The night before Valentine's Day I was alone in the house and there was a storm outside. Suddenly I stepped on something hard. It felt like a rock. So I turned on the light and saw a row of plastic hearts going up the stairs to the attic. I followed them and saw my grandmother and parents making Valentines for my family.

One day, Barbara gave her best friend Jennie a package of candy hearts. On one of the candy hearts there was writing. The writing said, "Cartoon Studios." She ate the candy heart. She opened her eyes and she was right in front of Cartoon Studios in Florida. Jennie was so excited. She had been wanting to go here for ages. Then she found a candy heart on the ground. It said, "Home." Then she realized what was going on. She ate the heart. She opened her eyes and she was right in front of her house. "Boy, this was the best Valentine's Day ever."

My sister Barbara had a heart bracelet that was broken. I found a red heart from the bracelet. It said, "You have one wish. What shall it be?" I was shocked that the little thing could talk. "I don't know," I responded. It didn't answer. I thought and thought. I had an idea. I want to have a special Valentine for my mom. Your wish is granted! Suddenly a little box appeared in my hand. I said, "Thank you." Then the heart disappeared. I hid the box under my pillow. Finally it was Valentine's Day. I woke my mom up and I gave it to her. She gave me a hug. She opened it. It was a pair of heart earrings that said, "Be mine." My mom and I had a very best Valentine's Day because she was very excited about her present and that made me happy too.

A girl named Barbara once had a bracelet. She loved it so much. She wore it all the time. One day her candy bracelet broke. I helped her recover all her hearts. After we got all the hearts she gave me one. Since it was candy and I didn't know anything about it, I ate it. I began to fly through the air. It made me fall asleep. When I woke up I was in a place I've never seen before with hearts all over the place. The candy hearts had chocolate frosting. It was a place that I think I would like to live. "Where am I?" I thought. I was about to eat a heart when I heard a voice say, "Don't eat my house." I turned around. I saw nobody. I looked up. There was a cupid about to shoot a love arrow. "Sorry, but can you show me the way home?" "No, stay right there." I started to run but he kept on following me. "Don't shoot me," I cried. I ran through a tunnel. I suddenly appeared at my house. "Thank God I'm safe!"

One day a girl named Barbara was stretching the string on her special Valentine's bracelet. Suddenly it broke. I found a heart from the bracelet. I knew it was special but I didn't know why. It was strange. I put it under my pillow. Then I went to sleep. When I woke up, it broke. I took it to school. I was worried about a test. Then magic flew out. It flew into me. The magic was blue, so was the Valentine. I did really well in school because of the Valentine. That was the best Valentine's Day ever.

Once a girl named Barbara had a necklace. She lost it one day and I found it. That night I put it in my drawer and it became an Olympics arena. I was so excited that I felt I just had to be the first one to skate on it. I left because the hockey players had to practice. After that I went right to the slopes and saw all the skiers and snowboarders go down the mountain. Then I went to the speed skating arena and watched them speed skate. It was the best Valentine's Day of my life! Maybe I can be in the Olympics when I grow up and win for the USA!

The fourth grade has been studying raptors (birds of prey). We had a visit from Ms. Sisson and Sage. Sage is a screech owl. We got to see Sage very close up, which is the closest we will ever get to an owl.

We also had a visit from the Wingmaster program. We saw an American kestrel (falcon), two kinds of hawks (one red-tailed), a golden eagle, and a saw-whet owl. Everybody thought the saw-whet owl was very cute because it is small and kind of chubby. The golden eagle was everyone's favorite because it is bigger than any bird we had seen (3 feet tall!) and so beautiful.

We will be studying owls, reading Owls in the Family, Owls in the Shower, and Poppy, and doing topic work on birds of prey until mid-April.

Recently a Wildlife Rehabilitator named Ms. Sisson came. She brought an owl with her. It was an 11-year-old, female, screech owl named Sage. Sage was shy. When Ms. Sisson opened the cage door, she didn't even fly out. But when it was time to leave the classroom, Sage flew right back in.

When Sage got scared, she made a weird noise. She makes different kinds of noises. One of the noises is screeching. That's why she's called a screech owl. Sage also pants when she's nervous.

Sage eats insects and rodents. Sage eats pieces of chicken too, but not all owls do this.

