Halloween Carnival

From Halloween

Our annual Halloween Carnival was last Friday, since we are now in the middle of our Fall Break. It is always a fun time! Each classroom sponsors a booth, which means lots of activities, from bowling to mini-golf to scary stories and the haunted maze. Thanks to all the parents and older brothers and sisters who helped out with volunteering in a booth, donated a cake or other baked goody for the cake walk, or served our pizza dinner. Of course, costumes are the best part! Some pictures from the evening are here.

Hope everyone is enjoying their fall break -- I am spending mine finishing up report cards, sorting through baby clothes, and sleeping in!

Buddy time!

From Kindergarten Buddies

Something we look forward to every Friday is the time we get to spend with our kindergarten buddies. Each fourth and fifth grader is matched with a kindergartener -- at the beginning of the year, we helped them get to know the cafeteria, and now we meet on Fridays to work on projects and to read books together. The pictures in our photo album are from two weeks ago when the students drew portraits of their buddies. The portraits are hanging in the hall downstairs. Yesterday we had our first reading time -- first the kindergarteners proudly read their first books to their buddies, then the older kids read aloud from more advanced picture books while the kinders followed along. It's fun to watch, and it benefits both children! Older students practice fluency and feel proud of themselves as readers, while the younger children get some one-on-one attention and an excellent role model not that much older than themselves. I'll try to take more pictures this week to add to the album.....in the meantime, ask your child to read aloud to you!

Weather or not.....

We started our new science unit today -- and it's all about weather! We won't get into the real meat of the topic for a few days, though, since we're still learning about what science really is and what scientists really do. (If you're curious, they ask questions, investigate, use tools, share ideas, record data, develop explanations, and ask more questions! And that goes for scientists and students studying science....)

As we begin to learn about weather -- what it is, how it works, and what factors influence it -- please pay special attention to weather reports on the news, or the weather page from the newspaper. Help your child notice that temperatures vary widely from place to place, and encourage him or her to wonder why. Talk about the weather outside, and make a prediction about what tomorrow might be like. Remember, scientists are always asking questions!

SPREE trip

The fourth and fifth graders recently got to go on a great field trip, hosted by SPREE, the South Platte River Environmental Education group. This group organizes trips to the river for kids in all grade levels, and focuses not only on river issues (clean water, healthy environments, etc) but also on bringing history to life! For lots of great pictures of the fourth grade trip, check out our photo album, or go here for pictures taken by parent volunteers. For fifth grade trip photos, click here. Parent chaperones, we really appreciated your help with pictures, gold panning, and general organization!

Thanks to fourth grader Natalie C for the following article about our trip!

Today my class went on a SPREE field trip. There were different stations. One of the stations is the gold mine game. They have yellow balls. They either have c, g, or d on them. D stands for dynamite. They elected one person, way back when, to go check if the dynamite all went off. If it didn't, you have to light it and run to safety! C stands for cave-in. If one happens, you try to run for safety. [G stands for gases. Harmful gases were found in mines that could kill you.]

The next station is the spirit of the winds and sky station. There they tell you a story. It goes like this: One day the sky thinks she needs more stars. So the wind goes to the cottonwood tree, where all the stars are caught on the branches. The wind blows the tree until the stars all fall out. Then the sky is happy. We made necklaces with branches [from the cottonwood]. At the tip of the branch is a star!

The next station we went to the the Ghost Town. PS: it's not scary. When you walk in, you get to push the log to launch the bucket into the air [using an old winch]. That was pretty cool. Next, we saw the log house. We talked about how different it is from our houses now. The floor was dirt, and the house was short. The house was dusty! Last but not least, there was no electricity. Those were interesting things to compare. Next, we saw the wagon. It was very interesting to see that it didn't have electricity either.

Next, we saw three trees. The characteristic of a fir [needle] is flat and friendly. [Spruce trees have sharp and square needles, and pine needles come in packets.] After that we ate lunch. Later we went down to the river. First we learned about how to pick out the gold [from our gold pans]. We got in groups and the lady told us if we found any gold. After that we got to look for shells, crabs, and crawdads. Then we had to grab all our things. The time we did not want to come came -- it was time to leave. So we said goodbye and thank you and got on the bus. That was one very fun field trip!