Goodbye Friends

Dear Fourth Grade Families,

Fourth grade sure was easy!

It's finally here-summer! This school year sure has been one for the record books. Today, I officially give you back the same child from the fall, a few inches taller, a few months wiser, and much more mature. Although this growth would have happened anyway, it has been my pleasure to watch and be a part of their year. I am overwhelmingly proud of each and every one of them.

One last thank you to all the students for their continuous hard work this school year. You rocked it and we had so many laughs along the way! Thank you also to the parents, grandparents, and relatives for all your support and encouragement from home, as well as, all our faithful blog followers.

Enjoy your days at the beach and nights by the BBQ. Don't forget to post your summer adventures on our summer padlet or send me an email jklipfel@middletonps.org with what you are up to. I love nothing more than getting notes and postcards too! This summer, don't forget to READ, READ, READ. Need a book recommendation or want to chat about a great read, just send me a message. You know I LOVE talking books.

We have truly lived, loved, laughed, and learned together this year. I wish it could continue but each and every one of you is ready for next year. Remember, I will always be interested in your future, wherever you go, whatever you do. Your joys and sorrows, I will always be happy to share, so please make sure to keep me in the loop for many years to come. Until we meet again!

Love always,

Miss Klipfel

Comic-Con 2025

Deep in the halls of Howe-Manning, students have been showing their true superpowers. By day you know them as Howe-Manning 4th-grade students but when problems arise they turn into superheroes. Some are able to leap Howe-Manning in a single bound while others are able to stop a speeding monkey. They are all here to eliminate crime one diabolical villain at a time!

Over the last month, students have been preparing for Comic-Con. Students reviewed parts of plot and watched clips of past and present superheroes/villains to then create their very own. Check out all the published 4th grade comics here.

Dressed from head to toe students, families, and friends met to share all their SUPER work for our annual Comic-Con event. This year we added a new tradition, and students made their own wooden medallions. In collaboration with Artovation, students designed and drew their medallions, then used the Glowforge (laser cutter) to actually create them out of wood. Thanks to the MPTO for helping us fund this amazing new collaborative project. 

State House

Written by guest bloggers Shawn & Joey

The State House was so fun to visit. Let me tell you ALL about it! First, we went on a bus from Howe Manning to the State House. When we arrived at the State House we saw… The GOLDEN Dome! It was so shiny and did you know that the golden dome is made out of 23k Gold. Did you know that more than a thousand people work at the State House?

When we went into the State House we had to go through security and there were big gates in front of the State House to keep it safe. There is a nice beautiful garden in front of the State House. When we got through security we had to walk up so many stairs. Then we went under the Golden Dome and under the Golden Dome is the Senate room.

Representative Jones got us special permission to go into the House of Representatives Chambers. The House floor is where the House of Representatives works to make laws and take votes. We even got to sit in the House seat.

After that, we took a picture on the grand staircase with both representatives and Senator Tarr. Then we headed over for a picnic in the Boston Public Garden and for a ride on the swan boats.

 It was a great day in our state's capital.

Patagonia 360

Written by Guest Bloggers: Maya & Penelope

Miss Klipfel's class went on an unexpected expedition today! Miss Klipfel told us to get our passports and run to the airport…“We're going to PATAGONIA!” she announced excitedly. Well, we didn’t actually go to Patagonia but we got the next closest thing. Patagonia VR!!! 

Miss Klipfel put each kid in expedition partners each with their own VR headset. Then you got to choose a video from four different Patagonia locations. Once you finished the 360 video from one location you had to solve the puzzle that went with it.

There were super fun activities to go with each location! For the first stop, Staten Island, in the VR we saw a king penguin and then went to the Lighthouse at the End of the World. After we read a passage about Staten Island to learn about the conservation work happening there then filled in the sentences. For each word, there was a circled letter and all of the circled letters would make a word. On the second stop, Karukinka National Park, the activity was a puzzle to learn more about plastic pollution and how it's impacting Patagonia. When you finished the puzzle it gave you the next clue word.

