how to make a password that a scammer would not find out. 

Library: We went to go on computers and went to world books for kids or grades 4+. We would get to search up any topic of our liking then we did book pick time and pick the books we wanted. We also go to go to the book fair and got 1 free book that the PTO bought for us.

Science by Molly and Norah

If your child is in Mrs.Reighard's A.M or P.M class for science they did their own science experiment.They worked in groups of 2,3 or 4 they could choose between a paper clip experiment and a flower experiment for the flower experiment they put their flowers in liquids such as, Monster, lemonade, lemon juice, soda, oil, blue gatorade, and milk (which did not go well. It got spoiled.) Water was control for some groups. They tried to see what liquid was the healthiest out of all the liquids they chose. The healthiest in some groups were water, lemonaid, and blue gatorade. For the paper clip experiment you had to fill a cup (any size) to the top with any liquid and had to see how many paper clips you could get in a cup before it overflowed. One group had a small, medium, and large cup and it had water in it. The medium cup got the most of 333 paperclips. We have also started a new unit on energy. We made a twist-o-matic and we ran tests on it to see if the thick rubber band or the thin rubber band was better and the thick one was better but we had to use the thin rubber band because you can't always use the better ones. You had to find out and explain how you made it faster and more fun.

If your child is in Mrs Sweigart’s class they are doing something similar.They did the same experiments but they used different things for the flower experiment they used liquids such as corn syrup, salt water, oil, water, soda, and water with food coloring. The healthiest for some groups was water. One person did a random experiment where they had a water bottle. They got good paper towels (not school ones) and put the paper towels on top of the water bottle flipped it over and no water came out of the bottle.They also could do the paper clip experiment. They started a unit on energy as well, and they will be completing the Twist-O-Matic experiment coming up soon.

ELA by Natalie K. and Natalie Y.

In Mrs. Horner's am and pm classes, they are doing tech structure. They are also doing Grade+ assignment where they go to the TestNav app on their computers and they take the assessment on TestNav. They are also doing a Guess Where project where they pick a place and then write hints about it and the class guesses where they chose.

In Mrs. Towsen’s am and pm class, are doing compare and contrast and getting ready to write a real estate ad and grammaropolis and nonfiction reading to learn about Pennsylvania regions.

That is what Mrs. Horner and Mrs. Towson have been doing this week.

Social Studies by Landyn and Anaiyah

In Mrs. Towsen’s class we are learning about the 5 PA Regions. The 5 PA Regions are about the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Erie Plains, Piedmont, and Atlantic coastal plain. In Mrs.Horner's room, her class is learning about guess where slides. The Macaws learn about a place on earth to practice the geography themes locations, place, human, environment, movement, regions.

Math by Liam, HanHan and Jackson - check out their FlipGrid report below

Thank you to all of our hard working Macaws for their report this week! Don't forget Monday is Costume / Black & Orange Day. Show your school spirit by dressing up in one of these ways. Also, don't forget that students have off on Wednesday for a teacher inservice day. One final reminder - as the weather is starting to get cooler, please remember to have students' names in sweatshirts and coats. Things are already piling up on the lost and found table, and we would love to match all of these items with their owners. We hope everybody has a wonderful weekend!

Welcome to our Week 7 and 8 update! Our Macaws News Team has expanded and is now comprised of 3 different teams of students who will be working to bring you our bi-weekly updates. We hope you enjoy their hard work!

Social Studies by Olivia E. and Abi Y

In Mrs. Horner's class they had a class project it is Guess the Place. Kids got to chose a state, continent, or country and they made google slides about it. We also did a paper on Abraham Lincoln and learned what social studies is. In Mrs. Towsen's class, we learned what regions of Pennsylvania are. We also did a paper on Milton Hershey, people moving, and the history of Pennsylvania.

Math by Zoe and Arielle

We also did stations which were independent, direct, and collaborative. In independent we did exact path which is doing Study Island. In direct we met with the teacher and did some of our packet on line graphs. In collaborate we did a paper where we asked all the students in the class on what amusement park ride they liked from roller coasters, bumper cars, and carousel, and on the paper was how many tickets each ride was and we had to see how many tickets would be needed for each person to ride their favorite ride once.

What we did in Science this Week by Jackson N. and Margaret S

Mrs. Reighard’s Class: First, we experimented with flowers. You put them in water, aspirin, sugar, sprite, and vinegar for the next few days we observed the flowers. At the end of the experiment sprite was the healthiest flower. I will list them in healthy to least healthy sprite, tap water, sugar, aspirin, and vinegar.

Next, we had a knowledge-expanding experiment, where we dropped paperclips into a cup and filled it with brim water, and the highest guess was 100 and A.M. needed 266 paperclips while P.M. needed only 183 paperclips, the paperclips with not many people looking at it, also so having so many in there it was hard to see them, and everyone thought it overflow quickly but it was quickly proven wrong when it hit over 30, then everyone just wanted to be the first to catch the water drop.

Mrs. Sweigart’s Class: First, we did a super brain lighting paperclip experiment with the highest guess being 16 and it taking 135 to make it overflow for the group that got the highest paperclip number it was very interesting for everyone's hypothesis to be proven wrong, from thinking you know it's going to be a very small number to it going into the hundreds of paperclips, are groups did very well with not goofing off and spilling it!

Next, we did a food coloring experiment first we got see through cups, green red and blue food coloring, and folded paper towels next we put the cups in a curl, and filled 3 to the brim, as well as put food coloring in the three with water, and put the paper towels across

Please check out our FlipGrid below to learn about what we did in our specials this week! 

Welcome to this week's new and improved Weekly Update, brought to you this week by our Macaws Student News Team! Enjoy!

Math by Molly, Natalie and Norah

This week, Mrs. Reighard’s class is learning about line plots, and working on many other math activities. Your child has been learning what information is used on a line plot and how to organize this information. Mrs. Reighard is also going to teach us about bar graphs. Whenever we finish an activity we go to our enrichment folders where we will find fun math activities to do while we wait for the rest of the class to finish. Mrs. Reighard sometimes rewards our hard work with CANDY!

On Study Island (a learning website for all school topics) your child has been doing fun math activities like reviewing measurements of substances such as liquid measurement, measurement with a ruler as well as weight. On exact path (also a virtual  learning resourse) we have been doing the math learning path, this is a personalized course where you do great math activities. Next, for this week we have been working on a spiral review, a spiral review is were we review things we have learned by answering questions on a worksheet.After that we played target 20 a fun math game.Finally,we have been watching S.M.P videos if you are wondering what a S.M.P is it stands for standards of mathematical practice the videos we have been telling us about the 8 S.M.Ps.

If your child is in Mrs. Sweigart’s class for math they are reviewing how to tell time on an analog clock and have been doing elapsed time and they are just about to do graphs. Mrs. Sweigart makes math class very fun for her students, just like Mrs. Reighard does.

Specials by Zoe, Abi, and Maggie

Gym

 for gym we went outside and we did four square and we went outside. We went on the path and for four square there was a beginner court and a “pro” court. All the students had lots of fun!

Tech

 There was technology and everyone  practiced Tinkercad by watching a video to make a simple house. After all the students finished the assignment, they all could have free time to do whatever they want on Tinkercad. That’s tech this week.

Library

At the library we got to choose books. Before that we went on destiny and we searched titles and wrote the number of books that showed up and the author and call number. We did the same thing next time but with keywords and after we put stickers on the poster and then we had book pick. That’s what we did at the library.

Art

 We did blind drawings, It's where you only look at the object and try to draw it,there was a unicorn,crayons,fruits etc . You could also free draw after you finish you ,or draw what was in the how to draw books.You could trace your drawing if you want to and we also  got to finish decorating our folders.That all the fun stuff that we did at art!

Music

 We had music. In music we practiced a song  about getting up early in the morning and never being late to school. This was a pattern song. We also went to the back of the room  to play the xylophones, metallophones, and the glockenspiels. We played the notes “g” and “c”

That’s what we did at specials this week!

We were back to a four day week as a teacher inservice on Wednesday had our flock enjoying a day off, but we worked hard throughout the rest of the week to make up for lost time!

Our station rotations started in every classroom, and our Macaws were testing their wings working in the independent and collaborate stations. While we learned about these stations and practiced them all together as groups last week, it's very different when it's time to try them while the teachers are actually teaching other groups. Our rotations went well, and we only needed to do a few reviews about the difference between socializing and collaborating. We will all continue to learn and group as we do our stations, but we were all very pleased with how things went during our first official week of stations!

