The fourth grade curriculum includes test taking strategies and preparation for the New York State English Language Arts Assessment that is administered in early February in grade 4.   The Language Arts skills, strategies and competencies that are measured on this assessment have been developed throughout all grades in the elementary Language Arts program

Last week the fourth graders participated in a videoconference with COSI, a hands-on science museum located in Toledo, Ohio. Many thanks to Mr. Rich who helped the fourth grade teachers plan this educational experience. Here’s what the children had to say:

  “ On Monday, April 23rd, I had a great videoconference on simple machines. My fellow classmates and I enjoyed different experiments and learned many facts. One experiment was when we had washers, cups with cars, a steep ramp, and a long ramp. To our surprise the steep ramp was more work than the long ramp. Another activity we did was making a pulley. We used a string, a paperclip, and two pulleys. It was fun to move  the paperclip back and forth. This videoconference should be back next year because it was so much fun. I enjoyed it very much. “

"Last week I went to a videoconference. We learned about levers, inclined planes, and pulleys. I learned that there are three levels of levers. A first class lever, a second class lever, and a third class lever. An example of a first class lever is a seesaw. An example of a second class lever is a cotton ball on a spoon. An example of a third class lever is a pitcher’s arm during a baseball game. All three types of levers have a load. An example of an inclined plane is a ramp. An example of a pulley is the string on curtains.
I enjoyed the videoconference because we got to do the activities that the person was doing. One of the activities was to balance silver washers and nuts. Another activity was flying cotton balls off a spoon. Finally, we had two inclined planes – one short and steep and the other long and not so steep. You get to see how many washers it takes to pull up the car.
I think it was a good videoconference because you were being educated but also having fun. I hope I have another videoconference soon!"

"Today my class and I had a videoconference about simple machines. A simple machine is a tool to make work easier. We had materials on the desks so it was hands-on.
First the instructor explained one simple machine to us called a lever. Since the videoconference was hands-on, each table had a ruler, a pencil and washers. We took the pencil (fulcrum) and balanced the ruler (lever) on it at the six inch line. We placed two washers on one side and experimented to find out how many washers we had to put on the other side to make it tilt. We then moved the pencil and put more washers on until the ruler tilted. We learned that the closer the fulcrum is to the weight, the less washers we used to make it tilt.
Another simple machine we experimented with was an inclined plane. There were two ramps – a long and short ramp. There were model cars attached to cups and you would put washers in a cup. The point of putting washers in a cup was to see how many washers would make the car go up the ramp. It took more washers to move the car up the shorter ramp because it was steeper. Another example of an inclined plane is stairs.
Finally the instructor showed us our third and last machine which was a pulley. The pulley experiment used spools with holes in the middle where a straw was put. We looped string around the spools and pulled on the string to make a pulley. When we pulled the yarn the spool turned which made the paperclip move. Another example of a pulley is a clothesline.
In conclusion, the videoconference was a great learning experience on simple machines."