April is poetry month so for writing we have been a lot of our own poetry. On Friday we read about different kinds of poetry on our Palms. Then for our assignment we had to choose out of those kinds of poetry which two we wanted to do.
Brandon said, "I like this assignment the best this month because we got to choose." I like it the best to because we got to choose what kind of poetry best fit our abilities.”
All in all we had a fun assignment because we chose what type of poetry best fit us and because is fun to write poems during poetry month.

Konnichiwa! That means hello in Japan. Today the 2nd graders took us on a worldwide journey through songs and information! They sang ten songs about ten different countries, some even in different language. In between the songs they each came up one by one and told us some facts about the different countries, places there, and the language.
Surprisingly the 2nd graders wrote and researched their own parts.
I thought that was a great idea to have them make their own scripts! I also liked that you learned and could enjoy the songs.
Some languages they sang were Irish, Indian, African, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Brazilian, Mexican, and of course English. For the last song they sang America The Beautiful and we got to join in!
Ms. Carlsen and the 2nd graders worked very hard on this production and I think they had terrific performance! I also think that the 2nd graders were very brave to go in front of the whole school and say their part.
Thank you to Ms.Carlsen and all the 2nd graders for an eye opening, worldly performance! Great job!

The U.F.O.s have landed in Ms. Sanborn's room at Willowdale Elementary! How do I know, you can look around the classroom and see tons of colorful creatures-Aliens! There are aliens everywhere because today in art class, we sketched and began to create our own version of creative Extra Terrestrials.
To begin with everybody raised their hands and gave ideas on what the aliens we’ve seen before have looked like. Afterward we listed ideas of what we were going to include to our own. We listed things like what ours would look like, act like, move like, and live like. To move, your alien might have feathers, feet, or tentacles. Next is the look of the aliens: fat, strong, pink, blue, green, polka dot or stripped.
Thirdly we sketched our ideas and showed them to Ms. S. After they were “okayed,” we got poster board and started on our final copy.
There were many different kinds of aliens.
Nikki said her alien has five arms, three eyes and an oval shaped head that will be on the side of the green body. Chloe's alien, on the other hand has six arms, a yellow triangular head with a green body. Wow! These sound like some freaky aliens to me. I hope I never meet one!
To wrap up, Ms. S's art was out of this world!

Today, on April 24, the Super Students had a fantastic day! First we all had math, and then we went to music class. Ms. Carlsen, our teacher, had us working with these incredible recorders. It was lots of fun playing Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, and lots of other songs from around the world, like a song about the Yangtze River, which is in some continent, half way around the world.
Then when we came back, had super reading, which was boat loads of fun because we did lots of things like reading about the Mayflower. Did you know that the Mayflower took sail for America in 1620, or that the “poophouse” was what they called where shipmaster lived on the ship?
This was all fascinating, and so was the rest of our day.
All of the Super Students had lots of fun and I know that I did too. (I am one of them!) This was a great day and all of the farewell forms were due today so that we could go to the fifth grade farewell party, which should be a lot of fun! I hope to see everyone there!

Ally #25
Today, A was Cheese Pizza, B was a Taco Hot Pocket, and C was an American Wrap, but not for our class!!!
No, our delectable meal was pizza, but a different pizza than choice A here! We even got to eat anywhere in our classroom! How's that for a lunch? To top it off, Brandon's mom made brownies that everyone loved. This was probably the best lunch we've had at school so far!
I, Ally, was the first to get food, and as soon as I got my pizza I scarfed the spectacular pizza half down before I even went to where I'd spend the rest of my meal! The class agrees when I say that this pizza was delicious.
Last Friday, Ms. Sanborn informed us that this was a special order because we had leftover class party money and it tasted amazing. Now that we've had a taste for ourselves, we agree completely!
From all around the room I heard people saying how scrumptious the pizza was. Jenny agrees when she says: "Now this is lunch!" Later, Jenny said that she thought it was so great that she had a stomachache from trying to finish all of hers. Also, Kerrie had three slices! She must have liked it.
The fun wasn't over yet, though. After normal recess, Ms. S. said she owed us five minutes of recess so our class got to stay out! To me, it felt like more than five minutes. Thanks Ms. Sanborn! (it was actually 15 minutes because it was sooo nice out!) But finally, lunch and recess were over, no matter how much everyone didn't want them to be.
Summing it up, this was a fantastic lunch only to be added to in excitement by extra recess. We're all full now, so I guess the pizza did its job.

Today seemed like a regular Friday except it was not. It wasn’t just an average ordinary Friday because it was also the day 5th graders at Willowdale celebrated Law Day. (actually May 1st)
We celebrated by having a lawyer named Mr. Law come and talk about what kinds of lawyers there were, what the do, and how much they make. He also brought his daughter, Alex who was in Ms. Everts’ class years before because she’s a senior at Millard West now.
To help us learn they did a skit of Goldie E. Locks and the Three Bears. In the skit Goldie E. Locks was accused of bad manners, breaking entering, and more. All of the fifth grade teachers and four kids from Miss Everts’ class were in it too.
Both sides, the Bears and Gold E. got to tell their sides and we got to decide and vote on what we thought the verdict should be. In the end Goldie E. Locks was found guilty. Not all of us voted that way though. (Hung jury)
That part of the day was great! I loved it a lot because I have always wanted to be a lawyer!