In math we began work on our measurement and data unit. This unit connects perfectly with our science unit, the Nature of Science, where we are conducting experiments and collecting data. While our Macaws are already very skilled at looking at graphs, we're digging a little deeper and thinking about WHY each graph is used. You can't just stick any data on any graph, so that is what we will be focusing on during this unit. Our first type of graph is a line plot, and they can only be used for displaying number data. To continue the connection with science, we're also working on learning about the different tools and how to use them accurately when we are measuring different things.

Speaking of science, we focused on the first few steps of the scientific process this week: observing, asking questions, and making a hypothesis. Our Macaws shook their way through a mystery box experiment to understand the difference between observing things and making inferences. Then, we began our flower experiment to practice writing a hypothesis, learn about variables, and practice more observations, measurement skills, and data collection. Ask your Macaw which flower they think will be the healthiest at the end of the experiment and why!

Math and Science didn't get all of the fun this week! In our ELA classrooms, our Macaws continued learning about nonfiction text features! Everybody picked a book on a topic of their choice, and they worked on identifying the text features that the author used to help make the book more understandable for the reader. Nonfiction text features include things like the table of contents, the index, the glossary, different types of fonts on print, photos, captions, and labels. In writing our Macaws also began working on their first narrative piece, and their took their word study pretest to see which group they will be in to focus on spelling and word meaning. We love our Word Nerd time, and we can't wait to get these groups going, as well!

Due to some technical difficulties, there are no pictures of all of our fun this week, but we were so excited to see all of the fall colors during our spirit day on Thursday! You child should also have brought home the form for our fall pictures. Fall picture day is Wednesday, October 5, but if you're doing a paper order you are welcome to send that paper back any time you would like. Finally, your child might have mentioned that we received notification that our pencil pouches were recalled. If your child has their own pencil pouch that they would like to use, they are welcome to bring it in. If they don't that is fine, too. We are working on getting replacements and hope to have them ASAP. One final reminder, as the weather starts to get cooler, please add your child's name to their sweatshirts and coats. This helps us reconnect lost items with their owner.

Week 4 ushered in our first five day week of full days, and we also starting our regular AM / PM classes and had our first Free Bear day! It was a busy week, and we have lots to share!

Our Macaws were working hard in every subject to complete their beginning of the year diagnostics, benchmarks, and pretests. Diagnostic assessments are used to determine your child's personalized learning path in our Exact Path program. This gives them the opportunity to learn at their own specific level, whether that is filling in some lower level gaps, practicing fourth grade level skills, or being challenged with above level skills. Exact Path is a program that we use at school, and it's also a program that your child can use at home for homework as well. We will be setting trophy goal to help motivate our flock to achieve as much as possible this year. Benchmark assessments, which are done in our Study Island program, give us grade level information and tell us how much each of our macaws grows on our 4th grade standards from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Finally, pretest, which we use a great deal in math, let us know what skills each macaw knows or needs more practice and allows us to establish instructional groups each day. While it might have seemed like we were doing a lot of assessments this week, each of these tools gives us valuable information to meet the needs of each student.

In math we used our assessments to review and practice our Independent Station, and then we also learned more about our Collaboration Station. While independent time allows us our own personal learning time, collaborate allows us to work with friends as we try to solve really hard problems. Understanding the difference between socializing and collaborating, and practicing how to actually talk to each other when we're collaborating were important skills we focused on this week. We also did some fun pattern challenges that we will continue next week, and we also learned about to play Target 20. The first science unit for our flock will focus on the Nature of Science. We started by talking about the qualities that scientists need to be successful. Next, we reviewed the steps of the scientific process. Over the next few weeks, we will be learning about each step of the scientific process, conducting different experiments, and then creating and conducting our own experiment! For more information on specifics of Mrs. Sweigart's STEM class, you can click here for her update. 

Our ELA classes were also busy completing their benchmarks, but that wasn't all that our Macaws were doing. Our first focus for reading is understanding nonfiction text features. These are the tools that author's use to help us understanding more challenging nonfiction texts. Tools like the glossary, index, table of contents, diagrams, labels, captions, and special fonts are all tools that we will be learning and using to create our own tools. 

In addition to all of the learning that was going on, our Macaws had some fun, too. We honored the memory of 9/11 by participating in Red, White, and Blue Day on Monday. We celebrated our high school players by wearing our school colors for Blue and White Day Friday. It was GREAT to see everybody at the football game on Friday evening. We also participated in International Dot Day on the 15th by reading the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, creating our own dots, and participating in a livestream with the author. We hope this inspirational day will help all of our Macaws realize that they are unique, have their own wonderful talents, and can leave a positive mark at Bear Creek or anywhere else they go in their lives!

It was a great first 5 day week! This week remember we are back to a 4 day week for students due to teacher inservice on Wednesday. Thursday will be Fall Day. Wear your autumn colors to participate in our next school spirit day!

Week 2 saw us continuing our first 8 days stations, and this week we focused on Habits 5 - 8. These habits include:

• Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

• Habit 6 - Synergize

• Habit 7 - Sharpen the Saw

• Habit 8 - Find Your Voice

Habits 5 and 6 continued our look at public victories and learning how to work with others. Habits 7 and 8 help us realized that it's important to take time to focus on yourself, the things you love, and the things that are important to you. You can only be your best in all of your roles if you take care of yourself first. To practice these habits, we played a variety of different games, created class quilts showing the things we love, and took a multiple intelligences survey to see where we find our strengths. Some of us were surprised by the results! We thought we would end up a math person or a nature person, but we actually ended up having different strengths. Ask your Macaw to tell you what they learned in their survey or to share some of the games we played this week. The clapping game was especially popular with our flock!

In addition to looking at the remaining four habits, we continued to talk about developing our growth mindset, and we also started to practice some of the routines that we'll need as our AM and PM classes start this week. All of our Macaws started practicing how to be an independent worker. In each class we will have daily independent time that will allow us to learn on our own level. This time also allows our teachers to work with small groups of students, so it's important we can focus on our tasks, troubleshoot tech issues, and be responsible for our own actions. Our goal is to get to 20 minutes of uninterrupted work time, so we'll be continuing to practice during the upcoming week as we work on completing our beginning of the year diagnostics. 

We built on the ideas we learned last week in terms of having a growth mindset. Last week we started with the foundational idea that mistakes are good, and it's important for us to do hard things and make mistakes. This week we talked more about how mistake are good, but you have to learn from those mistakes and try different strategies. Just "working harder" doesn't always give you the results you're looking for when you're tackling something challenging. We also talked about the words we say when we have a fixed and growth mindset and talked about the fact that nobody has a growth mindset ALL of the time. It's how we handle the times when we catch ourselves having a fixed mindset that matters the most.  

Now, we'll take everything we've learned these first 8 days and get started in our regular AM and PM classes. It was amazing to get to know our entire flock and work with all of the students, and we are excited to get into our regular routine. Some reminders for this week:

• Band and orchestra lessons start this week! Students do not need instruments this week, but please check the information from Mr. McLaughlin and Mrs. Peters in regards to obtaining and instrument for your child. 

• Don't forget to complete the parent information form. We will be sending paper copies home this week if you haven't had a chance to complete the paper copy.

• Monday is our first school spirit day: Red, White, and Blue Day! Show your spirit by wearing your red, white and blue to honor those who passed away on September 11.

• Friday is Bear Creek Night at the Etown Bears football game. All Bear Creek students will be receiving a ticket later in the week to attend the game for free! Any students coming to the game will be ask to meet on the field to cheer on the team as they come on to the field. Friday will also be Blue and White Day!

Our second week of school, our first week of full days, gave us the chance to get started with our First 8 Days program. This important part of the Leader in Me programs allows us to review each of the 7 (+1) habits in great detail. Our team also uses these first 8 days to learn the technology that we will be using this year and start to learn the important routines that will help our classes run smoothly throughout the year. We also incorporate a variety of activities to help the students start developing their growth mindset, their perseverance, and their willingness to make mistakes.

The Leader in Me portion of our First 8 Days lessons this weekend focused on the first three habits that focus on private victories and the first habit of working with others and the public victories. These include:

• Habit 1: Be Proactive

• Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

• Habit 3: Put First Things First

• Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Not only do we look at how these habits will look and sound in our classrooms, but we also talk about how they will look in sound around the school and at home! If you would like any tips on how to incorporate the 7 Habits and their language at home, please let your child's homeroom teacher know, and we can get you that information.

