Westen's Spooky Story

One Dark, Black Night

One dark, black night, a little boy named Andrew was walking through the woods alone. For an 8 year old, Andrew was small. His short, wavy, brown hair looked dark compared to his skin which was pale and thin like the skin of an onion. His striped shirt hung loosely from his shoulders and a pair of baggy jeans almost hid his new brown shoes. As he walked along the leaves crunched under his feet. He saw an old house with broken windows and a crooked front porch nearby, but Andrew didn’t want to go inside. Just then, a clap of lightning broke into the night. He raced for the door, even though he was scared.

When Andrew got to the door, he put his grip on the brass handle of the leopard door knocker and knocked. There was no answer. He turned the knob and the door opened with a creak. There was an eerie rattling and Andrew gasped. Suddenly, another clap of lightning forced him to go inside. Out of nowhere, bugs appeared and swarmed his face, but Andrew slapped them all off with his hands. Before he could find anything, he heard a spooky howl. Then, a rattlesnake slithered right past him. Andrew screamed and ran deeper into the house. There was another terrifying howl which left Andrew cowering in fear.

Trying to be brave, he stood up straight, put his shoulders back and swallowed the lump in his throat. He reached his hands out in the darkness and felt something mushy, wet and slimy. Andrew yanked his hands back, but the slimy thing grabbed him. His heart was pounding. Then another flash of lightning gave him enough light to see that it was a giant worm monster! Andrew struggled to get free and began punching the monster. The monster backed away from Andrew giving him the chance to escape. Andrew ran for his life and he didn’t look back.

-THE END-

Barkling ~ A Short Story

Barkling

This little brown dog is called Barkling. He loves chewing on his bone and he barks a whole lot. He likes food pellets that cats eat. Also, he loves his name because he loves barking all the time.

One day, Barkling is playing on the beach and runs right into a boat. He decides to climb aboard. Suddenly, a strong wind blows it out to sea. Then, a giant whale swallows the boat up making Barkling scared.

Barkling spied a purple fish who lived inside the whale. The fish swam out of a wooden box that the whale had swallowed. The fish hit the whale’s jaws with it’s tail which opened the whale’s mouth. Barkling quickly sailed out of the whale’s mouth before it closed. He made it just in time.

When Barkling wanted to go home, a magical bunny jumped out of the clouds and used it’s magical paws to carry the boat to shore. Once Barkling and the bunny reached the shore, the magical bunny bounced back into the clouds with Barkling on it’s back.

Barkling and the magical bunny got to the cloud top kingdom. That was the place where the bunny lived. Barkling loved the kingdom in the clouds. He wanted to stay forever. He and the bunny played and lived happily ever after.

Wes Art

First Art Class

Our Celtic Irish Tree

Hangman's Tree

The Lost Treasure of
The Golden Hangman

My name is Westen and I’m a treasure hunter. I like being a treasure hunter because it’s full of adventure. Today, I’m in search of the Golden Hangman on Hangman’s Tree. Let me tell you the story of me finding the Golden Hangman.

I began my hunt at midnight. The first place I came to was a Spooky Cave. Once I walked into the cave, a friendly bat flew right toward me with a clue. The clue said that we have to go to Rock Peak next.

Once the bat and I got to Rock Peak, the dragon who lived at the peak flew out of nowhere. All of a sudden, a giant wind blew the dragon away, leaving the second clue behind followed by a baby dragon. The baby dragon gave us the clue and it said that the next place we have to go to is the bridge, but it’s broken.

When the bat, the dragon and I got to the broken bridge, we found a poor animal underneath it. It was a leech fish. We pulled it off of the broken bridge and found a tiny clue on its bottom. It said to go to Lucky Lagoon. On the way, it started to rain.

Once we got to the lagoon, a lucky sea snake jumped out of the water and transformed into a bridge. When we got across, the sea snake coughed out a clue that said to go to the Indian Camp.

Once we got to the Indians, an Indian bird, who had the next clue, was trapped in one of the teepees because it was mean. I told the Indians that I’d train it to be nice, so they set it free. After we went away from the Indian camp, the Indian bird gave us the clue.

It said to go to Frolic Forest. When we got there, there were a lot of wicked trees we had to get through first. After we got through them, we found a male monkey and a female monkey. The male monkey had the final clue and the female monkey had the key to the treasure.

The final clue said to go to Hangman’s Tree where The Golden Hangman lies. When we all got to where the treasure was, there were six hollow squares and a key hole. I put in all the clues, along with turning the lock which unlocked a secret door on Hangman’s Tree.

When all of the animals and I were about to walk through it, I woke up from my adventure. I felt so confused. I couldn’t believe it was all a dream! I will keep thinking about finding the treasure at Hangman’s Tree for the rest of my life.

Descriptive Writing Paragraph

Fortune Teller

We were at the Renaissance Festival. We stopped by this Gypsy Fortune Teller’s House. The Fortune Teller had red robes, blue eyes, and long dark blonde hair. She was very warm hearted and I felt comfortable. I never had my fortune told before. The Fortune Teller reminded me of the one in Scooby-Doo. It felt like she was seeing into my mind. She said that I would get married and have two kids and grow up to do something important. I was listening hard. I hope my fortune will come true.