The third stop, National Geographic Explorer, which is the ship Miss Klipfel lived on, we got to see the library, the observation deck, bridge and stood on the bow while in the Chilean fjords. After we had a Patagonia map and you would answer questions like, if you were to go from Ushuaia to the Pia Glaciers would you head North, South, West, or East? Right next to the answer was a symbol and that symbol had a letter and those would make up the next word. The fourth stop was the Bernal Glacier, the activity that went with this was a mystery picture. So you would have to answer math questions about how climate change is impacting glacial recession and adding to sea level rise. Every time you got the answer right you would get a part of the picture which gave us our final word.

We put all four clue words, explorer, curious, empathetic, and empowered into the Google Form to earn our cool Patagonia Explorer Badge. Check out the website Miss Klipfel made here with all the activities on it. 

We still can't believe how real the VR felt like we were really standing in Patagonia and even felt like the elephant seals were coming right towards us. Lots of us liked the waterfall in Karukinka National Park and being able to stand on the bridge with the captain and see how the ship navigates. We are so lucky we got to go to Patagonia with Miss Klipfel!

Fashion Disaster

Written by Guest Bloggers: Gianna & Natalie

Have you seen the new fashion trends at Howe Manning School? These glamorous and eye-catching outfits are sure to blow your mind. Below are some of our top high fashion picks. Which one is your favorite? There’s a sports player, a butterfly, and just a speechless-worthy fit! You should come swing by to see some of the most fashionable, breathtaking, bold outfits in town if we must say.

As we walked down the red carpet, fans clapped along to the music as we posed our way down the runway. At the end we turned, showing our sass, hitting all the poses. Also if you ever wanted some slay fashion inspiration, we got you! Just wear these inspirational outfits inspired by the people above.

In Ms. Klipfel’s class, Levi won the first place title. Mykela won second place rocking the butterfly outfit. And then in third place was Addison, looking like every single 4th-grade boy. Then from Ms. Week’s class, Austin won, and Natalie and Gianna tied for second

Now we will explain what this day was really for. This day was used to make opinion writing about how we liked our outfit and how we turned our everyday objects into a classic mismatched crazy outfit that would win the best dressed at fashion week. We loved making these outfits and it was very fun to dress up into everyday things all put into one.

 

It was super duper cool and fun! You should buy some of these outfits! You will surely stand out! Who knows you might see these outfits at the mall, school, supermarket, or even wedding attire. See you on the runway.

Nonfiction Surgery

Welcome to Howe-Manning Hospital! 4th-grade doctors earned their medical license (nonfiction medical license that is) and performed a day of surgeries. Upon entering Howe-Manning Hospital and Teaching Hospital, medical students took their Medical Board Exam to obtain their surgical license. Medical students needed to apply everything they have been learning about nonfiction text features in order to pass their "exam". After congratulations, handshake, and official job offer from the chief of surgery (aka Dr. Klipfel) doctors scrubbed in and dressed for surgery.

 Once surgical teams were ready it was time to meet patients, read patient charts to learn their symptoms, and determine a diagnosis. Symptoms included confusion on finding where to locate information in a nonfiction text, complaints of not knowing what sections were about in nonfiction, and even difficulty knowing what words in nonfiction texts meant. Luckily patients were in the right place and doctors were ready to help. 

Doctors determined which nonfiction text feature organ patients needed. They prepared organs with scalpels (scissors) and stitched them back up (with bandaids). They then made sure to complete their post-op reports.

Luckily every patient made it through surgery and no doctors suffered any malpractice suits.

Nonfiction Book Tasting

Chef Klipfel whet appetites for nonfiction this past week when we opened Klipfel Cafe and served up scrumptious nonfiction courses. During our book tasting, patrons were able to get a taste of their interest level for our upcoming nonfiction unit and even find some books for future reading.

Even though our ocean animal table was a little salty and mummy course a little dry, we are happy to report that our opening afternoon of Klipfel Cafe resulted in a 5-star Yelp rating.

Everything was delectable right down to the last nibble!