Our 7 Habits activities included many different activities. In talking about Habit 1, Mrs. Horner used soda and water for a VERY explosive demonstration. Be sure to ask your child why it's important to be water and not soda! We also focused on our circle of control and practiced language that will help us take responsibility for our own actions. We also tied this into our behavior in the cafeteria. Be sure to ask your Macaw about the Clean and Green video and our guiding words for the cafeteria. Mrs. Sweigart helped the students develop and create their own personal mission statements, Mrs. Horner helped the flock establish their Big Rocks, and Mrs. Towsen focused on Saying No to Less Important Things. Mrs. Reighard introduced the flock to their Emotional Bank Accounts. If you've heard about being bucket fillers when your children were younger, this is the same concept, just different vocabulary. We learned that, "With great power comes great responsibility." We have the power to make a mark on everybody we meet so we need to be very thoughtful about the marks we are leaving! That seems like a lot of activities, but that is just a few of the things we did this week. We're looking forward to the activities next week to review Habits 5-8!

Our technology lessons tied nicely into our habits, especially the ideas of Being Proactive and Putting First Things First. It can be very easy to see technology as tools instead of toys, so we worked to build a foundation of responsibility with our Chromebooks. Mrs. Towsen reviewed a kid friendly version of the acceptable use policy to help students understand what they are agreeing to when they sign into their Chromebooks. Mrs. Reighard helped the classes create Chromebook guidelines to keep all of our computers safe and in good working condition. We also reviewed basic trouble shooting tips that students can do when they are working independently and can't ask the teacher for help. Mrs. Sweigart got the students into their Google Drive and started reviewing Google Slides skills with the fun "Worst Slideshow Ever!" activity. Unreadable fonts? YES!!! Hideous colors?  GO FOR IT! Crazy transitions? LET'S DO THIS! By letting the students go crazy now, they will practice important skills and be able to see first hand why some things just don't quite work when it's time to do an actual presentation.

The final set of lessons focused on the concept of having a growth mindset and how important it is to your brains. When we (teachers and parents) were in school, scientists didn't really understand how our brains work. Now, extensive studies have shown that our brains, just like the muscles in our bodies, can grow and change. Having a growth mindset means that you are willing to make mistakes, accept mistakes as opportunities to learn, you're willing to try hard things even though you might fail, and you're willing to make multiple attempts at a hard task to use what you've learned. Having a growth mindset is so much more about the process instead of the product, which is not often how schools operate. Our goal for this year is to help all of our Macaws start growing their growth mindset so they can take it with them and grow their brains throughout the rest of their lives.

We teachers have really enjoyed getting to know all of our Macaws this week, and we are looking forward to another fun week of learning, growing, and setting the foundation for a successful year! Don't forget to check the homework and events page (tab is at the top of our home page) to see what is going on and what is coming up. Also, don't forget to complete your child's Parent Information Survey by clicking this link.  Paper copies will be coming home at the end of the week for anybody who would prefer to complete it that way!

One final reminder. Moving up to fourth grade means more transitions any having to carry things between classrooms. We are seeing a lot of Macaws finding it challenging to move with their materials because of extra things that have come to school. We talked about, "Saying no to less important things," and using the materials provided and maybe a few other things. If you could help your Macaw look through their backpacks and see if they really need all of the supplies they have that would be great. It might also be helpful to put the shoulder straps on Chromebook bags to make carrying during the day easier if you received one. This can be tricky, so if you need any help we would be glad to help out with that!

Thanks to everybody for a great two weeks of school! We can't wait to see how our Macaws soar this year. 

Thank You!

We would like to thank everybody who came out last night to see us at Parent Night! We know how busy everybody's schedules are so we appreciate that so many of your were able to make it. If you were not able to make it or if you need the links, you can find the slideshow below. Please contact any one of us if you have any questions!

Week 1 may have been four half days, but our year is off to a flying start! 

In just a few short hours each day we have met new friends, met and worked with both our ELA and STEM classes, colored our own Macaws to add to our flock in the hallway, and started working on projects that helped us get to know each other and use our creativity! In addition to all of that, we visited three of our specials: Phys Ed, Technology, and Library, and we also attended stations to help review dismissal procedures, recess rules, and how to use our Chromebooks properly. We met Mr. Viau, our new principal, who is a familiar face to those of us who went to Rheems. 

On Thursday and Friday, our Macaws met with Mrs. Peters and Mr. McLaughlin to learn about all of the different opportunities we have to play an instrument now that we are in 4th grade. Some of our are already in the swing of things after attending summer orchestra, and we heard that many of you had also already signed up. If you and your child are interested in signing up to learn how to play an instrument, you can click this link, view the views, and complete the sign up process. You can also scane the QR code on the paper your child brought home today. Sign ups are open until Friday, September 2. Due to the large number of students who sign up (last year there were 180 students participating), it's important that you sign up by the due date so your child can play one of their top three choices and can be placed in an appropriate group for lessons. Band and orchestra practices will begin in January once students master the basics of playing their instruments. 

Finally, we would like to invite you to 4th grade parent night. It will be held next Wednesday beginning at 6:30 pm. This is a parent only event, and we are looking forward to meeting you all!

Some other important links that you can check out to get more information:

• Families who have Mrs. Sweigart can check out her class update below! It's magical!

• Breakfasts and lunches are no longer free. If your family qualifies for free and reduced lunches, you can register by clicking this link. 

• If you'd like to get a head start on our parent questionnaire, you can access it by clicking here. Paper copies will be available on Wednesday evening.

• Please make sure you have updated your contact information and your child's health information in the Community Portal. 

We are looking forward to an amazing year with you and your children, and by the looks of this week we are off to a great start!

Open House Fun!

It was so exciting to meet so many of our newest flock on Thursday during the Bear Creek open house! We enjoyed meeting and chatting with everybody who was able to came, and we hope that seeing your classrooms and meeting us helped you to feel more excited than nervous. But if you're nervous that's ok. Let me tell you a little secret: 

<whispering> Teachers get nervous for the first day, too!!

So don't worry. Our first four days are going to be busy days of getting to know each other, learning the basic routines of our classrooms, and reviewing how things work at Bear Creek. We know that most of you are already Bear Creek professionals, but it's fun to learn all the new things about our blue, fourth grade hallway!

Here are some reminders for the first week!

• Even though it's the first week and early dismissals, we WILL be using our Chromebooks almost each day to start learning new skills. Please make sure you bring your charged Chromebook every day!

• Please do NOT bring large binders, many folders, or large amounts of school supplies. If you were at the open house, you probably saw that we have everything you need, and we don't have much room to store anything else. We can help you sort through supplies that you bring, and you may also bring a personal homework folder on the first day, but all other binders and folders will be provided at school. 

• We do ALL have Phys Ed the first day, so remember to wear or bring your sneakers.

We are so excited for all of the opportunities waiting for us this year. And some of our newest Macaws are excited, too! Here's some of what was shared at Open House! We hope you are all excited for these things and all of the other fun our team will be having the next 10 months! We can't wait to see your smiles on Tuesday!

Welcome Back!

We are very excited to be coming back to school, and we can't wait to see what this school year has in store for us. It's our hope that all of you will very quickly enjoy the new adventure that is 4th grade at Bear Creek and that we will be able to work together to use this page to keep you updated on everything that's going on in our classrooms. 

Here is some important information that will help you get ready for the first day of school:

• All 4th graders each lunch and have recess from 11:50 - 12:35.  Students are welcome to bring healthy snacks to eat in the morning. We do frequently have snacks for those students who forget or cannot bring their own, and we do appreciate any donations. Favorite snacks in the past have included pretzels, goldfish, cheez-its, and fruit snacks. We do have several food allergies and some gluten free students, so please be aware of that if you would like to donate snacks.

• Our daily schedule for students in Ms. Reighard's and Mrs. Sweigart's homeroom will look like this:

  • • 9:00 - 9:45  ~  Special 

    • 9:45 - 11:50, 12:20 - 12:50 ~ Science and Math with a bathroom / snack / activity break in the middle and additional time after lunch

    • 11:45 - 12:20 ~ Lunch and recess

    • 12:50 - 2:45 ~ ELA classes with Mrs. Horner or Mrs. Towsen

    • 2:45 - 3:25 ~ BEAR time (orchestra, band, and other activities meet during this time)

    • 3:30 ~ Dismissal

• Our daily schedule for students in Mrs. Towsen's and Mrs. Horner's homerooms will look like this:

  • • 9:00 - 9:45  ~  ELA block

    • 9:50 - 10:35 ~ Special

    • 10:35 - 12:15 ~ ELA block

    • 12:15 - 12:50 ~ Lunch and recess

    • 12:50 - 2:45 ~ STEM classes with Mrs. Reighard and Mrs. Sweigart

    • 2:45 - 3:25 ~ BEAR time (orchestra, band, and other activities meet during this time)

    • 3:30 ~ Dismissal

• Our special schedule follows a 6 day cycle and is listed below. 

