It's a New Year!

Wow, it is finally here. My tenth year to teach children. I am so excited about starting this milestone in my career with such great kids. Here is one of our "first day of school" activities. Each child had a number and voted on which part they agreed with. Ask your child what his/her number is!

Sorry, this one won't turn. 

Visitors from the UA Master Gardener Program

Thanks so much to Ms. Linda and Ms. Ginny for visiting our class. We learned so many things! We learned how to use a probe and a hand lens to observe garden soil. We made predictions and observations, which we recorded. We also learned about the different types of soil in Arkansas (sand, clay and humus or garden soil). Then we observed how much water these soil types retain. What a wonderful, hands-on learning experience!

Last we got to act out what it would be like for water to move through these different particles. Some of us were sand, some were humus, some were clay, and some got to be the water. Sometimes the water got stuck to the particles!

We are now a 1:1 iPad Classroom!

Together we are learning how to use these devices to deepen and extend our learning. Right now we are focusing on procedures and routines that help keep our devices in working order. The big one we are trying to master is to NOT LEAVE THE IPAD ON THE FLOOR! Please talk with your child about watching where they step and also putting their device in a safe place when not in use. I am so excited to see what they can produce!

AWE visit today!

Here is our whole-class tableau we made during our last visit with Dr. Pat and Mr. Jason.
We created a frozen picture with our bodies that shows the artwork in the background of the ocean and waves.

Creating Geometric Solids

After analyzing geometric solids for edges, faces, and vertices, our students created models of solids of their choice. Great job kiddos!

Class Photo

Here are some quick caption-type class photo we took one day. Love these munchkins!

Lots of Learning Going On

Here are some pictures I have snapped during some of our learning activities.....

A Conga Line matching game-
Students had to read a sentence and come up with a word using a prefix or suffix that meant that. For example, Change the word happy to mean not happy...answer would be unhappy. Or change the word from kind to mean being kind....answer would be kindness. Then students would move down to a new partner.

Our students just finished writing their own biography about an important person in the Journey to Freedom for African Americans. They could choose from people like Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, and all the way to Martin Luther King, Jr. After they wrote the biography, they could choose how to create a digital presentation. Some students created a powerpoint and some created a haiku deck. Then they had to stand up in front of the class and share their project.