Visit by the Iowa State Conservation Station

Today we enjoyed a visit by the Iowa State Conservation Station.  They visited the third, fourth, and fifth grade classrooms to teach about Iowa's native ecosystems, the living things that need them, dangers to these habitats, and ways we can practice conservation to help protect the ecosystems.  It was a beautiful afternoon, so we got to have an outdoor classroom as we learned more about conservation.  We also participated in several activities including wetland hopscotch and a "Creature Cache" card game.  Be sure to ask your student about it!  Below are some photos of this special presentation.  Thank you Mrs. Fravel for setting up this great learning opportunity!

Happy Dot Day!

Happy Dot Day 2013!

 

How will you make your mark on the world?

This week on Monday we celebrated Dot Day.  International Dot Day falls on September 15th each year, but being that was Sunday we moved our celebration to Monday.  This day was inspired by the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds.  This book is all about being brave to try new things and celebrating everyone's creative side.  As a class we read an electronic version of The Dot and discussed the themes of bravery and creativity.  We then created our own dots (see above photo) with coffee filters, markers, and a little water.  You will have to check them out as they are displayed in our hallway gallery outside our room.  As Peter Reynolds encourages, we signed our works of art as they are one piece of the mark we can make in this world!

We also had some fun exploring a new app that we can't wait for Mrs. Adams to download to all of our iPads.  It is called colAR Mix, and in honor of Dot Day they had a free image to download and color.  We worked on coloring these and got to see Dalten's image come to life using the app.  We are so excited to see our own colored page jump to life in the near future.

Dalten's coloring page  

becomes animated using

colAR Mix.

We also had a chance to take a "Dot Day Safari" where we went in search of all the dots hiding in plain site in our school.  It was amazing the examples we found, which we then photographed using the cameras on our iPads.  

An example of a "dot" in plain sight 

taken during our safari!

Today (Thursday) we explored how to use our email accounts more.  We learned how to email photos we had taken on our iPad to someone else.  Mrs. Adams inbox was full by the time we finished emailing our favorite "Dot Day Safari" pictures to her.  The plan is to use our safari pictures to learn how to create a slideshow complete with music.  It is great how we all collaborated to make this happen.  Go Team Adams!

A Picture Says a Thousand Words!

We have had another busy week!  I love to take photos of my kids in action, so here are a few fun snapshots from our busy days!  Have a great weekend, everyone!

Kindergarten & Third Grade Reading Buddies in Action:

3rd Grade Writers hard a work:

Sampling our homemade applesauce- Yum:

Recess Fun:

Measuring Plant Growth in Science:

Reviewing our Money Skills in Math:

It's Apple Delicious!!!

Today we kicked off our 2013-14 Kindergarten and Third Grade Reading Buddies!  It is always fun to see the third graders become mentors to the kindergartners for the year.  They love the weekly time spent together.  Many times we just read together, but we do work in special projects and activities to keep things lively.  

For our kick-off this year, we decided to take a short hike to our school's apple orchard (located on the north end of our playground) for some apple picking.  It was awesome to see the excitement on all the kids' faces to be harvesting from our own orchard for the first time.

After the apple picking, we went back to Mrs. Leifeld's classroom.  The students worked together on some coloring sheets and reading while small groups peeled apples using apple peelers for our crockpot applesauce.  

Students also enjoyed munching on the fresh apples as a snack!  We then added the final ingredients and will cook our creation tomorrow morning.  Then "Yum, Yum" as we sample it.  It was a great hour spent together and we are looking forward to a great year with our kindergarten buddies!

Healthy Gold Celebration

On Friday, August 30th, we journeyed to Crestwood High School to celebrate our district's award for
striving to have the healthiest school possible.  We attended an assembly where the award was presented.  Highlights of the assembly included a congratulations letter from First Lady Michelle Obama and a Skype visit from Iowa's Governor Terry Branstad. 

Following the ceremony we headed out to the baseball field for some fun.  The third graders showed off their dancing moves while grooving with a local DJ.  Some students chose to get a Cadet Tattoo (removable of course!).  We also enjoyed a snack of cold, cold water and watermelon.  It was a hot day, but fun! 

This morning during our morning meeting we discussed the assembly, and what it meant to have healthy bodies and minds.  The third graders had great answers that included:

• Play Hard
• Eat Healthy
• Drink Lots of Water
• Ask Questions
• Keep Learning Always