  • • Day 1 ~ Phys Ed - all classes

    • Day 2 ~ Library (Reighard / Towsen) and Technology (Horner / Sweigart)

    • Day 3 ~ Technology (Horner / Sweigart) and Library (Reighard / Towsen)

    • Day 4 ~ Phys Ed - all classes

    • Day 5 ~ Music (Reighard / Towsen) and Art (Horner / Sweigart)

    • Day 6 ~ Art (Reighard / Towsen) and Music (Horner / Sweigart)

• Students will  have the opportunity to play an instrument, and those schedules will also follow a cycle day schedule once they are set by Ms. Martin (band)  and Mr. McLaughlin (orchestra).

• Students who see the speech teacher will see her once a cycle, and those schedules will come out shortly after the beginning of the year.

As you can see, we will have Phys Ed the first day of school, so don't forget to wear your sneakers or bring a change of clothing with sneakers if you have a special outfit already picked out for the first day!

We can't wait to begin our year together!

Even though it's been a few days, it's hard for me to believe that this will be my last update for the year. Our Fearless Flock has flown the coop, and they are more than ready to take on every challenge that 5th grade throws at them next year.

We may have only had 3.5 days during the last week, but what a 3.5 days it was! On Monday and Tuesday, even though it was the last week of school, our Macaws worked tirelessly to complete all of their final work for the school year. Biome projects, writing pieces, diagnostics, and independent projects were all front and center as our Macaws worked to show us what they learned this year.

Our growth, as seen on the Exact Path diagnostics in all subjects was remarkable. From the first diagnostic to the last, almost all of our Macaws grew over 50 points, and almost 1/3 of them grew over 100 points! While we have many hard workers come through our doors, these friends really took their goals seriously and worked to meet or beat them! It was no small feat to stay focused and complete an assessments that gets SO HARD you might not even understand the questions, and we are so proud of our Macaws' efforts during these last two weeks of school. 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PICTURES FROM THE LAST TWO WEEKS OF SCHOOL!

The Fruit and Vegetable Elections were a smashing success! As you can see from the pictures, the students had the opportunity to take their turn at the podium and persuade the others to vote from them and their health benefits. Hopefully these Macaws won't use too many of their new-found persuasive skills on you this summer. 

Our fearless friends also worked very hard on their biome projects, and we were so impressed with the detail and creativity that were shown. As you're outside and on adventures this summer, be sure to ask your child about the living and nonliving things in the world around you. We learned that everything is connected, and even the slightest change to one living creature or one non-living thing can have an affect on everything around it.

The last two days of school were just the cherry on top of a fun and fabulous week. On Wednesday we had the opportunity to cheer for the EASD Seniors who walked the halls of Bear Creek 8 long years ago. While our Macaws were excited to see these big kids, their teachers were already thinking about the day that THEY will be walking through these hallways in their caps and gowns. Get ready, families, that time is going to fly by in the blink of an eye just like this year did! We also enjoyed A Day at the Movies by watching Swiss Family Robinson, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Harry Potter, and Holes. The popcorn and treats made it feel just like a theater, and we all enjoyed our movies.

Finally, we connected to our final science unit with our end of year "party" - a presentation by Miss Tracie and her animal ambassadors from Raven Ridge Wildlife Center. We were mesmerized by the turtles, snake, opossum, skunk, Great Horned Owl (who hooted many more times than usual), and vulture (his name is Barron Von Vulture, and he has his own facebook page!!!) and their stories of rescue and how they came to be ambassadors. It truly was an amazing and memorable way to end the year. If you didn't get a chance to look at the picture earlier, please make sure you go back and click the link to check them out! 

When we came into this year everybody seemed to be saying that it was going to be better than the last two. Well, this year certainly presented many, many challenges that made it difficult in many ways. But we are so thankful that we were able to have all of your children as part of our flock this year. We are so excited to see how they will leave their mark in EASD and what they will accomplish in the future. We hope you all have a restful summer.

Week 38..... our last 5 day week..... how has this even happened? It seems like our Macaws just landed in the nest yesterday, and here we are ready to send them off to 5th grade!

This week was our week of finishing up. Our Macaws worked very hard to complete their final assessments in math and ELA, their Exact Path diagnostics, and final projects in Science. The students practiced their teamwork skills by researching and beginning to build their biomes, and they practiced to perfect their fruit and vegetable speeches for the big election. 

On Friday many of our Macaws had the opportunity to participate in our Leadership Assembly. During this assembly, our band and orchestra students performed for the rest of the school, and student leaders talked about how we use the 7 Habits in all of our special area classes. In addition to the performances and speakers, students who held jobs or received recognition for positive choices were recognized as well. It was a great way to reflect upon all of the great things that our Macaws, and the rest of Bear Creek, accomplished this year.

During the last 3.5 days of school we have a great amount to accomplish:

• Students will be presenting their election speeches and voting for the best fruit and vegetable.

• Students will be finishing up and presenting their biome projects.

• Students will be sharing special projects they have worked on the entire year.

• We will be participating in stations on Wednesday morning and celebrating an Afternoon at the Movies on Wednesday aftenoon.

• Thursday will be Hawaiian / Summer Vacation Day! Be sure to break out your best summer gear for the last day.

• Thursday we will get to meet the animal ambassadors and staff from Raven Ridge Wildlife Rescue.

• Thursday afternoon we will have an early dismissal at 12:30.

Look for one final update next Thursday for all of the excitement from the last week! We are hoping to make it the best week of the year!

We are not exaggerating when we say that Week 37 was probably the best week for 4th graders ever in the history of Bear Creek. 

We began this exciting week with our Bear Creek Bash. Our wonderful PTO provided 3rd and 4th graders with the opportunity to have a great morning of fun stations and a DJ dance party. While it was hard to pick a favorite station, the teachers got a kick out of watching everybody do the lei relay, and we all showed our moves in the dance party. Be on the lookout for a class picture coming to go in the picture frames we decorated that morning.

We ended the week in an exciting fashion, too. On Thursday night our 4th grade band Macaws had the chance to perform in their very first concert. All three of the groups put on wonderful performances, and we are so proud of our Macaws for how hard they worked and practiced to make the concert a success. It truly was one of the best beginning band performances we have ever heard. Then on Friday we had our Fun(d) Run day. The run course was a challenging and fun obstacle course that had us all running, jumping, throwing, and hurdling our way through a variety of obstacles. After finishing our laps, we moved on to another PTO sponsored carnival with games, putt putt practice, fishing, and BOUNCE HOUSES!!! It was SUCH a fun and amazing time. We were definitely pooped (and sweaty and stinky) by the time all was said and done. But all of our Macaws worked and played really hard on Friday!

With all of this fun and excitement, you'd probably think it was hard to get any learning accomplished, and ...... well, you're kind of right. But despite how challenging it was, our Macaws began working on their end of the year diagnostics in math and ELA and are showing some amazing growth! They continued to finish up their fruit and vegetable election posters, wrapped up learning about food chains and food webs, picked a biome for their final science project, learned more about the attributes of different polygons, and worked on writing their election speeches. So even though there was a lot of fun, we did get down to work and check things off our to do list.

So what else do we have in store for the end of the year? Hopefully you have seen the gold letter that came home with information about our end of the year celebrations. Thank you to those of you have already turned those in, and thanks in advance to everybody else who is planning on donating. We greatly appreciate it! This week we will be having our in house concert and celebration during our leadership assembly, and we are waiting anxiously to see if any of our classes will earn the Fun(d) Run pizza party or Rita's celebration! Things are quickly wrapping up, but we plan on making these last two weeks the best weeks of the year!

Week 36 was a long and challenging week as our Fearless Macaws had 4 more days of PSSA testing to work through. We are very proud of how hard our Macaws focused and did their best work. On math testing days we took a break from math. We talked more about how energy moves through ecosystems and always starts with the sun. We also did fun Kahoots and Blookits for our science review. The science PSSAs, while always the favorite of the kids, are more challenging because they cover all of the science information learned from 1st - 4th grade. So quick review games on our favorite sites were a fun way to refresh our pathways but still not work too hard after a morning of testing.

In our ELA classes, working after an entire morning of testing was still a challenge. Our friends focused on continuing to write their fruit and veggie speeches, and they were also working on their campaign posters. We're also continuing our Social Studies work to understand the differences between the regions of the United States.

We were really looking forward to our Bear Creek Bash on Friday morning, but unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans. We are excited to still celebrate the year and all of the hard work from the last two weeks on Monday morning! Thank you, Bear Creek PTO. Speaking of the PTO don't forget to get those last few sponsors for the Fun(d) Run on Friday. It is going to be a great way to wrap up the week! 

