This week, on the heels of Marin Luther King Jr. Holiday, the students learned all about some really amazing African Americans who paved the way for the generations after them when it comes to slavery, equal rights, sports, inventions, and much more. In the Book Brain Center, students read a variety of books and researched the contributions that many famous African Americans made to society including famous inventors, explorers, scientists, and Freedom Fighters.

In the Hall Center, students rotated around to twelve posters that highlighted the accomplishments of many famous African Americans such as Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and many more.

In the COW Center (Computer on Wall), the students learned about the Harlem Renaissance and in particular an artist named William H. Johnson who was a big part of this movement. The student analyzed several of his paintings and then replicated his style in a painting that highlighted the importance of one of the famous African Americans the students learned about this week.

This week, students were introduced to idioms, proverbs, and adages.  We discussed that idioms have literal and figurative (funny) meanings. Students seemed “puzzled” over the meaning of some of the idioms, so we created our own idiom puzzles.

Students cut a piece of construction paper in half to create two puzzle pieces.  On one half, students drew a literal meaning.  On the other, students drew the figurative meaning.

Some of the idioms chosen were: 

Put a sock in it

Face the music

Holy Cow

It’s raining cats and dogs

Cat’s got your tongue

Ordering Adjectives: Do You Know How? It’s not always easy, but our fourth graders have learned how this week. The students learned that if you have more than one adjective describing a noun, the adjectives have to go in a particular order. The students learned a song to the tune of Frosty the Snowman to help them remember this order.

Adjectives describe nouns

And they have an order too,

So that our sentences

Make sense to all of you.

Number, opinion,

Size, age, and shape

Color, proper, material

And purpose – makes order great!

On Friday, the students related the ordering of the colors spectrum from art to the ordering of adjectives. The students painted a background to show the color spectrum and that it always is found in that particular order. The students then ordered a variety of adjectives that described a particular noun in order using their ordering adjectives song. The students glued the words in order on top of each color.

Last Friday, Nora Davis held our annual Cultural Arts Festival.  This year, students traveled to Ancient Egypt and got to experience many different aspects of their culture.  We tasted food from this culture, painted scarab beetles, held chariot races, visited the pyramids and the tomb of King Tut, wrote our names in hieroglyphics, studied the Nile River, and participated in many other activities.  Fun was had by all!  Thanks to all the teachers and volunteers who made this a great day!

Dance Infusion is one of our favorite things in fourth grade. Mrs. Eubanks, the dance teacher, comes in to teach a lesson using dance based on what we are learning in class. We’ll tell you, it’s sooo much better than doing a worksheet.

This week we were learning about the traditional method for figuring out long division. The students learned a song to help them remember the steps to this process. The song was sung to the tune “It’s a Small World,” and was actually a Music Infusion lesson from last year. Here are the lyrics – see if you can get the tune:

Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down

Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down

Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down

Di-vide, Multi-ply, Sub-tract, Bring Down

Mrs. Eubanks then created a dance to go with our song to put movements with the process to aid in remembering those steps. After learning both the song and the dance, students then solved long division problems using the traditional method. The students had to determine how many times they had to go through the process of divide, multiply, subtract, bring down. The students then performed the song and dance for the class to illustrate the number of times they went through this process. The class watched to figure out the number for themselves. Here are pictures of our movements below:

DIVIDE

MULTIPLY 

SUBTRACT

BRING DOWN

On Friday, October 28, New Stage Theater came to Nora Davis and performed “Oh Freedom!  The Story of the Underground Railroad”.  Famous participants like Harriet Tubman and Harriet Beecher Stowe were represented as well as lesser known heroes of the movement.  The performance gave our students insight into the time period of the Underground Railroad and what life was like by combining events and songs of the period.  The story inspired all students to work together for the advancement of all, no matter what their backgrounds are.  After the performance, students were able to ask questions to the cast members and director.

Every year fourth grade students all over the pine belt region are invited to attend the annual Choctaw Days at Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel. The students learn all about the Choctaw culture through a variety of stations put on by volunteers at the museum as well as Native Choctaws from a local reservation.

This is a list of stations the students attended to learn about the Choctaw culture:

• Dance – The students viewed the Native Choctaws in traditional clothing performing traditional Choctaw dances.
• Food – The students ate Fry bread, a traditional bread eaten by the Choctaws.
• Baskets – The students viewed a demonstration of basket weaving as well as toured the extensive Native American basket collection located at the museum.
• Bead Necklaces – The students created a beaded necklace to simulate the traditional necklaces worn by the Choctaw.
• Language – The students learned some common words and phrases in the Choctaw language.
• Basket Drawing – The students viewed a variety of baskets made by Native Americans up close and learned how artists use different techniques to draw still life pictures of the baskets.
• Basket Weaving – The students used paper strips to weave in and out to simulate basket weaving.

Nora Davis Magnet School held our annual Arts and Literacy Night on October 4, 2016.  Parents were invited to come learn more about how the arts are integrated into daily literature lessons.  To begin the night, parents, students, and teachers assembled in the auditorium.  Three grade levels were chosen to perform, and a select group of our fourth graders presented their muppet shows from our Jim Henson unit.

Below, students performed their Muppet show.

The first show was about a brother and sister, Sasha and Cool Man.  Cool Man pranked the Sasha by replacing her soap with shaving cream.  After finding out about this, Sasha took away all of Cool Man’s electronics until their mom returned from work.

The second show told the story of a prince and a king.  The king told the prince that he would never find a wife.  The prince, determined to prove him wrong, searched the entire land and finally found a wife that was loyal, confident, smart, pretty, and rich.

After the performances, parents were invited into the classrooms where they were taught a lesson that had been taught to the students earlier during the day.  The lesson integrated text structures and music.  The students/parents sang children’s songs, and picked which text structure was found in the lyrics.  This integrated the Principles of Music: unity and variety.  The students sang the songs in unison before picking the text structure from the variety of songs chosen.  Everyone had a great time!

Last week, we completed a unit on plants.  Students read the book Plantzilla by Jerdine Nolen.  This book was about a student, Mortimer, who took home the class plant, Plantzilla, over the summer.  While taking care of Plantzilla, Mortimer documented Plantzilla’s daily activities and wrote letters to his teacher to inform him of the progress made.  As the summer went on, Plantzilla began to grow and do things that plants should not be able to do.  These things included hiding Mortimer’s pet Chihuahua in it’s leaves and eating food such as hotdogs.  After students learned about Plantzilla, they were able to create their own during an arts integration lesson.  Students made each part of their plant and later explained to their teacher where each part of the plant was placed.