• Quotes to Consider

  "And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." -Roald Dahl ----------------------------------------------------- "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." -John Wesley

• Recent Comments

  • Tonya Upton on Science Fair Projects
  • L. Lloyd on Congratulations, Cassidy and Eli!
  • Joan He on China!
  • Ted Kinsler on Clarity Spelling Bee
  • Mrs. Burns on It’s a Girl!!!

• Pages

  • A Moment with Mrs. Self
  • CK/SC Standards
  • Class Policies
    • Absence and Tardy Policy
    • Behavior Management
    • Class Schedule
    • Field Trip Information
    • Homework Policies and Procedures
    • Honor Code
  • Famous 4th Graders
  • Newsletters
    • The Self Sentinel
  • Reflections
  • Student Page
    • Study Guides

•  

  August 2010

  M	T	W	T	F	S	S
  « Jun
  						1
  2	3	4	5	6	7	8
  9	10	11	12	13	14	15
  16	17	18	19	20	21	22
  23	24	25	26	27	28	29
  30	31

• Blogroll

  • Mrs. Burns’ Third Grade Website
  • Mrs. Latham’s Second Grade Website
  • Mrs. Martini’s First Grade Website
  • Mrs. Ross’ Kindergarten Website
  • Ms. Doyle’s Kindergarten Website
  • Ms. Shoff’s Fifth Grade Website
  • Palmetto Prep Home Website

• Educational Links

  • All About the Heart
  • Anatomy Arcade: The Circulatory System
  • Castle Information
  • Circulatory System Game
  • Early British Kings for Kids
  • How Your Heart Works
  • Kids’ Biology
  • Kids’ Guide to the Circulatory System
  • Kids’ Health
  • My Body: Heart and Blood
  • The Circulatory System
  • The Heart: Animation with Explanation

• Recent Posts

  • Goodbye, Sweet Friends….
  • We Love Our Moms!
  • Science Fair Projects
  • Congratulations, Cassidy and Eli!
  • Destination America
• Search for:

Someone once said that a picture was worth a thousand words. That person didn’t know me. When I look at this picture, millions of memories, small moments in time, pass through my mind. And I look upon the faces of the students with pride, joy, and excitement.

While our school will continue no longer, please remember that we are a family.  Family bonds are never broken.  As I have said many times to you all, I look upon you as my own children.  I pray for you that you will have all the best life has to offer. I hope that you will, one day, remember “Ole Mrs. Self,” and say to yourself a nice memory or funny story from our times together.

I hope that you will remember me, because I will remember you. Each student who enters my room leaves a mark on my heart. A mark that could never be removed by anything (time, distance, life changes).

We’ve had our good days, we’ve had our bad. But at the end of the day, we’ve had a magical experience.

Don’t cry because it’s over….smile because it happened.

I love you,

Mrs. Self

dorothyfself@gmail.com

30 Club Forest Lane

Greenville, SC 29605

Friday was a very special day for us. We were able to shower our mothers with love and presents! Muffins for Mom was a wonderful way to celebrate Mother’s Day.

             

Students in fourth and fifth grades participated in a science fair yesterday. They were able to design their own topics and research experiments. We were all very impressed with the caliber of work they completed! I think we have some future scientists on our hands! Kendall’s project involved seeing whether or not her dog would pick healthy or unhealthy snacks, Eli’s project involved researching whether or not ice melted more quickly in soda or water, Stephanie’s project involved which juice cleaned pennies better, Gray’s involved whether or not sense of sight and smell affected your ability to decipher flavors of skittles, Jo’Nae’s involved whether or not soap would affect a skewer going through a balloon, and Darby’s involved which brand of diaper was the most cost effective AND most absorbent. Great job!

                     

Two of Mrs. Self’s fourth graders were recently selected for the A.R.M.E.S program at the Fine Arts Center. A.R.M.E.S stands for Arts Reaching Middle and Elementary Schools. Mrs. Self nominated Cassidy for the dance program and Eli for the music program.  Cassidy arrived at school with a huge smile on her face as she proudly displayed her audition letter. Eli was also immensely proud of his audition as well.

We are all so very proud of you for your accomplishments! Great job, guys!

 

Last Thursday, students from Palmetto Prep participated in a performance entitled “Destination America.” They showed off their dancing and singing skills as they impressed friends and family.

       

Today, Darby showed us his new fiddle.  It was very cool. Thanks for sharing, Darbs! We can’t wait for you to learn how to play.

