Farewell to a GreatYear!

This has been a great year with reader's theater.  The kids have done a lot of work on their own.  The kids have really impressed me in their dedication to write the final reader's theater script.  I loved how the kids were also eager to edit their work.  Every time we revisited the scripts, the kids were looking to make more changes to improve their work. 

My favorite experience this year we the SKYPE visit: Melissa Stewart.  She rocked and we all learned so much from her.  Thank you Melissa for sharing your love of writing and illustrating with my students.

Thank you fourth grade for a wonderful experience this year.  Thank you to Mrs. Schmidt for all your hard work with the students.  I have learned so much from you and look forward to all the other experiences we will encounter together.

Mrs. Zawacki

4th Grade FOCUS

        FOCUS this year was really fun. We got to do many activities. This year in FOCUS was fantastic! I had loads of fun!
        In the beginning, in the unit category, we studied bridges. It was a lot of fun! We studied a lot on different kinds of bridges, and we even got to create our own bridges.
        We have been doing logic for all of the year. Logic is a sheet of paper given to you. It is acctually really fun! Logic gets harder and harder every time you exceed.
        Another thing we are doing in FOCUS is Reader's Theater! Reader's Theater is a program where you are the characters in a certain book. You are given a script and, of course, your part. Sometimes there are nonfiction books and sometimes there are fiction books. I love doing Reader's Theater! In fact, it is my favorite thing to do in FOCUS!
        We are doing a powerpoint too!
        Over all, I love FOCUS.

                                                                                                  Carson

Farewell to Reader's Theater in FOCUS

   Throughout all of my fourth grade in FOCUS my class and I have been doing Reader's Theater and the story I really enjoyed before the one we are doing right now was The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and that was because I like that story. My favorite Reader's Theater story that we did this year is The Boy Who Was Raised By Librarians. It was very fun doing the story. In the book that we are doing I am narrator two. This year I didn't really like was that we had to perform in front of our classes and other ones because I am a little shy.
     But what I really liked was illustrating the drawings to go when we represent our story. At the end of the story he joins his libarian friends in the libary. When he was in high school he got a part time job in the libary. When he was finished with collage he got a full time job at the libary and he worked with his librarian friends. This year in Reader's Theater was a blast!

                                                                                                               Daniel

Reflections to my Fourth Grade FOCUS and Reader's Theater

     This year, my fourth grade FOCUS year was an exciting one. I did many things and learned a lot. I learned about bridges and their history behind them. My favorite kind of bridge was the Suspension Bridge. We also did our leadership unit. That was my favorite thing we learned about in FOCUS. We talked about the qualities of a good leader. We also did power points on a leader we chose. I did my power point on Dwight D. Eisenhower. I learned so much about him. We also did vocabulary, which was really fun to learn about them. It helped us on some of the writings we did, too. The last thing we learned about was Logic Skills. We also did Reader's Theater, which you will read in about later on. To improve our skills in that area, we did logic grids and analogies. The thing I really wanted was to have recess once in a while to get some fresh air during FOCUS class. Other than that, all the things I did in FOCUS was really cool and interesting to learn about.
      The Reader's Theater projects that we have done in the past have been very fun to do, too. It helped us with our fluency in reading, so we will have experiences when we wil go to middle and high school. The books I have done in Reader's Theater was The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, When Rain Falls, and The Boy Who Was Raised By Librarians. We also Skyped with an author and a class in Wisconsin. I liked blogging because we get ot write about what we feel. I loved Reader's Theater and I'm going to miss it over the summer.
                                  Goodbye fourth grade FOCUS!
-Anushka


  

Peace out fourth grade FOCUS!

Dear fellow students,

            I've had a great time in FOCUS this year, such a great time that I can't even say how many I had. To start off, I loved Reader's Theater, especially when we got to write the script. I also enjoyed researching a person and making a PowerPoint on the person. I enjoyed the unit on bridges, but if I had the chance to change it to something else, I would. I love that we got to spend every single Thursday with Mrs. Zawacki.

On the downside, I have some dislikes. Like Logic. I absolutely, positively, 100% did not like Logic. Analogies weren't my favorite either. I did love every time I saw "Complete"on my paper. I loved fourth grade FOCUS.

Thinking Back

      This year in Reader's Theater was awesome for our first story I was in the Three Little Pigs and I was the narrator. Then I did Under The Snow and I was the narrator. Finally I'm doing Knuffle Bunny Free and I'm Mom, Oma, Baby's Mom, and Airline Person. I'm glad in this last Reader's Theater I get an actual part of a person so I can show them what I'm made of! This last FOCUS Reader's Theater feels like it's our own because we wrote it. This is a great feeling to hold a script in your hand that was typed but, written by you!


                                                                                                                                 Taylynn
                                                                                                                           

Goodbye 4th Grade FOCUS

     My fourth grade FOCUS year was very challenging. But I felt very proud. I did my best work to do really good in FOCUS. Reader's Theater was very fun but I had trouble with a few things. Logic and Analogies were also fun but difficult. My dislike is that we had to miss recess and we had to have vocabulary tests. The vocabulary words were really hard but I tried my best to study hard and to ace the tests.
     I think people who are in FOCUS have a chance to learn things other people don't know and a chance to go above and beyond what teachers are expecting. This is what I love about FOCUS. I am very proud of all the things I did in FOCUS. I know that 5th grade FOCUS will be even harder than 4th grade's. So if I get into FOCUS next year, I will have to be prepared and work even harder to try my best in 5th grade.
     Goodbye 4th grade FOCUS!!!!

-DASEUL