Band Families - don't forget that Wednesday afternoon is the dress rehearsal for the Thursday evening concert. Students will be leaving school on Wednesday at 2:00 to travel to the high school, so please be sure to remember instruments for Wednesday. We are so excited to hear the beautiful music at the concert!

One final thought: plans are being finalized for our end of the year celebration which is going to be amazing! Be on the lookout for a note coming home this week with more information about how we will be celebrating!

We all survived our first week of PSSAs! We are so proud of how hard everybody worked on their ELA PSSAs, and we are glad to have them checked off our to do list! My guess is, that if you asked your Macaw, they would tell you that the test wasn't nearly as hard as sitting and being quiet for 2.5 hours! Thanks to all of our Macaw-esome families who donated snacks and drinks to make the week a little more bearable!

Since we were taking the ELA tests, our ELA classes focused more on Social Studies this week, with some read aloud and work on our fruit and vegetable posters and research. Be sure to ask your Macaw which fruit or vegetable they are campaigning for to win Best Fruit or Vegetable of the Year! This fun project is a great way to learn about being healthy, work on our persuasive writing skills, and wrap up the year in a fun and exciting way!

Our STEM classes were busy getting in as much more math and science knowledge as we could before our tests happen this coming week. In Math everybody was working on the attribute of measurement. We learned how to measure angles mathematically, and we also practiced using protractors. In addition to angles, we looked at the measurement of polygons by working on the area and perimeter of quadrilaterals. Our Macaws remembered these skills from last year, so we just added a few more challenges. We also realized that if we rush and don't pay attention to details (like the formula IN the question) we can make really simple mistakes. Hopefully they will learn this key lesson!

In Science we continued learning about the three different types of living things. We wrapped up our study of producers and the process of photosynthesis, and we reviewed decomposers. Then we started talking about consumers. There are four main types of consumers: herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, and scavengers. All four, along with the producers and consumers, are needed for living things to get energy and for there to be a healthy ecosystem. We'll tie these things all together by starting to learn about food webs and food chains this week.  

Hard as it is to believe, we have 19 days left with this amazing flock. In the upcoming weeks, we have the following events:

5/2 - 5/5 - Math and Science PSSAs

5/6 - Bear Creek Bash and Early Dismissal at 12:30

5/11 - After School Dress Rehearsal for band students

5/12 - Band Concert (students should be at the high school by 6:30) - 7:00 at the High School

5/13 - Fun(d) Run

5/19 - School Spirit Day: Crazy Colors / Rainbow Day

5/20 - Leadership Assemblies

5/25 - Afternoon Movie Celebration 

5/26 - School Spirit: Summer / Hawaii Day and our Team Party -- Special Guest Presenters --- our Macaws will be talking about this ALL SUMMER long! More info to follow soon! 

We will continue to update on any more special events that are added, but seriously -- how would we fit any more in????

We keep thinking we can't cram any more into these short weeks, but with only 24 (GULP!!!!) days of 4th grade left, we are keeping our Macaws on their tip toes with lots of learning!

In ELA we are focusing on understanding the different types of text structures authors use, and how understanding these different types of structures help us understand what we're reading better. Examples of text structures include compare and contrast, explanations, descriptive, sequence (or how to), and chronological. Being able to pick out key words and other types of text evidence helps readers understand what an author is trying to do. When you understand WHY an author wrote something, you can have a better idea of what their writing means. Next time you're reading a nonfiction text with your Macaw, see if they can figure out the text structure! To go along with all of this hard reading work, we were VERY excited to get to visit the book fair today! Everybody came away with some great books, and we are so grateful to all of the amazing PTO parents who make the book fair happen for us!

In Math we all have wrapped up our study of fractions, and we are moving on to Geometry. This year, Geometry is more about the parts of shapes than it is the actual shapes. We are looking at the space they take up (area and perimeter), and the angles and lines that make up these different shapes. In addition, we're working on learning how to use protractors and (SHHH!) we'll be building our own tiny houses!

Science and Social Studies have been VERY exciting. We're continuing to learn about the different regions in social studies, and we have started to take a closer look at the West Region of the United States. In Science we started to take a closer look a producers. Plants are called producers because they make, or produce, their own food using a process called photosynthesis.  We had example of producers that we tried to grow or did grow in our water cycle bags. Maybe your family will successfully grow some beans!

Next week is a big week! We will be starting the PSSAs with the ELA tests on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We'll be having spirit days every day (check your child's agenda) AND Thursday night is the PTO fundraiser at Utter Bliss! Check your child's homework folder for a flyer coming home on Monday!

Don't blink, anybody! This next month is going to FLY by!!!

Week 33 may go down in history as the shortest, most fun packed week in the history of 4th grade! Even though we only had three days, we crammed in our field trip, outside PE, tickets out the door, and an amazing assembly! No wonder it simply flew by!

On Monday, our Fearless Macaws FINALLY got to go on their first field trip since first grade!! The fourth grade field trip to the PA State Museum and the Pennsylvania Capitol building can be a bit tricky because it's not your usual field trip. While we get to see many amazing things, we are in a museum and a working office building so we really can't cut loose. Our Macaws rose to the challenge and represented Bear Creek so well! Every group got compliments from the workers at the museum, and they enjoyed exploring all of the different displays. The third floor hall of animals is always a favorite, and we enjoyed the second floor history displays as well. In the Capitol we were in awe of the beautiful artwork and all of the gold! Yes, our capitol has really, actual, gold leaf covering many of the surfaces. We learned so much from our tour guides, and we even had the opportunity to meet our legislators, Senator Aument and Representative Hickernell. Be on the lookout for our class pictures; they should be coming soon.

As hard as it was to get back into the swing of things, Tuesday was a regular day, and we got down to work. Some of the Macaws wrapped up equivalent fractions, while others were working on the important terms to understand our new geometry unit. Everybody was working hard on their Social Studies projects, and we continued to learn about ecosystems. We have looked at what you find in an ecosystem, and the different biomes where we find ecosystems. Next we'll talk about how animals and plants are specially designed to live in their particular biomes and ecosystems.

Wednesday wrapped up our short week with a BANG thanks to our amazing PTO. The trivia assembly, The Brain Show, came for a visit, and many of our Macaws made it onto the show and even won the coveted 42 cent medal! ;)  It was so much fun for everybody, and it was the perfect way to wrap up an amazing week. We hope that everybody is enjoying their spring break, and we will see you all back on Tuesday to get right back into the swing of things!

As a reminder, here are all of the important upcoming dates:

April 19: PTO Hershey Park Discount Ticket Orders Due (click for the form)

April 21: Orchestra and Chorus Concert at the High School

April 26-28: ELA PSSAs (each day that week will be a spirit day - check your child's agenda)

May 2-5: Math and Science PSSAs (more spirit days)

May 6: Early Dismissal

May 12: Band Concert at the High School

May 13: Fun(d) Run

May 20: Leadership Assembly

May 25: Class Party

May 26: Early Dismissal / Last Day of School

Week 32 was chock full of lots of learning, and along with it the realization that we have just over 30 days of 4th grade left and SO MUCH to do! We know the time is going to fly, especially with all of the special events being added to the calendar! We are looking forward to making a lot of great memories through the end of the year!

In ELA our Macaws have been working hard to review the most recent sets of skills that we've been working on and starting to review everything prior to the PSSAs. Our Macaws continued to hone their summarizing skills, and they were also focusing on understanding a writer's perspective. Our fearless friends were looking for evidence of 1st person, 2nd person, and 3 person perspectives in different stories. They've also been continuing to work on comparing texts and finding text evidence to complete a TDA, which is a written essay that answers a question about different texts. In Social Studies, we're continuing to learn about business and natural resources from Mr. Miller, and we're focusing on those different regions in the United States.

We kicked off our final science unit of the year, Ecosystems and the biosphere, by talking about how humans affect and change the Earth and doing our part to clean it up. We took a walk outside to look for evidence of living, once-living, and non-living things because every ecosystem needs all three of these things. After learning WHAT is in an ecosystem, we started to learn about WHERE we find ecosystems. We'll continue to talk about the different biomes and how animals and plants adapt to living and thriving in the different biomes. And of course, we are continuing to keep an eye on Bonkers, Bagel, and Doughnut, our favorite eaglets!

In math we are wrapping up our fraction unit and trying to learn as much geometry as we can prior to starting the PSSAs. In fractions we're wrapping up with understanding that many different fractions can represent the same value on the number line. This concept is what makes fractions so difficult for most students. As we start geometry, we're beginning with the key words and pieces, and then, like a puzzle, we'll see how those pieces go together to make up the shapes we've learned since we were teeny Macaws in kindergarten!