Poetry by Westen

Autobiographical

I am Westen

I like Majora's Mask

I hope I will beat it

I dislike the big task

I admire termina field

I fear not a thing

I need to get lots of items

I know about nothing

I wish I would know

I wonder where to go

Acrostic Poems

Moonlight in the sky

Often not an eye

Of the bright moon

Not sunny noon

Flowers are fluffy

Lovely and puffy

Often good plants

Without ants

Eager to grow

Rain not mow

Sunlight dance

Cinquains

Dad

Bald, caring

Plays Guitar Hero

Grateful, happy reading stories

Father

Elvis

Furry playful

Likes eating fast

Loves playing with toys

Cat

Haiku

The Blowing

The big blowing wind,

It blows things off to their side

It will never stop.

The Kangaroo

Jumps on hot deserts,

He wants to find his mommy

But he can't do it.

Westen's Book Report

Last quarter Westen's reading book was The Janitor's Boy by Andrew Cements. We began this quarter by writing a book report. I gave Wes a rubric in the form of a submarine sandwich to keep it fun, but make no mistake, this was a serious report which included setting, character descriptions, summary, climax, vocabulary words and art work. He made first drafts, went through the process of editing and then carefully wrote final drafts onto his sandwich pieces. He also presented his finished report orally which he enjoyed doing because he was very proud of his sub!

Pictures From Our Study of the Middle Ages

This is Westen's representation of the four alls: the Peasants who worked for all, the knights who fought for all, the king and queen who ruled all, and the priests who prayed for all and who were thought to be all knowing.


We also made our own Medieval Feast. The bread was a special recipe Wes worked on with his dad. It's called Rose Petal Bread. Notice the hollow our bread in the picture. That is what we used for our plates. The main course sits on a piece of flat bread or "mess". We had salt as a seasoning, but no pepper. We drank from goblets and used our fingers! If the bread looks good, Here's the recipe:

Rose Petal Bread

You will need:
1 package of active dry yeast
1.5 cups lukewarm rose water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3-4 cups flour
Cornmeal and butter
Food Dye
1 egg white

To begin, make the rose water by simmering rose petals in a small amount of water. Remove the petals.

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the rose water. Stir sugar, salt and some flour into the yeast. With clean hands, knead the dough. Add more and more flour until it won't take anymore.

Push the dough around on a floured board. When the dough becomes smooth and elastic, cover the bowl with a clean cloth and go play for an hour!

When you return, the dough will be bigger. Punch down the dough, and divide in half. (we made ours into one larger loaf) Form each half into a circle, oval, heart or long loaf. Place the loaves on separate buttered baking sheets that are sprinkled with cornmeal. (We just placed ours on a silicone baking mat on top of a cookie sheet.)

Next comes the art part. Mix a food color with a little bit of egg white to make "paint." Paint vines, leaves, flowers or any other art on the top of the loaves. (my son chose blue food coloring. We painted the whole top of the loaf and then decorated with rosemary and chives.)

Bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes at 400ºF. Delicious!

Second Quarter into Third

So I guess I took the second quarter off from blogging. That just means I have some catching up to do. So let me summarize:

Quarter 2

In Math we have continued working through the Total Math 4th grade workbook. I teach the concepts and I use Scholastic Study Jams to reinforce the lessons. You can find the link at the right under "My Favorites". We've gone from the beginning of the year which was a review of basic operations to fractions including adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators. We also compared and reduced fractions as well as working with mixed numbers. From there we ventured into decimals, graphs, ordered pairs and probability. Next we tackled measurement focusing on length, perimeter and area with both metric and English systems. We finished up with Volume.

Quarter 3
Well start this next quarter with a review of time and money. I will also be incorporating videos in this last quarter. I discovered Cerebellum and stocked up on some great videos to support our entire curriculum for the rest of the year. Once again, you'll find a link for Cerebellum on the right.

We are really almost done with fourth grade math. We probably only have about two weeks left. Afterwards, we'll review and maybe even take some practice tests, but then its on to fifth grade!

Quarter 2
In Social Studies we spent the bulk of the quarter studying the Middle Ages. We had a great time with it and I highly recommend the book we used as our travel guide called Knights and Castles by Avery Hart & Paul Mantell. It's filled with history and activities. I'll have to come back to share pictures of the Four Alls Wes made or the Feast we created. We also used kidspast.com (link on the right) for additional information. We finished up by studying Spanish explorers to the southwestern region of the United States.

Quarter 3
We will begin this quarter by studying westward expansion and the Mexican/American War. I found some great videos particularly in the social studies area at Cerebellum and I am going to have this part of our day be video driven. Of course we'll support this with conversation and other classroom resources. I don't have any projects in mind yet, but I'll think of something. Perhaps we can incorporate some of our history knowledge into our poetry section in Language Arts.

Quarter 2
In Language Arts we finished our Vocabulary book and started parts of speech and some reading success exercises. Wes read Janitor's Boy by Andrew Clements throughout the quarter taking notes each day. We continued our fluency work and in writing we covered How To and Personal Narratives.

Quarter 3
We'll start off this quarter with our first big book report on the Janitor's Boy. Wes will follow a rubric and go through the process of drafting, revision and publishing. This will be our main focus for the first couple weeks and then we'll head into poetry. As the year goes on, I'm placing more and more emphasis on reading comprehension and independent study skills.

Quarter 2
In science we studied weather and plants and animals.

Quarter 3
We are moving into magnets, circuits and electricity. I still have some planning to do for this subject, but I have a couple new resources that I think will help. I'll have to elaborate when I have more of a plan.

Well that kind of catches us up on the core subjects. We've also added a morning workout to our day and I'd like to bring piano lessons back into our routine. We continue to work our way through a study of the world's religions as part of our social studies and we start each day with a following directions warm up.

So that's a wrap for now. I'll try to post some fun pictures soon and maybe type up a couple of Wes's writing assignments for posterity.