The 2022-2023 school year is off to a great start! The them this year is “LMSA, Where the Magic Happens” Disney Edition. Each grade level chose different Disney characters to decorate with for the beginning of school. In 4th grade, we chose Mrs. Schipke’s all time favorite (and Mrs. Watts close to favorite ;)), Mary Poppins! We live by Mary Poppins Motto of “In fourth grade there is a JOB to be done, but their is also an element of FUN!! We look forward to a great year!

The first week of school was great in our new building and under our new name as Laurel Magnet School of the Arts! We can’t wait to see all of the wonderful things that this year has in store for us! Check back soon to see what we’ve been up to in our 4th grade classrooms!

In ELA class students learned about the famous Mississippian, Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets. Students followed a technical text to create a Muppet of their own using a variety of materials. The students then created a skit for their Muppet using technical text. The final piece was for the students to perform their skits for the entire class. The students had a lot of fun and learned a lot as well. Check out some of our pictures below!

We are busy getting our rooms ready for the new crop of 4th graders for the 2018-2019 school year. Make sure you come by to register in the office before August 6th, and don’t forget to have school supplies first thing Monday morning. We will hit the ground running on Day 1 with lots of learning and lots of fun! You will notice some colorful changes around the school like our painted fence at the front of the building. We are really excited about all the “new” around the school including our new principal, Dr. Pendleton. It is going to be a GREAT year at Nora Davis Magnet School, and we are so excited you will be here with us! This year Nora Davis is Numero Uno!

For four weeks, fourth grade students have studied about famous artists in history.  After conducting research in books, encyclopedias, and on the internet, students wrote a biography and created a timeline of the artist’s life.  Students critiqued the artist’s’ work and made replications of some of the artist’s’ most famous paintings. Students wrote a reflection detailing why their artist is considered one of the most famous artists of all time.  Finally, students wrote a script and developed costumes to present the information they learned about the famous artist in a one of a kind living wax museum.

Come see famous artists brought to life in the 4^th grade’s presentation of a living wax museum on Wednesday, May 9, 2018 in Nora Davis Magnet School’s Gymnasium.  The museum will be open from 1:00pm to 2:00pm.  This will be a come-and-go affair.

In science, we have been studying light! A couple of the terms that we have been learning about are refraction and reflection along with how light travels. We have also been looking at artwork by the famous artist Vermeer, because he was a light expert creating beautiful painting that captured light. Later this week, we will be making an art piece inspired by O’Keeffe using our knowledge of our new terms translucent, opaque, and transparent. When learning these three new terms, we studied tempo and how each of these words would move with rhythm. We assigned opaque a slow tempo because it is blocking light, translucent a medium tempo since it is letting some light through, and the fastest tempo was represented transparent letting all light through. Student created the rhythms and preformed them for the class.

This past week students began researching famous artist’s in preparation for the upcoming annual 4th grade living wax museum. Below are some of the stations that students worked in to learn about their famous artist:

RESEARCH STATIONS:

Students spent a lot of time researching this week in two different stations. Students used informational books, encyclopedias, and internet searches to use in their research. Students did a great job reading the information and deciding which facts are important enough to include in their biography about their famous artist.

TECHNOLOGY STATIONS:

Student watched several videos at the computer station to learn all about 5 different main styles of art. It is important that the students know these styles in order to better understand which style of art their particular famous artist used and how their style is different from other styles. After the computer station, students went to the COW station (COW stands for computer on wall) where they worked with the teacher on analyzing art to determine which style was used and also relating each style of art to a style of dance. The students had to create a dance at the end to show both styles. It was a lot of fun and also very informative!

ART CRITICISM STATION:

Throughout the year students have learned a critiquing strategy known as Art Criticism to analyze any type of art whether it be visual, dance, music, etc. The strategy takes the students through four phases of analysis: describe, analyze, interpret, and evaluate. The students viewed a variety of artworks created by their famous artist and chose the one their group liked the most to critique.

The students have already completed a lot of work, but we have TONS more to do! Keep looking back for more sneak peeks at our work and join us on Wednesday, May 9, 2018 from 1-2 PM to see fifteen famous artists come to life in Nora Davis Magnet School’s Annual Fourth Grade Famous Artist Living Wax Museum!

Last week, we wrapped up our unit on Space.  We learned about all of the planets and other objects in our solar system.  In one of our centers, students were asked to choose a planet that they felt like should be explored.  They were told that they had to research the planet by watching a short video and find reasons and evidences as to why their planet should be explored.  In order to showcase what they found, they had to create a lyrical dance using facts that they learned from the video.  Below, you will see one group performing their dance for the planet Venus.

On Thursday, 4th and 5th grade students involved in the annual Musical performed three shows for students and parents. This year’s musical, We Are Monsters, featured werewolves, vampires, and humans. The theme was that of friendship and how although we may be very different we can still all be friends. Below are some pictures from the musical.

We have been learning to identify acute, right and obtuse angles. Also we have been learning to use a protractor to measure them. We have looked for angles around the room, drawn them, made them with our body, but recently we also looked for them in art prints. Students had a total of 12 prints to analyze looking for three angles and measuring one on each print. It was a great way to looking for angles in a different way!