         

This past weekend, Kendall visited Mrs. Self’s hometown.  Mrs. Self grew up in Jacksonville, and loves everything about the city. Anyway, Kendall visited Mrs. Self’s middle and high school, went to her favorite stores, and even bought her chocolate covered popcorn from Peterbrooke (Mrs. Self’s favorite chocolate bakery)! What a thoughtful gift. To top it all off, Kendall visited Orsay, a special restaurant owned by one of Mrs. Self’s high school friends who has become a famous chef!

       

Last week to supplement and extend our lesson on percents, students looked through non-fiction texts.  During this process, they picked a particular page that had both texts and pictures / photographs. They were charged with calculating what percentage of the page was taken up by photos, and to analyze whether or not that contributed positively or negatively to the point of the article. We had a great time using our lesson on percents in a real-life setting!

 

Yesterday, Mrs. Amy and Mr. Clint were pleased to announce that Palmetto Prep would be adding a new Chinese foreign language program to our curriculum.  Students and families will have the option of enrolling in either Spanish or Chinese for the school year! Mrs. Self has been working with the Confucius Institute at Presbyterian College to help secure this prestigious grant and honor. Because of our Core Knowledge unit on China, she had developed a keen interest in bringing Chinese to our school. 

At our formal announcement, Palmetto Prep hosted a famous Chinese calligrapher and artist.  He is a professor at the University of Peking, and his work is revered throughout China. He holds many distinctions, in fact if we were to list them all we would run out of room! He discussed the history of Chinese characters, and demonstrated how to write them as well.

Thank you to the approximately one-hundred people who supported us yesterday!

                   

I wanted to showcase one of our student’s graphing projects.  Each student was responsible for creating his/her own graphing question (three different questions, to be exact), identifying a survey population, comparing sub-groups within their survey-population, and creating three different graphs to represent their findings.

     

Here are pictures from last week’s NFF. The kids are always so excited about investigating non-fiction texts….and trying their own hands at writing in the NFF format. It’s cool to see what interesting facts they learn each week.

   

The other week, fourth and fifth graders were able to visit Roper Mountain Science Center. We learned about the circulatory and respiratory systems….and were able to construct models of our lungs! It was awesome. We even got to touch the lungs of a pig, which was disgusting (but the kids thought it was great!).

               

Students have been working on creating maps that outline the events leading up to the Revolutionary War.  Instead of making timelines, students are encouraged to make maps, with different events being “exits” off of the roads. It has been neat to see how different each map is, and how it reflects the students’ personalities.

         

Today we had a lot of fun working with frequently confused homophones. After we identified the correct meanings and contexts in which these words should be used, we then use the words to create a game of “Memory”. Students practiced flipping the cards over and matching them to their homophone partners.

   

Fourth grade students have been working tirelessly to find out the answers to three questions. They were challenged to design their own questions, come up with a survey population, identify a comparison group, and create three types of graphs. I was very impressed with the high caliber of work they presented! Excellent job!

     

Last night, Mr. Clint and I went to see Cassidy at the Bi-Lo Invention Convention awards ceremony. We were so proud of her! She won a special “Young Einstein” award especially from us and some flowers, too! We were VERY proud of all her hard work and dedication. She is a very, very special inventor!

     

Today in WW, we discussed three important elements in writing: choice, voice, and description. We reviewed what we have learned about each, and how each affects how people interpret what we write. I will post student samples soon!

         

Today our students experimented with a Declaration of Independence puzzle. They sorted the words, and learned where to place them appropriately. It was very fun!

 

I am pleased to announce that our first reading spider webs have been hung from the ceiling in our room! Once they are all complete, we will share with each other how we have been able to personally connect with what we read. We will also analyze how our schema affects our interpretation of events, and how we emotionally empathize with the characters. Great job everybody! The webs look awesome!

Cassidy entered the Bi-Lo Invention Convention this year.  She designed a portable student desk. What a great idea! We are so proud of her hard work and ingenuity. We love you, Cassidy!

   

Good readers are like…..spiders?!

Ew! Gross!

But really, they are! Just as spiders spin their webs, connecting each thread to another…good readers connect the threads in their minds when they read. They take what they are reading, and weave a web with what they have stored in their schema. This week, we have begun spinning our reading webs, and notating on our webs what is connecting to our schema.

     

Every Friday, first graders pair up with fourth and fifth grade students for reading buddy time. The “big buddies” enjoy modeling fluency and comprehension strategies for the “small buddies,” and the “small buddies” enjoy showing off their developing reading skills. It makes for a very enjoyable time!

