Now it's time to say goodbye

Great summer! We had so much fun, hope you had a great time. I cant wait to see everyone in August. 

Summertime Fairy Tales

This is a link to all of our kids videos they made. Its a playlist so you can watch them all or skip to your kids.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZtpzC8BvNquhI_N-yr_zdXWXYugnaQx6

Day at the Museum

Our last walking field trip was to the Busch Wildlife Exhibit in the School of Agriculture. We were able to white all about our animals and infer their habitat, predators and prey all by seeing these stuffed animals up close. The animals were from all over the world, very cool. We even finished with some writing time outside the building. 

Movie time

After a long process our 4th and 5th graders were able to view their fairy tale movies. The 3rd grade joined us for the festivities and were very impressed with our work. 

Rise of the Machines

The upper grades combined for the afternoon to work with Cubelets. These are modular cubes that have different functions, rolling, sight, sound, ect. With these elements the kids can make robots follow simple instructions and perform tasks. It was great fun, special thanks to Craig Adams for allowing us to play with them this summer.

A Groovy Summer

Tie dying went great the kids have some experience already but still enjoy it. Seeing all of the designs and techniques is always my favorite part. We ran out of time and didn't get to rinse off the shirts so we sent home instructions for how to complete the project.

Salt maps

As a conclusion to our unit on geographic regions of the US the 4th grade finished their salt maps today. Combining tie dye and paint on the same day will hopefully only ruin one outfit this summer.

Too Salty

4th grade began work in salt maps Friday. These are dough maps made out of salt, flour and water. This is the culminating activity for our roaming regions unit where we learned all about maps and our countries geographic features. These salt maps will dry and then we can begin work on coloring and labeling all important areas in our country.

Apple surprise

The heat warranted a cool treat, so the upper grades combined for snack attack this afternoon. Apple surprise was on the menu and if the silence was any indication it must have been great.

Hot and cold

By far the warmest field trip of the summer but possibly the best! 4th and 5th grade went on a tour of bucks ice cream and leaned all about the chemistry that's goes into perfecting the perfect ice cream. The day was cooled by our frozen treats enjoyed under a large oak tree. Thanks to Rick our tour guide for a wonderful afternoon. 

Bravo!

We had a great turn out of a parents and classes at our play today. The kids have really worked hard to make today run so smoothly. The songs the acting and props were all their creations and highlighted the very best of Lee. Congratulations to all our actors and a special thanks to the parents for coming a supporting us today.

We all scream for Bucks

This Friday at 1:30 4th and 5th grade are going to have a walking field trip to Bucks ice cream on the MU campus. We will be talking about creation and the history of the ice cream parlor and bucks founders Wendell and Ruth Arbuckle. We will also be sampling their product. If your child would like ice cream it's $1.25 a person, if you would like to sponsor another student please send your funds Friday.

Setting the stage

This Thursday at 2:30 our 4th and 5th graders will be performing 5 short plays for the school. We worked on posters today between rehearsals and came up wit some great advertisements. Parents are welcome to come Thursday it will only take an hour. 

Prop-tastic

We ended the week with prop making for our plays Thursday. All five groups were diligently designing and creating their own props, sets and costumes. 

Field trip!

Friday 4th and 5th grade went on a guided tour of the Cast Gallery and Greek and Roman exhibits in the museum of art and archeology. The docents were amazing and captivating, we even had special guests join us in the fun. Dr Mehr and Mrs Johnson split up and walked us through the gallery and added their own flare to the discussion, thank you to our guests and the gallery for the wonderful tour.

Dancin' Machines

The 5^th graders have been taking a ballet class at Stephens College. Students have learned different ballet positions and techniques. Stephens dancers have been leading the classes. The kids have all become more graceful and have picked up the positions quickly. Unfortunately, our last class is tomorrow.

Troubled Water

One of the 5th grade  Adventure Courses is Junk Box Challenge. The course is modeled after the TV show “Junkyard Wars.” Today, the students were presented with the challenge of building a barge. The barge was designed to hold the most weight possible. In groups, the students competed to see which barge could hold the most pennies.

Imagine a Day

After reading "imagine a day", a story about everyday landscapes that shift into another viewpoint, 4th grade set off to imagine their own day. Creating a story along with a complimenting picture allows the individual to transform ordinary into extraordinary. These are just a few of our examples. 

Landform Ho!

We are learning all about landforms in roaming regions. After finding a partner each group selected and then began researching all about their landform. Utilizing a classroom set of iPads makes research in the classroom a breeze, and even more fun. We will be compiling these facts later into a PowerPoint and present it to the class.

Write me a fairy tale

Using our schema about folk tales we created our own fairly tales today in our writing workshop. After identifying parts of a successful fairy tale they took off on their own adventure. Diligent writers that we have were uneasy 15 min in when we needed to start sharing. This will expand later on when we develop our own fractured fairly tales. Pair and share was by far our favorite part today.

A series of unfortunate lines

4th grade has been working on measuring angles in geometry. Today we made puzzles that needed to not only be solved but mapped, measured and recorded. Using our strait edge and protractor we navigated these puzzles to successfully traverse the hazards. We will be using these skills to map out our next walking field trip later this week.

Acting!

We broke into our groups and really started developing our characters. Speaking with inflection and confidence has been a huge change from our early practices. We have a day but not a time for our play now, we will be performing on the 20th of June. This performance is open to other classes and also parents if you want to come see what we have been doing.

Campus Walk

Great weather for our first walking field trip this summer. The kids did a great job and never complained about the walk. We traveled and read all about campus art and architecture. We hit the hot spots on the Quad, Lowery Mall and Carnahan Square (tiger plaza). We are going to be making maps and orienteering directions as well as a lifetime of memories, not to over sell it. 

Fractions and Fairy Tales

This morning 5th grade explored equivalent fractions. Students began to see similarities among different fractions! We also have been exploring fairy tales and the aspects of those stories. 

Cue the music

We started our read-throughs today. The groups now all have their parts and we began to rehearse. All children have a part in one of our 5 short plays. These plays will be back to back performances the third week of summer school. 

Lights, camera, read-through

We began our process of selecting plays and parts today with an introduction of the plays. The kids were able to pick which play and how large of a role they would be interested in having. After casting, we can start selecting roles and begin creating props, music and scenery. 

Our First Day!

What a wonderful first day. We covered our three R's and a plethora of adventure courses. Our specials included snack attack, puzzle me, fitness rocks and many more. We are all looking forward to our first walking field trip later this week. We will meet in the gym again tomorrow at 8:45 and dismiss from the playground at 3:45. We start working on our play later this week so kids might be practicing lines at home.

Poetry in the Afternoon

4th grade spent the afternoon enjoying the weather and sharing our Bio-poems we created during writing time. Great job to all our performers!