We are looking forward to our Field Trip tomorrow and our Easter break to refresh ourselves before PSSAs and the mad dash until the end of the year. Continue to check out the updates and the end of each post to see what is going on! We have a ton of things coming up, so everything will also be entered in your child's agenda as well! Here's what's coming up:

April 11: Field Trip to Harrisburg

April 14-18: Easter Break

April 19: PTO Hershey Park Discount Ticket Orders Due (click for the form)

April 21: Orchestra and Chorus Concert at the High School

April 26-28: ELA PSSAs (each day that week will be a spirit day - check your child's agenda)

May 2-5: Math and Science PSSAs (more spirit days)

May 6: Early Dismissal

May 12: Band Concert at the High School

May 13: Fun(d) Run

May 20: Leadership Assembly

May 25: Class Party

Ma7 26: Early Dismissal / Last Day of School

Just when you think you're on top of everything, you realize that you never did the Week 30 update, so welcome, everybody, to Week 30 and 31. Can we just talk about the fact that we just FINISHED week 31??? It seems hard to believe that we are down to less than 40 days of 4th grade, especially when we look at everything that needs to be accomplished and all of the things packed into our schedules. But before we get too focused on the future, let's take a look at what the last two weeks held for our Fearless Macaws!

In ELA, it was time for the challenging skill of summarizing. While retelling a story by focusing on the story elements is a skill that our Macaws have practiced since they were in first grade, summarizing kicks it up a big notch. Not only do you have to understand the passage that you're reading, but you have to be able to identify the most important ideas to include them in your summary. I bet we all know a lot of grown-ups who have trouble sharing only the most important ideas of their stories, so you can imagine how challenging it is for kids. But our Macaws are tackling the challenge and feeling more confident with their summarizing skills. If you want to help your child practice this skill, have them try and tell you about what they are reading in just one or two sentences. It's definitely a skill that will be refined as they get older, but you can practice with anything they read or any stories they tell you.

In Social Studies, the Macaws in Mrs. Horner's room are enjoying their Junior Achievement activities with Mr. Miller, and both Social Studies classes are continuing to learn about PA and the regions of the United States. We were amazed to learn about the connections between Social Studies and Science when it comes to talking about natural resources. It really is easy to see how we can't have one subject without another.

Speaking of Science, we are wrapping up our learning about the Earth and how it uses energy to change itself and transitioning to our study of Ecosystems and the biosphere by learning about how humans impact and change the Earth. We're starting to see and understand that while many of the things we do aren't meant to impact the Earth in a negative way, these things do have consequences. We're taking a look at the small things we can each do to protect our Earth and use fewer resources.  And of course we can't not mention the EAGLES!!! We are truly enjoying watching our bald eagle parents raise the three babies. We're finding out that eaglets aren't that different from kids, even fighting and bonking each other to get more food and attention! It has been a lot of fun to watch these babies hatch and grow.

Finally in math our Macaws are continuing to be fraction masters. It was mind blowing to think that fractions are really just part of the number line, and it's also mind blowing to realize how many fractions and decimals can be at the same point on a number line. This fact, along with all the different strategies that get used to solve different types of fraction problems can make this fraction unit especially challenging. But our Macaws are persevering and doing a great job tackling the different tasks and skills.

Now, we do have some big events coming up, so please keep these dates on your radar:

• Now through April 7: Yearbooks are still on sale. Click THIS LINK to purchase a yearbook for your child. 

• Now through April 19: The PTO is selling discounted Hershey Park tickets. Be on the lookout for the form that will be coming home. Tickets can be purchased for 48% off gate price.

• Thursday, April 7 is a homeroom spirit challenge. Be on the lookout for what your Macaw should do for their spirit on Thursday.

•  Monday, April 11 will be our Field Trip to Harrisburg. We will be sending reminder notes with information on Friday.

• Thursday, April 14 - Monday, April 18 - No School for Spring Break. Because we used Bears Virtual Days for all of the bad weather that we had, we will be off of school for all 5 days.

• Weeks of April 25 and May 2 - PSSAs will be given Monday - Thursday both of those weeks. 

Week 29 may have been our best week yet. Our Pi Day assembly kicked off the week with a SPLAT, and the hints of spring weather just made it a great week!

Obviously we MUST start with our Pi Day assembly! In just one week, the students at Bear Creek raised over $1,900 for the Four Diamonds Fund. Lexy and her mom were kind enough to talk to our school about the importance of the Four Diamonds Fund and how it helps kids and their families. As a special treat, Lexy got to splat both Mrs. Reighard AND Dr. Frank! Two other Macaws also got in on the fun! Grace got selected to splat Miss Martin, our amazing instrumental teacher, and Lucas got to splat Mrs. Reighard. You can check out the videos by CLICKING HERE! It was such a fun afternoon, and we are excited to be able to make this great donation to the high school's mini-THON. This money, along with the money from our Christmas and Valentine's Day candy grams will be presented to the high school students during their Mini-THON in April! We can't wait to see what the grand total will be.

It was hard to beat all the excitement of Monday afternoon, but we tried. In Social Studies we continued to enjoy Mr. Miller's Junior Achievement presentations, and we're learning a lot about how businesses become successful. This week we talked about profits, the true measure of a successful business. We play a game where we were the owners of a hot dog stand, and our rolls of the dice and decisions determined whether we made a profit or saw a loss. It was a great way to see how math really is important beyond our school walls. We also started thinking about our regions of PA projects. We can't wait to see the creativity on display when the projects are completed!

There were some project in science, too, as the AM Macaws began to wrap up the Earth's Process unit by looking at the different kinds of landforms created by the slow changes of the Earth. The PM class wrapped up the week just as excited as they started it because they headed to the STEM lab to complete their first Lego WeDo project. The Macaws did an awesome job building a flood gate, and they will be tackling an earthquake machine on Monday. 

Don't forget about the Bear Creek PTO meeting this Monday evening at 6 PM in the IMC (that's library for all of us old folks). We are grateful for our partnership and all of the things our PTO does to support our students, so if you could make it, your support would be greatly appreciated! Speaking of PTO, don't forget the yearbooks are on sale until April 7. You can order your yearbook online through this link. One final reminder - with the weather starting cool and warming up during the day, it's important to make sure you put your child's name in their sweatshirts. We want to make sure lost sweatshirts can get back to their rightful owners, and names inside will definitely help!

It seems like each week we start our blog post by saying that it was an exciting and fun week and lots of good stuff was crammed into a full five days. And Week 28 was NO exception! Between our Pi Day fundraiser, a hint of spring weather, our terrarium bags sprouting, and creating our own businesses in JA, it was another full and fun week. 

Mr. Miller once again came to visit our ELA classes, and this week we learned about what it takes to create our own businesses. We had to think about the resources that are required, the best locations, and the wants and needs of our potential customers. It's a lot to think about and a lot more challenging that we realized. Despite the challenges, some of our Macaw teams came up with some exciting and creative business ideas! Speaking of challenges, our fearless friends were also working on their Study Island benchmarks. These challenging benchmarks let us see how we're doing and where we still need to work to grow to our best potential until the end of the year.

Speaking of even MORE challenging and exciting things, it was Challenge 24 competition week in our STEM classes. We have been practicing how to play Challenge 24 since our winter break. Now that we honed our 24 making skills, we focused on playing by competition rules. Finally, on Friday, the classes went and participated in the Bear Creek Challenge 24 Competition. It was harder and more stressful that we imagined, but many of us also proved that we can do a great job when working under pressure! Congratulations to Wyatt and Emery, our AM class Challenge 24 sharks! Both of these sharks scored 12 points in their first official competition! Great job guys!!

And not to be outdone, exciting couldn't let challenging have all of the fun! In science we have been focusing on the water cycle and the ways that the Earth uses energy to change itself in slow and fast ways. By accident, we were able to make a connection between our science class when we studied precipitation and a story on the ELA Study Island benchmark about Snowflake Bentley - the first scientist to photograph snowflakes. All of the terrarium bags are now planted, and we are amazed how our plants can grow in this closed system! Some of our Macaws may become gardeners and harvest some beans with our successful start! The beautiful weather this week is going to give us the perfect opportunity to see some of these Earth's changes in action at Bear Creek. 

We can't wrap up this week's blog post without saying a big THANK YOU to our amazing Macaws and their generosity. Our friends brought in so much of their own money that they had saved to donate to our Pi Day fundraiser supporting the 4 Diamonds Fund. Sure, they might have been motivated by the opportunity to smack Mrs. Reighard and Mrs. Horner in the face with a pie, but it's is amazing cause that benefits our friend Lexy, her family, and other kids battling cancer and their families. We are so proud of our whole team, and Mrs. Reighard is looking forward to her pie in the face on Monday!