 

One of our friends makes us laugh all the time. His name is Darby. We always find ourselves saying, “Oh, Darby!” Well, today as we were completing our morning work, I look up and see the following:

 

…anyway, we thank Darby for all of the joy he brings into our classroom! Sometimes people just need to laugh!

Our super sleuth readers have been working on some amazing reading-skeletons! Each student was challenged to fin the “Just Right” mystery book…then they read their books and used what we have learned about plot, characters, setting, and many other things to create a fun display! Sorry the picture is a little bit dark. The flash would not work on my camera! But below you’ll see Kendall’s Mystery Skeleton. She did a fabulous job with details! I am so proud of her and all of the students!

Today we tried our hand at re-creating blue and white Chinese art.  It was so awesome! We practiced painting rainbow bridges, pagodas, dragons, and other Chinese symbols. We will be pairing up with Mrs. Ross’ kindergarten this week to finish our Ming Dynasty vases. Stay tuned!

One of our reading lessons involved something really unusual: shoes. Mrs. Self compared her boot to Gray’s sneaker. She then asked the class to take notes on how the shoes were similar and different. Everyone came up with different (and interesting!) responses!

We learned that readers’ schemas are a lot like the shoes we wear. We wear different shoes in different situations.  The shoes we wear “experience” different elements of our lives.  Readers’ schemas are all different from each other. One person’s schema is very different from another person’s schema. That doesn’t mean that one person is smarter or better than another….it just means they are different.

Different readers bring different schemas to what they read. This, in turn, helps them to connect with what they read.

We then compared and contrasted ourselves with other students in the classroom. We made Venn Diagrams where we explored how we are alike, and how we are different. We also explored how our schemas are different from each other….and how that affects how we interpret what we read.

 

For our unit of study on China, we paired up with Mrs. Ross’ kindergarten class one day. We taught the little kids that the Chinese invented porcelain, and while we aren’t able to make porcelain at school (that would be a little bit dangerous!)….we mimicked the look by using paper mache. Once our vases dry, we will research Ming Dynasty designs and try to re-create what we find. We have enjoyed seeing the blue and white porcelain, and trying our hand at making something just as beautiful!

              

The past two days have had the fourth grade students beginning their new Core Knowledge unit: Chinese Dynasties and Chinese Culture. It is a fascinating unit of study! We began by brainstorming what we already (thought) we knew about China, and watching a very cool movie that introduced us to the idea of Chinese culture.

Today, we began our webquest about Ancient China. Students were broken down into small groups, and within the groups each member had to pick from a list of five Chinese dynasties. Some groups are smaller than others, so they had to really think about where they placed their “man-power.” Most groups decided that people who had to research two dynasties would study the shorter dynasties to balance the work load. Others decided to use their knowledge of how quickly certain members can work (and those who have computers at home) to determine who took on the extra material.

After our webquest, we began looking into the geography of China. Its climate is very diverse, much like our own country. There are many similarities and many differences.

Finally, we began our Chinese picture books. Students were given different Chinese calligraphic characters and charged with the task of creating a picture book. Many of them want to make several books….so be on the lookout!

Chinese Picture Book Samples 1-28-2010

After about 2.5 months of excuses, Mrs. Self finally paid up. She got us pizza for lunch. She owed us pizza because last fall we had a vocabulary challenge. We all mastered our vocabulary words!!!! So, she ordered three pizzas….and yes, they were delicious!

 

 

 

 

Today in reading, Mrs. Self started off by being her usual crazy self. (No pun intended! Haha! Self, self!). Anyway, she started off by having us watch her and take notes / observe as she randomly started throwing an inflated globe around the room. She then asked us to share with her what we thought she was doing. Most of us said things like, “You were randomly throwing an inflated globe around the room.”

She then asked if it seemed as if she had a particular target. We all agreed that she seemed to not have a target.

She then told us a story about how she was (and, presumably, still is…) the worst basketball player….ever. She talked about how if she wanted to become a better basketball player, she needed to have a target (or goal).

Just as with sports, in reading we need targets. A soccer player needs a soccer goal to hit the ball into, a basketball player needs a basket to “swish” the ball into….and a reader needs a goal to guide his/her reading. All of our goals are different. Some of us have goals of being more fluent readers. Others of us have goals of reading different genres of books. Still others of us have more specific goals (such as to read a longer book, or a religious book, etc.). The goals we have will constantly change as we become better and better readers. However - the fact remains - we need targets as readers. Otherwise, we just wander around aimlessly in our “readerly life.”

Read the notes the kids took today:

Having a Reading Target 1-27-2010