Today in Science we started a new Unit, Space and Technology. It seems like forever since we had Science!
Anyway we read pages 518-523. After we read those pages we had to do seven or more notes on what we thought was important in the pages we read. Before we did that we did five I wonders and five I think I know about Space or Technology.
We did not do very exciting things today because the counselor was coming in, but in my opinion science was most fun. (Well I really thought going home was most fun, but Science was most fun in school.)

Today in art we looked at and began our landscapes.
First Ms.S called the back row down to the floor to see better because some landscape paintings were hung on the chalkboard.

The first activity we did was we pointed out individual paintings and described how it made us feel. Brandon pointed out a painting of the Grand Canal in Venice. “It makes me feel rushed and busy,” he said. Many people made many comments about the eight pictures hung in front. Everyone seemed to like the one of the mountains and waterfall the best.

The second thing we did was list settings or places that would be in a landscape. We also wrote things that you find in those places like trees, animals, lakes, bushes and more. Next Ms. Sanborn showed us a couple painting of landscapes she had done, boy were they good!
Afterward, we went back to our seats and got scratch paper to begin our rough sketchs of ideas. Some of us got on the computer to see what to draw. Sabien decided to draw Stonehenge. I figured out finding ruins were not easy. Andria finished her sketch quickly and was able to begin her final draft.
Now that’s what happened in art today! I bet you can’t wait to see the finished pictures later on on our web site.

Today at 2pm everyone came down to the gym to hear marvelous music and sensational songs! At the concert band, orchestra played and the choir sang!
To start us off we had the band play and boy were they great! My favorite was The Nebraska Fight Song. During that time Ms. Sanborn came in and played with the band. For the song they had a special director who turned out to be Mrs. Haver, then Mrs. Jernstrom stepped into help her!
Next we had the beautiful sounds of orchestra directed by Mrs. Roland. They had 4th and 5th graders playing. One of my favorite songs was the Can-Can that the fourth graders played. The fifth graders had sensational songs too. The two grades also played together.
Last, but not least the choir sang and Mrs. Carlson directed. Carly introduced the choir to everyone. Then Joey introduced our first song, which was “Triple Play.” We also did “Good Night,”” The Water is Wide,” and “The Grand Old Flag.”
You can plainly see that all three of the groups were outstanding. I hope you enjoyed my report on this magnificent concert!

“GO ROYALS!” everyone screamed. Today, the 5th grade students from Willowdale that had participated in Safety Patrol this year went to an Omaha Royals' game. Everyone was longing to get and “have” a ball!
Throughout the whole game everyone kept yelling to the players who walked past, "Oh, oooh, can I have a ball?" Some of the people around us and the players got annoyed by people yelling that. The people who got annoyed said stop they won’t give it to you.
In between innings they tossed out water bottles and baseballs.
The Royals’ dugout was on the opposite side of the field, but we could see in their dugout. The team playing the Royals had their dugout right in front/under us. They actually warmed up right in front of us. We had amazing seats. Our seats were right along the first base line.
Before the game started we saw some of the players stretching. One of the guys almost did the splits. Another guy could almost take his leg and put it right to his eyes. Now that’s flexible!
We watched a good game of pitching and hitting through all nine innings, but at the end of the game the Royals ended up winning 9 to 5 against the Albuquerque Isotopes.
To sum it up our day, Safety Patrol went to a Royals baseball game at Rosenblatt, the Royals won, we had PERFECT weather, and some people left with treasures like balls, shirts and water bottles. Everyone was EXCITED, mostly because we got to skip school!!!!!!

Guess what my class did in writing today. If you guessed researching and writing our Podcast sheets then you were right.
Today our teacher, Ms. Sanborn, announced that we were going to do a Podcast on the Revolutionary War. First Ms. S put us into groups where we each had to chose what Podcast sheet (which means which segment of the cast we wanted to try out for) we are going to do. I chose Poetry Corner. After we chose what sheets we were going to do, we got right to work. We either had to write what we were going to say, research, or both.
So as you can see, choosing our Podcast sheet and getting right to work is what my class and I did during writing time today.

Boy am I tired of those bubble sheets. Filling out ovals was hard work.
Thursday we took a Reading exam (ELO test) in the morning when our brains were alert. It took about an hour and a half to complete 50 questions. It wasn't too hard, but it wasn't easy either. Some students finished before others. This reading test was important. If you didn't get 25 or more questions right, you would probably need to take summer school. They had things to answer after you read a passage, we also had vocabulary questions, prefix questions, summaries and more.
Let's hope that we all passed with flying colors.

Today when I got to school I heard that there were going to be students from Russell Middle School coming to Willowdale. I was excited, but I was really excited to hear that we were going to miss math.
At 9 o’clock we went to the hall where we saw one of the principals, counselors, and about 12 students. The principal from Russell Middle School talked to us about the school and the clubs you could join, which all sound really fun.
One of the counselors showed us a video that he made about the kids during school time. There were many pictures from the clubs and other stuff.
After the video we all went back to the classrooms where three girls came to our classroom and talked to us more. It was kind of fun because we got to ask them questions and of course they would answer them. One of the questions I asked was about lunch and it sounds sooo DELICIOUS! It was fun to hear about the clubs because at Willowdale we don’t get to do drama or dance which sounds awesome!
They stayed for a while but then they had to go which was sad because I wanted to learn more about Russell Middle School.
I can’t wait until Middle School!