We have so much coming up. It seems as though we have a lot of time left, but looking at the calendar -- time is going to FLY!! Here are some important dates coming up!

• Thursday 3/17 - Green and Gold Day - show your school spirit with your best green and gold attire!

• Monday 3/21 - PTO meeting at 6:00 at the Bear Creek IMC (Library)

• Yearbook orders due on April 7. All sales are being done online, so you can click THIS LINK to purchase a yearbook for your child. 

• Field Trip - April 11 - Thank you to all of the amazing families who have offered to volunteer. While we can't pay for all of you to attend as chaperones, you are welcome to follow along / meet us at the state museum and pay your own entrance fee. Please let your child's teacher know if you'd like to join us. 

• Spring Break - April 14 - April 18.

• PSSAs - the weeks of April 25 and May 2.

Whew!! And that's just the next 6 weeks! We will update both the calendar (click the Homework and Events tab at the top of the page), our daily homework posts, and our blog as more events get added or as we get closer to the events' dates.  

To say Week 27 was an exciting one is a bit of an understatement. There were so many exciting things crammed into this short week, it's hard to know where to start! 

Our ELA classes were buzzing with excitement as we started our Junior Achievement sessions that are taught by Mr. Myles Miller. This weeks fun lesson focused on being an entrepreneur and the qualities of people who are successful at starting their own business. What was really exciting is that each of our Macaws got their own "Eraselet" - a bracelet that can be used as an eraser - created by a special entrepreneur. We are excited to continue to learn from Mr. Miller during the upcoming weeks. We also spent some of our ELA time reflecting upon the last trimester and how we grew during that time. 

In STEM our AM and PM classes are at slightly different places, but both had some very exciting learning going on. The AM Macaws wrapped up their study of the water cycle by presenting the rest of their projects. We saw a Google Slides presentation with movements and an especially well done Blookit. We enjoyed both, and they really showed that these Macaws knew their stuff. As we looked at our terrarium / water cycle bags, we were excited to see that some of our beans have started to sprout!! We can't wait to see how they will continue to grow and change in their little environment! Another exciting event was going to the STEM lab to start our study on the natural disasters that affect the Earth. We used the Lego WeDo kits to design and code working floodgates and earthquake machines! It was a great way to learn science, work together, and persevere when things get challenging!

The PM Macaws were still deep in the water cycle. This week focused on evaporation and condensation, and we spent a lot of time acting like water molecules. These molecules speed up and spread out when they get heated by the sun's energy, and that is what causes evaporation. Then, when they cool off, they slow down which causes them to turn back into liquid. If these molecules cool off enough, they freeze into ice. We also learned about the different types of clouds. Did you see any of them this weekend?

We appreciated all of our Macaw families who attended conferences on Thursday and Friday. It was great to talk to all of our families, and we're excited to see what everybody will achieve during the last trimester. Keep an eye on the community portal because your child's report card will be available later this week. 

Another fun even this week is the collection for the Pi Day Contest. On 3/14 (Pi Day) the "winning" teacher will be getting smooshed in the face with a pie. How is the "winner" determined?? Students can bring in $1 to buy a ticket and vote for their favorite participating teacher. Mrs. Reighard and Mrs. Horner are representing the Macaws, so be sure to bring in your dollar bills to not only PIE one of our teachers but also raise money for a great cause: the Four Diamonds Fund. We are excited to see the results!

It's hard to believe that we are on our way to the finish line. Things are going to start going by like a blur, so we are going to try our best to enjoy the craziness!

Week 26 sure had a lot of craziness up it's sleeve: a day off, an icy, but beautiful, late start, and PJ Day! As usual, our Macaws didn't let these changes to our routine stop the learning.

In ELA it was a week of wrapping things up as we look towards the end of the second trimester. (WHATTT??? You heard us right - we're moving into the last part of fourth grade!) Understanding is a key component to comprehending fiction stories, poetry, and drama. It also helps us understand what people are saying as we watch TV shows and movies! So this week, our fearless Macaws wrapped up their study of the different types of figurative language. There were a variety of activities to help our fearless friends understand onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors, and alliteration. Be sure to ask your friends about the alliteration ice cream flavor they created. There were some flavors that sounded really tasty, and other flavors..... well, let's just say they probably wouldn't be the first flavor I would order! Our macaws also worked on their own writing as they wrapped up compare and contrast pieces. Students are often asked to compare and contrast different passages they've read on the PSSAs, so to get used to this type of writing, we work on comparing and contrasting other things. In this case it was prairie dogs and ground hogs. Perfect for February, right? When our Macaws are interested in the topic, it makes writing flow much easier, so we're always looking for ways to spice up our writing topics!

In STEM, we were also very busy. This week saw a continuation of converting and multiplication. Our Macaws who have STEM in the morning were applying what they learned about multiplication and division to solve problems involving converting one type of measurement to another. Then, they used this skill to tackle some of the HARDEST multi-multi-multi step problems we have ever seen. These problems really help us work on SMP 1 - coming up with a plan and persevering through difficult problems. On the flip side, our afternoon Macaws THOUGHT they were going to be faced with really hard multiplication problems, but found out that they problems weren't nearly as hard as they believed they would be! We will be taking what we learned this week and starting to work on two digit multiplication in the new week. Maybe it was the PJs and the late start on Friday, but everything just seemed a little bit easier when we gave it a try on Friday.

Science continues to be fun and exciting as we look at the Earth and how it changes thanks to forces of nature. We continued to focus on the hydrosphere this week, and we specifically focused on the parts of the water cycle. Evaporation, condensation, and precipitation all start with energy from the sun, and they keep that fresh water flowing for us. In the next few weeks we're going to take a look at how this cycle plays a key part in changing the Earth. We'll also be learning about some other destructive forces, too!

Just a reminder that this week is also a short week due to spring conferences. Students will have an early dismissal on Thursday, and then they will be off on Friday. While spring conferences are optional unless your child's homeroom teacher has contacted you, we are looking forward to seeing you to talk about your child's growth during the last few months!

Weeks 24 and 25 were full of lots of fun and excitement with school spirit days, Valentines Day celebration, and a shorter week, but our Macaws made sure to balance their fun with lots of hard work in every subject area!

In math all of our Macaws are working on understanding multiplication and using it to solve problems, including those involving converting units of measurement from one type to another. Our AM friends have already learned a variety of strategies to complete multi-digit multiplication problems, so be sure to ask them what their favorite strategy was. Our PM Macaws will be continuing to work on one-digit multiplication and multiplication with zeros to get them ready for two digit multiplication. While speed is not necessary for success in math, familiarity is. So while it's not important for your child to be speedy with their multiplication facts they should be comfortable with them. All of our Macaws should be practicing their facts in some way each night. They can practice on Freckle, if their class is using it, using flash cards, or playing games. If you'd like ideas, please contact your child's STEM teacher.

In science we are continuing to learn how our Earth uses energy to move and change. This week we started to focus on the basics of the hydrosphere as we look at how it changes these Earth. Throughout the week, we talked about the different types of water found in the hydrosphere, salt water and fresh water, and the bodies where we find these different types of water. We are also talking about how these bodies move; salt water holds it spot but experiences waves, and fresh water can flow (lotic) or stand still (lentic). Understanding these different movements and the process of the water cycle will help us understand how water changes the Earth.

In Social Studies are Macaws are continuing to learn about the different regions of the United States and the characteristic that unite states within a reason. If you Macaw friend has Mrs. Towsen, be sure to ask about Mini Mrs. Towsen and her travels! In ELA, our friends are  beginning to look at figurative language. Figurative language includes all of the tools writers use to paint a picture with their words. It also can make understand what we're reading a little bit more challenging because it doesn't mean what the words say. Our Macaws will be working hard to understand tools like similes, metaphors, hyperboles, alliteration (ask about their ice cream flavors) and what they mean within text!

We have to talk a little bit about the excitement the last two weeks! We had two fun spirit days: jersey day, and red, white, and pink day. We celebrated our friendships with Valentines Day, and we want to thank everybody who shared treats to make our celebrations special. But the VERY BEST part of our Valentine's celebration is that we welcomed back our #unicornstrong Macaw, Lexy! We are so very excited that Lexy is currently cancer-free and is well enough to join us back at school! We want to say thank you to everybody who supported her and her family, and we are so excited to make memories with her these last few months of school!

