Our Week – February 1

We are hopeful the weather settles down.  We’re having trouble fitting everything into our already too short days. Little by little we’re finishing our weather forecasting project and our Holiday Palooza work.  We’ve begun our family story writing, but have not gotten far.  We’ve spent a bit more time learning about maps, mapping and the seven continents this week.

There’s so much we want to do, but so little time in our classroom to get it done.  Oh well, we’ll just keep doing all that we can and little by little it will all get done.

The Holiday Palooza

For the last few weeks I’ve been writing about what the children are able to understand as they’ve researched the national holidays.  They have little background knowledge to help them understand the changes in history and what it all means.  I’ve been worried, but I shouldn’t have been.  As the children organize and write their information and plan their displays and games, their learning shows.  Yes, there are holes in their understanding and a few misconceptions, but they have learned a lot.  The children are excited and proud of their work.

This week we’ve been building an introductory hall display with photographs, labels and speech balloons – their interest in teaching others shows there as well.

We are looking forward to sharing on Monday, February 4 from 2:00 to 2:40 and again from 5:15 to 6:00.   Please be ready to tour all the displays, asking the children to share what they discovered in this research process, and then be ready to choose a game or two to play.

Grade 3 Physical Education News from Mrs. Yeaton

This month students in 3C and 3E are learning about the components of fitness (cardiorespiratory, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility).  We are playing games and wearing pedometers.   The number of a team’s total steps determines the winner of each activity, not the score.  They are loving it!

I am also introducing them to the Fitnessgram fitness tests that they will be taking part in when they are in middle school.  I want them to learn the correct way to perform the tasks so that they will do well on the tests in the future.  The Fitnessgram is really a way to show students where they are fitness wise. There is a Healthy Fitness Zone that they will try to attain.  If they don’t attain that then we conference and talk about what they can do to increase their cardiovascular fitness, for example.  I talk with them about walking/jogging/riding a bike/swimming to increase their fitness level in that component.  It’s important for students to become familiar with their fitness levels and what they can do to increase them or maintain them.

I have added a link for you to check out regarding kids and exercise. (The link is live on the blog.)

https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/exercise.html

Bits and Pieces –

  • Huzzah! To the 5thgraders for their amazingly wonderful United We Stand performance. It was exciting to notice connections between the history we’ve been learning during our National Holiday Research project and what was shared in the musical.
  • We finished The Sasquatch Escape and were able to sort through the images of the important event in each chapter to decide which scene was a favorite to illustrate.
  • We spent time talking about friendship this week.  I hope you’ll have time to read some of the blog posts made by children who chose to think about this topic.  Being a friend is important.
  • The read Let the Children March, a recently published picture book about an important moment in the Civil Movement.  This event took place in 1963 and really changed the world.
  • Thank you to all the families who’ve been able to contribute to the 100thday of School service learning project.  Grade 3 is collecting Dish Soap.  At this point in the project we’re nearing 50 bottles.  With only 32 students in the grade it is quite a commitment.  We’ve got four more days to meet our goal.  Thank you for your support in this amazing school-wide service project!

2 thoughts on “Our Week – February 1

  1. Loved seeing all the thought and hard work put into each students Holiday Palooza – I learned some fascinating things I didn’t know too! Thanks and congrats all around!

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