News and Notes 4/18

News and Notes

From Fourth Grade

Showcasing

This week the students of Simonds School participated in the annual Simonds Talent Show.  What a great opportunity for our students to showcase their diverse and exciting talents!  With everything from tricks on trampolines to song and dance performances, the students wowed the audience with their great abilities.  This annual event is a fun way to celebrate some of the gifts that we don't always get to focus on during the normal school day.  It was also a great time of school community as the students congratulated and celebrated each other.  The students at Simonds School certainly do have talent!

Electricity

The supplies were distributed, the groups assigned, and the challenge was given: make the light bulb light up.  This week the fourth grade scientists explored simple circuits.  As a first introduction to electricity and how circuits work, the fourth graders were given some opportunity to explore with this hands-on challenge.  Some groups were able to apply some prior knowledge and complete the task fairly easily, while other groups approached the challenge with a "trial and error" mentality.  In the end, all the groups were able to make their bulb light up.  What an exciting moment when the students first complete their simple circuit.  We will continue to build on these concepts as we explore electricity in depth in the coming weeks. 

Searching

The fourth grade writers are continuing in the search for information.  This week we added to our growing notes on our research topics.  The students are becoming increasingly more independent and proficient at searching for resources, both physical and digital.  They are learning how to record the bibliographic information to give their source credit.  And, they are learning all kinds of interest facts about their topics.  Once we have finished our research and have begun compiling it, we will certainly have some very interesting and detailed research projects to share!

Respect and Kindness

This week the leadership team from the Kearsarge Regional Middle School stopped by Simonds School to lead our students in a discovery of respect and kindness.  The experience was a mixture of fun activities and serious discussions.  In the end, the third, fourth, and fifth graders at Simonds School had learned more about respect and kindness.  These lessons have a great impact on our students because they are coming from older students who are excellent models of kids who can both have fun and be respectful and kind members of a school community. 

Revolutionary

As a way of introducing our upcoming social studies unit on the American Revolution, the fourth graders welcomed a special guest to our classroom this week.  Ms. Sue Fonte, a former teacher from Simonds School came back to share some of her impressive knowledge about the American Revolution and the history of Colonial America.  Using her story-telling abilities mixed with amazing historical details, Ms. Fonte helped history come to life for our fourth graders.