Poetry Cafe

Roses are red, violets are blue. Miss Klipfel's Class says, Thank you! Thank you all for attending and helping make our poetry cafe a HUGE success. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your warm smiles, feverish snaps, and uncontainable chuckles. Without our wonderful audience, our poetry cafe wouldn't have been such a success. Congratulations to all the 4th graders for taking a risk performing their poems, sharing their musical abilities, artistic skills, and hidden talents. Impressive is an understatement! We also can't thank you enough for your kind words, emails, and comments of encouragement. We hope the rest of your February is filled with chocolates, hearts, and lots of love. Make sure to check out all our published poems here & here:

Klipper Bowl VII

Are you ready for some fffooooootball? 4th graders were geared up and ready to go for the sixth annual Klipper Bowl. Teams were introduced while blasting their team chosen song, then we completed warm-up stretches, huddled up for last minute strategies, and then stood for the national anthem. Next up was our coin toss for kickoff return placement. Lucky teams who guessed the coin toss correctly had a 20-yard kickoff return while others started on the 10-yard line. Using perseverance and grit, teams quickly caught up.

Teams then ran "plays" from their playbook to gain yardage on the field. "Plays" included using different forms of texts (articles, media, poems, etc.) and completing activities. Players learned about who invented football and completed a comprehension activity worth 50 yards. Teams read a Wonderoplois article explaining what makes the Super Bowl so super and then completed a Google form for 30 yards. Teams could choose to run a play and apply all their figurative language knowledge to create football similes, metaphors, alliterations, personifications, and onomatopoeias.

The plays worth the most yards involved correctly placing team logos for all the Southeast region teams (yes, we have been learning all about the Southeast in Social Studies). Other plays included reading a passage about Tom Brady, learning about the history of the Super Bowl, placing fraction footballs on the correct place on the field, and reading a football poem to determine the mood and purpose all for different amounts of yards.

Once teams correctly completed a play, they brought it to Referee Klipfel for the final check and to advance on the field. After gaining enough yardage to make it down the field, teams scored a touchdown! Complete with touchdown dances! Teams then got to throw for point conversions. Team cooperation and good sportsmanship earned extra yards or kicks for points at ANY time throughout the game. "Good job", "keep working hard", and other forms of encouragement were heard around the field all day. No yellow flags needed to be thrown.

Referee Klipfel and teams had one SUPER day! Klipper Bowl VII is complete so now onto baseball season.

Greek Myths

Written by guest blogger: Makenna & Addison G.

Just like Hercules, we had to complete 12 labors. Working in Greek Myth teams our first labor was to make a sail together based on what Greek God or Goddess would guide us. We figured out which god we got in the god quiz and then learned so much about them. We even learned the Greek Goddess Athena has a city named after her! Artemis’s symbol is a bow and arrow and Athena’s is owls and snakes. We took and drew these symbols about our god on our sails. Check some of them out below.

 

After that, we did labors 2-11. We had to read different versions of myths and answer questions about them or solve puzzles. We learned about the Greek gods along the way and the themes you find in myths! I loved labor number 6. It was the one about Persephone and Hades. Deciding whether it was a nature myth or a lesson myth was no Herculean Task! It was a nature myth because it talks about Persephone eating 4 pomegranate seeds in the underworld. (That's supposed to be why there are four months of winter.) We learned about so many other myths too like King Midas, the Trojan Horse, and Pandora’s box. Myths are so much fun to read and talk about.


Every myth that we learned about had some type of cool character. Like Zeus is the king of the gods! Hades is the god of the underworld and Poseidon is the god of the water. They are all brothers. But not every myth has a good guy. In some myths there are monsters! They stop everyone from doing stuff which is why some myths are lessons. Some monsters we learned about were Sirens, Scylla, and Cybous. Some are beasts, like Cerberus

On the 12th labor, we had a project choice board to pick from and it had a bunch of project options. My group and I chose the Wanted poster about Medusa. We said she was wanted because she stole The Statue Of Liberty. Another group made a WANTED poster for Hades, while others made Newspapers and one group even made a Kahoot to test our Myth knowledge. Myths were really fun to learn about, and we both had a lot of fun writing this blog post!