1996-1997 Class at Hoover School

Class Statistics

There were 28 students in our class, 15 girls and 13 boys.
Fifteen students spoke another language at home.
- Seven spoke Chinese.
- Two spoke Russian.
- One spoke Czech.
- One spoke Hungarian.
- One spoke Japanese.
- One spoke Korean.
- One spoke Romanian.
- One spoke Urdu.

Monsters, Mondrian, and Me

This year long multi-media project combining descriptive writing, art, and technology was supported by Federal Challenge 2000 funds and the Palo Alto Foundation for Education. In the first section we exchanged descriptions with our partner class and attempted to re-create each other's monsters. Then we wrote evaluations of our descriptions. We repeated that process with works of modern art and self portraits. Visit our Monsters, Mondrian, and Me web pages to see our work.

Weekly Article

Teaching science: Seeing is believing is an article by Elisabeth Traugott (published in the Palo Alto Weekly on Wednesday, October 16, 1996) that includes a description of the District science program and quotes from students in Room 9.

Investigating Artifacts

In the first section of this unit we collected natural materials, sorted them using Venn Diagrams, and made masks. In the second section we listened to myths, wrote our own myths, created posters to illustrate the myths, and shared our myths around a "campfire." The final section of the unit was to excavate the "middens" and to draw inferences about the culture from the artifacts we found. Special thanks to Ms. Hessler, Mrs. Schulz, and Mr. Penumarthy for helping to assemble the middens, and to all of you who sent in items for this project.

The Space Flight Project

In the fall of 1996 we participated in a space flight project sponsored by Joan Berger, a 5th grade teacher at East Hills School in Roslyn, New York. We conducted experiments to determine the effect of weight on the flight of shuttle models. Our data was e-mailed to Mrs. Berger's class, who compiled the data from all participating classes. We also wrote a description of our class and school to share with the other participating schools.

The Tulip Project

We participated in a telecommunication project to track the progress of spring across the United States and Canada by observing the emergence of tulips. Our class was selected as one of the demonstration sites. We made predictions about when the tulips would bloom in each of the ten demonstration gardens. We planted our tulips shortly before winter break. Our tulips were the very first to bloom! Visit the Tulip Garden Web Site to read more about the project. You can even read the message we sent for the February 14th report. Room 9's tulips were also the first to emerge in the 1995-1996 Tulip Project.

Electric Fruit

We joined six other classes across the country in this electricity project sponsored by two classes in the Milwaukee French Immersion School. The observation was designed to investigate the effect of circumference, mass, and freshness on the amount of electricity produced by different fruits and vegetables for seven days. We have finished our observations and discussed our data. We now have new questions to answer! Check out our Electric Fruit Results.

Anna's Winning Story

Anna won 3rd place in the Palo Alto Weekly's 6-9 year old story writing contest. Anna's story is no longer on-line, but you can visit the Weekly Archives to read the article announcing the winners.

Electronic Media Faire

Our Monsters, Mondrian, and Me web site was one of the exhibits of exemplary student projects utilizing electronic media at the Electronic Media Faire. Out web site was also shown at the Technology in Education Conference in April in San Jose and will be part of an exhibit in Washington, DC this summer.

Room 9 Gold Rush

Despite the storm, our miners staked their claims with the help of the "California Republic Assay Office" and managed to fill their poke sacks at the Hoover Gold Fields. (Special thanks to Karen Kessler for providing the realistic "gold" nuggets!) Our miners then exchanged their gold for money at "The Gold Rush Bank," enjoyed the food and great service at "Hangtown's Cafe," and purchased collectibles at the "Golden Nugget General Store."

Visit from Dr. Phillips and Scientists from HP

Dr. Phillips (our new Superintendent), Jan Hustler (District Science Resource Teacher), and several scientists from Hewlett-Packard (working with the District to support our hands-on science program) visited our class to see the Room 9 scientists making animal observations. Our students enjoyed showing their projects to all of the adults and received many helpful suggestions on ways to refine and extend their observations. Mrs. Hustler complemented the groups on their ability to clearly describe their research question and their procedure for collecting data. We presented Dr. Phillips with a copy of WORMS A LA YUM to welcome him to the District and hope he will visit us again.

Storm Drain Project

As you walk around Barron Park you will notice that the stencils next to the storm drains have been freshly painted by students from Room 9. Our thanks to the parents who supervised this project.

Swim Party

Our swim party with Room 10 was a perfect celebration of a wonderful year! Thanks to all the parents who donated food. Special thanks to the parents who were able to join the celebration. Extra special thanks to all the students in Room 9 for helping us all have such a fun year.

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Website for Ms. Surber's Current 4th Grade Class

This page created by Lucinda Surber.

Page finished 7/27/97