Sage's feathers are gray, white, black and a little bit of brown. Her eyes are yellow and very large. They look like they glow, but they don't. Owls also have three eyelids. They have excellent eyesight. Owls also can hear very well, even though their ears are hidden under their feathers.

Screech owls are really small. Their bodies are 10 inches long and their wing spans are 24 inches.

Sage doesn't live in the wild. She lives in Ms. Sisson's house. Sage's room is the chicken coop. Sage never learned to hunt because she was separated from her parents, so she couldn't live in the wild. I hope she's happy living with Ms. Sisson at her house.

We started dissecting owl pellets last Friday because we are studying owls. Owls swallow their food whole because they eat it in one gulp. After that they spit up a pellet or the undigested parts of their prey. We split up into groups to dissect the pellets. Our group was made up of Max, Simon, and me.

Here are some of the bones we found in our pellet. We found a pelvis, skull, jaw, teeth, ribs, and many more bones. Ms. Alloway wanted us to organize our bones before we made a skeleton. After we organized our bones we made a skeleton of the rodent. It was hard at the beginning, but later on we got the hang of it. Some of the other groups contributed bones to us because we didn't have the full skeleton. I really liked dissecting owl pellets. I hope we get to do it again.

The fourth grade really is blasting off with our space/astronomy unit. We started our trip with a discussion about what we already knew and ended our journey with a game of Space Jeopardy designed by the fourth-grade students. Along the way, we stopped to do a dramatic solar system project (which is on this web site and is also described in the Solar System article below).

We landed on Earth for a field trip to see Michael Mullane, the astronaut. Mr. Mullane told us about his life and what it is like to be an astronaut. We really liked his show.

We went into orbit to do some gravity experiments, like bulls-eye, satellite launch, and cup-and-penny swing. These were to show us how free fall or zero gravity works. These experiments also showed us what you need to launch spacecraft into space. We really enjoyed this unit!

Alloicious Pretzel Company
Ms. Alloway's fourth-grade class has a pretzel company. The company has 17 managers. Each week there's a new manager. We work three days a week. Every day we have a new crew made up of members of our class. The manager picks one person from the crew to help sell the pretzels to the first through fifth grades. Our first manager was Richard Thuma. Our pretzels are homemade, delicious, and have no artificial flavoring. The money we make will go to the stockholders and to a charity. Having a class pretzel company is fun!

On Wednesday we watched a movie about Ruby Bridges. Ruby Bridges was one of the first African American children in Louisiana to integrate a White school. She was chosen because she got good grades. When Ruby went to school people yelled bad things at her and tried to hurt her. Parents of the White children didn't want their children to go to school with an African American child. United States Marshals had to escort her to school every day. Her teacher was Ms. Barbara Henry. Ms. Henry was from Boston where there was no such thing as segregation. Her religious beliefs made Ruby strong. Her motto was, "Pray for your Persecutors.

After we saw the movie Dr. Sharon Davis came in to talk to our class about her life growing up in the South. She is an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School. She came in to talk to us about her life and how she got to be a doctor. She also talked about different customs and traditions. We talked about what we wanted to be when we grow up and why. We learned a lot about Black history.

Have you ever looked up at the sky on a clear night and seen planets like Mercury, Venus, and Mars and then later seen them in a book? How about seeing them around town? You can if you go to our Solar System project or website.

Estabrook fourth graders divided into groups to make paper machŽ replicas of planets. One group made signs. Another mapped out where to put the planets and signs and then asked different companies if they would like the planets in their stores. Look where the planets are:

As you can see, Neptune and Pluto are so far away that they are not even in Lexington!

We also have a web page you can visit. If you can't see the planets, at least you can learn a little about them. Even if you know all the information, our web page provides a section on how we made the planets plus a picture of some of the planets almost finished (go to our project pages). If you see our project we hope you will like it!

I do not know zip
    about which one is which,
      their, there, or they’re.
I ask my teacher to teach me,
    it is just too hard to
      know which one is which,
        their, there, or they’re.
And when I have to write one
    It makes me raise my hand so high,
      I think I might touch the sky.
I tell my teacher I know zip
    about which one is which,
      their, there, or they’re.
She stands up there in disbelief,
    not believing that I do not
      know which one is which,
        their, there, or they’re.

                Benjamin F.-M.
                Fourth Grade Student