Finally,  we wanted to let you know that Spring Parent Teacher conferences are just around the corner. Spring conferences are different than our fall conferences. These conferences are  not mandatory and will be just for adults. Your child's homeroom teacher will be contacting you if we would definitely like to check in with you at a conference. If you don't hear from your child's homeroom teacher, you are welcome to sign up for a conference in the afternoon of Thursday, March 3 or during the day on Friday, March 4. You can use THIS LINK to sign up for a conference. Any questions or concerns, please email your child's homeroom teacher.

Some weeks you take lots of pictures and send lots of Tweets, and some weeks you're so busy that you don't take ANY! This week was one of those weeks, but there was still plenty of learning going on with all of our Fearless Flock!

Our STEM classes were buzzing with the beginning of our Earth Processes unit, and our minds were blown as we thought about the fact that the world is constantly moving under our feet! Our earth uses heat energy from inside the Earth to move the plates that make up the crust. Minds. Blown! We also had fun using Kool Whip and graham crackers to model how that all works. Your Macaw should be working on learning the continents and oceans since both classes have to take their quizzes in the next two week. Check your child's homework folder for their study guide to help them practice for this ticket out the door!

In math our Macaws are diving deeper into multiplication. We are looking at the patterns (SMP 7) created by factors and multiples and learning how we can use tools like a multiplication chart and a calculator (SMP 5) to help us see and find these patterns. Some Macaws were also working on solving 2 x 2 digit, 2 x 3 digit, and even 3 x 3 digit multiplication problems using the strategy of their choice. These fearless friends were able to choose between the original algorithm, the area method, the lattice method, or partial products to find their solution. It was definitely a busy, busy week.

Our Macaws were just as busy in ELA this week. Our Fearless Flock flew all around the world as they continuing to learn about traditional literature and the stories of different cultures. What a perfect pairing to go with the Olympics! We hope you've been watching and enjoying these games that celebrate athletes from all over the world! The students also continued to work on their writing skills by focusing on some grammar and language activities.

Don't forget that we will be exchanging Valentines next Monday. Students who would like to show off their creativity can make their boxes at home, but we will have bag for those who are just looking for a vessel to hold all of their goodies. If your child seems to have lost their class list for Valentines, please contact your child's homeroom teacher. Finally, we will wrap up the week with a school spirit day - Jersey Day.

One more exciting announcement: the Macaws will be going on their field trip to Harrisburg on April 11. If you are interested in serving as a chaperone, please make sure that all of your volunteer paperwork is up to date and turned in so that we can have you join us. We are looking for 4-5 parents per class, so be on the lookout for permission and volunteer slips coming home soon.

 The second half of fourth grade (yes..... you read that right! We can't believe it either!) started off with a busy bang, with lots of fun and exciting learning going on!

In our STEM classes, we wrapped up addition and subtraction for everybody and began to focus on multiplication. While speed is not important when solving problems, having a solid foundation of multiplication facts will definitely help our Macaws as we work on multistep problems to solve two digit multiplication and begin exploring division. Your child can practice their facts using Freckle, some students have the Reflex resource available to them, and you can also send Mrs. Reighard or Mrs. Sweigart a message if you're looking for fun ways, besides flashcards, to learn and understand multiplication facts. We will also be looking at some strategies that are different than the way we learned multiplication in school, but don't be afraid to work with your child and explain how you learned how to solve multiplication problems!

In science we wrapped up our study of energy. We all had a great time experimenting with different materials to build series circuits, which have one path for electrons to flow, and parallel circuits, which have two or more paths. We also had fun trying to create switches to turn our lights on and off. Next up we will be learning about the Earth. We'll start by taking a look at the four spheres, or parts, that make our Earth a livable planet, and then for the remainder of the unit we will focus on the three non-living spheres. We will see how our Earth uses potential and kinetic energy to change itself, and we'll also see how the hydrosphere and the atmosphere can change the Earth and impact the people who live here. It is a great unit, so be on the lookout for lots of fun activities in the upcoming weeks!

Don't think that STEM is stealing all the fun though! This week in ELA, our Macaws were really focused on synergizing and seeking first to understand while they practice their reading, language, and listening skills. These fearless friends started working together to use their language skills to solve an electronic breakout box. They also had the opportunity to share a book they loved during a Friday afternoon book talk. Finally, they continue to work on their writing skills that they started last week. As you can see from the pictures, there was a lot of collaboration going on in ELA, and that really bumps up the listening and learning.

And we also snuck in a little fun this week as well! Our Crazy Hair spirit day was a BIG hit, with Ryker, from Mrs. Reighard's homeroom, having the craziest hair on the team.... and possibly the WHOLE SCHOOL! We loved Ryker's bravery and spirit as he really went for crazy! Check out the calendar for our February spirit days: jersey day, red-pink-white day, and PJ day. Our classes will also be celebrating Valentine's Day. Be on the lookout for class lists coming home this week. Students are encouraged to make bags or boxes at home if they would like to create something very fancy, but we will also have bags and supplies available for students who would like to create something simple at school. Please contact your child's teacher if you would like to provide a small snack or drink for our Valentine's Exchange.

It's only been two weeks, but my oh my..... it seems like a lifetime ago since our last update! We appreciate everybody's patience and support as we worked through our latest round of quarantining, contact tracing, and changes to the masking and quarantine requirements! If your child does test positive or have close contact with somebody who does, please remember to contact the school nurse ASAP.

So besides tons of kids being Zooming, what else happened? Well, quite a lot! In ELA our Macaws were working on writing and using text evidence by writing about cookies! It's amazing how our mindsets about writing, which are usually fixed, suddenly become way more positive when we get to write about food! As a matter of fact, many Macaws actually said that writing was one of their positive on their weekly reflection! We were also using text evidence as we took a closer look at the genre of folktales. As we examined the folktales, we looked for evidence that helped us see what character traits are valued in different cultures. Our Macaws also enjoyed this because of the differences between our culture and the cultures we read about in class.

Science and math were just as exciting..... maybe even a little more! But shhhhh - don't tell Mrs. Horner and Mrs. Towsen! Our classes continued to work on building circuits and creating circuits with switches to turn our lights on and off. It is such a fun challenge, and... dare we say it.... a fun experiment assessment, too! We'll be wrapping up our unit on energy by completing our builds and taking a closer look at how electricity helps us in many different aspects of our life. In math our AM friends focused on factors and multiples, and the PM friends are continuing to review addition and subtraction.

Our Flock got some other great news this week as well. Our dear #unicornstrong Macaw, Lexy, had her follow up tests, and we are SO happy to report that she is cancer free!! We are patiently awaiting the day that she will be able to rejoin our class in person.  We also found out that we will be doing another round of Candygrams this week, and these will be delivered on Valentine's Day. Students can purchase a Candygram for $1, and all of the proceeds will benefit the Four Diamonds Fund. 

We also have some fun spirit days coming up! This Friday will be Crazy Hair Day, and then in February we will be having Jersey Day, Red - White -Pink Day, and PJ Day! Check out the calendar on the homework page to get those dates!  It's hard to believe that we are almost finished with January already! We need time to slow down - we aren't quite ready to send this Flock on their way just yet!

We welcomed 2022 and our Fearless Flock back to Bear Creek with some craziness! But like a true flock of friends, we were flexible, patient, and worked hard to push through all of the challenges the week threw at us!

In ELA our Macaws were brushing up on their grammar skills with their daily warm up work and our writing activities. There are so many different rules for understanding grammar, it can be a challenge to remember them all. But daily practice of short activities builds the pathways we need to become successful writers. In reading, our Macaws are focusing in on Fantasy stories. The students worked on finding evidence to prove what type of fantasy story different passages represented.  Mrs. Towsen's friends had a lot of fun proving that Mrs. Reedy, our awesome para-professional, was incorrect with her hypothesis.

Speaking of a hypothesis, science was really exciting this week! Some of the students had the opportunity to make a hypothesis about how to use materials to light a lightbulb, then they set about building their models to prove whether their hypothesis was correct or not. These students had fun creating the series circuits! Other students were looking at the importance of electricity and how it helps people. They will be finishing up their next CER on this topic in the coming week. In math the afternoon students were working on estimating and problem solving, while the morning students were starting to build their multiplication and division background. 

Lots of friends on Zoom and our first Bears Virtual Day made this week extra crazy! We appreciate everybody's support as we tried out a new format for our Virtual Day. Thank you to all of the students who stopped in to say hello on Zoom and who completed all of their assignments! We appreciate your hand work.

This coming week has VERY cold temperatures forecasted. Please make sure your child is dressed for the weather and is ready to go! Also, Friday is a teacher inservice day, so there will be no school for students on Friday. We also have off on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Due to the days off and some outside of school things going on, our next blog post will be the weekend of the 23rd. Check in with your child to learn more about what is going on with our flock, and we will see you back here for a Week 20 and 21 update in two weeks!