Fourth+Grade

====Welcome to the Fourth Grade page of the Hawthorn Library Media Center wiki. You can visit this page to learn more about the lessons and activities Fourth Graders are enjoying in the LMC as they learn how to: locate and evaluate resources, use all aspects of the research process, become good digital citizens, select books for enjoyment, and take part in an award book program.====

Learning About a Newspaper
====Students have been learning more about the Kansas City Star newspaper. The Kansas City Star has a program (Star in Education) that provides schools with free access to the Kansas City Star digitally. Students are learning how to navigate the site, which links to KansasCity.com website to provide students a great nonfiction resource. In this mini-unit students were allowed to explore the newspaper in the the introductory lesson. The second lesson required students to demonstrate their ability to navigate the newspaper to locate specific information to complete a short scavenger hunt. Students will soon participate in a critical thinking activity about recent events in the news.====

Website Evaluation
====The Internet allows us to access almost anything with the click of a button or two from almost anywhere in the world. All this convenience and easy access is great, but how reliable is the information that you find? Fourth graders are learning "just because it's out there, doesn't mean it's good" Students learned that Credible Sources Count! After participating in this tutorial, fourth graders examed a couple of websites to determine their credibility: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octupus and Rivers, Edens and Empires: Lewis & Clark Students will continue learning more to help them determine whether a website has value to them based on credibility, reliability, accuracy, and purpose. Students also examined several websites, 25 Worlds Weirdest Animals and The Most Extreme Animals. Using a Web Evaluation Checklist students were able to fully evaluate the website to determine whether it would be a good website to do research.====

Tips & Tricks of Google Search
====Google is a great tool IF you know how to use it effectively. Fourth graders practiced a few "Tips & Tricks" provided by Google to help them learn just how to become better searchers. Google offers these tips: 1) Start simple, 2) Less is more, 3) Don't worry about punctuation, 4) Ignore spelling, 5) Use web friendly words, 6) Search with an exact phrase, 7) Use descriptive words, 8) Don't worry about cases, and 9) Include or ignore words and characters in your search. Try your hand at these tips.====

Learning to Blog
====Fourth graders are learning to blog on a website called kidblog. Kidblog was selected because of the many safety features it offers. Each class has their own blog and it is not open to others outside of the members of the class, their teacher, and Ms. Hansen. Additionally, settings can be adjusted so that posts and comments must be approved by the teacher before being published. This platform is designed to help students become better communicators and good digital citizens, while learning how to use digital tools of their future in a safe online environment.====

====Check out the Blogging Tips for Kids located on the Blogging link on this wiki. We will be blogging about assignments, books, research, and current events. Students have learned how to create a comment and will soon learn how to create their own post. Students will be able to share what they are blogging about with parents by logging in to their account from home, but parents will not be able to join or create their own account on this platform. Here are a few of our 4th graders learning to blog.====