Saturday, 1/30/10

Hello everyone! I hope that you are enjoying your unexpected Snow-Day/Long-Weekend! We had several fun things planned for Friday, and so I wanted to let you know about how the schedule will change. We were planning to celebrate Kansas Day on Friday. We will be moving the activities to Monday, including wearing Kansas team wear. Also, Friday was scheduled to be the Early Bird Sunflower Reader pizza party. The party will be held one afternoon this week, but I am not yet sure when...probably either Monday or Friday. The party is held at the end of the day, so it doesn't affect lunch plans. And our students have been collecting money for Haiti this past week, bringing a different denomination of coin each day. Friday's plan was to bring dollars, so the kids will be doing that on Monday, instead.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend - see you on Monday!
Mrs. Goertzen

Monday, 1/25/10

Today we reviewed the different kinds of measurement that we have been studying - length, volume, weight, temperature and time. We played a matching game with cards that had measurement words, pictures of measurement tools, and short paragraphs with questions about what kind of measurement to use in a certain situation ("This kind of measurement would be used to tell how much water is in your bathtub"). This game was fun, but it took a LONG TIME to figure out. I'm attaching videos of our class working on it.
We also had art today - we have art 2 afternoons a month, for 45 minutes each time. We have it at the end of the day, 2 days in a row, so I'll be blogging today and tomorrow so that no student has to miss any of their art time! Today the kids are learning about perspective while they draw connecting pipes.
Also, this week the school is collecting money to benefit Haiti. It is being run by the 5th grade classes, and the kids all heard an announcement about it on Friday morning. However, I know that many of them have probably forgotten (like I did). Every morning in the gym, the 5th graders will be collecting change to be donated to the Red Cross and/or World Vision. Your child is welcome to bring change on any of the days. Each day a certain type of coin is being collected:
Monday-Pennies
Tuesday-Nickels
Wednesday-Dimes
Thursday-Quarters
Friday-Dollars

Thanks for your support!

Announcements for the week of January 25 - 29, 2010

Hello everyone,
I hope that you are having a good weekend! There were several things I wanted to share while I was thinking about them:

* We are no longer sending home paper newsletters on Fridays. As one of our district efforts to save money, we are now publishing the newsletter online only. If you go to our school website (www.buhlerschools.org) there is a link to our newsletter. Also, the school is emailing the letter to every parent who put their email address on the registration form at the beginning of the year. Feel free to contact the office and change your email address if it has changed!

*This upcoming Friday is Kansas Day! We will be celebrating with special Kansas snacks and activities. The kids will be square dancing this week in p.e. and music. They also created a Kansas story during their library class time, which every class in the school added to. They will be showing this story on BGTV this week. You'll can see every episode of BGTV on the school website, as well. Also, your student is encouraged to wear any sort of Kansas team/spirit wear on Friday!

*Our school is once again having a BoxTops contest. We will be having a "Love Your Classroom" theme. Bring your collection of BoxTops to school from now until February 22nd. The class contributing the most BoxTops will win a great new classroom board game and time to play! Teachers receive the money earned from the BoxTops and can use it for anything they need for their classrooms. Keep an eye on the bulletin board by the cafeteria where each class's collection progress will be recorded.

*Our spelling words this upcoming week are words that go along with Chapter 9 in our Social Studies book, which we are using as our text during reading class this week. This chapter is about the people who live in the Midwest, from the Native Americans through today. This is always the students' favorite section - we get to see images of the tribes who lived here, and there is a whole section on John Deere! These spelling words are also posted on www.spellingcity.com, so your student can practice with these words at home, too.

Spelling Words for Chapter 9
sod
interstate
highway
system
trade
fur
steamboat
railroad
mission
hub
trading
post
mound
traditional
cargo
canoe
gathering
settle
plow
route
Challenge Words:
movement
ceremonies
settlement
reservation
transcontinental

Friday 1/22/10

Today we watched Sarah, Plain and Tall and we got to eat cookies. Today we all took our spelling tests online at www.spellingcity.com. This is the first time that we all took the tests online. The computer reads the words out loud, so we all wear headphones. Or earbuds. We can have the computer read the word as many times as we want while we spell it, so it is easier to hear the word over and over if we want to.
Written by Drew and Ethan

Wednesday 1/20/10

Today we played a game called "Painters' Challenge" in math, where the kids practiced converting standard capacity measurements -gallons, quarts, pints and cups. They were so good at it by the end!
We also continued researching sod houses, and how the settlers in Kansas built them when Kansas was first being settled, since trees were so rare. It's interesting to imagine how different Kansas looked when it was first settled.
Tomorrow and Friday we will be taking the Reading Common Assessment on the computers, so please make sure that your kiddos get enough sleep tonight!

Tuesday 1/19/10

Today we had inside recess. We got to watch a movie from the Grossology series about how insects move and how people copy insect movements in robotics.
We learned about sod houses. They were made of grass and dirt. (Note from Mrs. Goertzen: we will be studying sod houses and Kansas settlers for the next few days!)
(Another note from Mrs. Goertzen: We will be taking the last Reading Common Assessment (district test) in the next couple of days. Please make sure your student gets enough sleep and eats breakfast!)
Written by Gabriel and Harly

Friday 1/15/10

Today learned about the Gallon House in math. There are 4 quarts in a gallon, 8 pints in a gallon and 16 cups in a gallon!
We had Fun Friday this afternoon and we made 3D barns. We had to have 11 books read on the Sunflower Reader chart AND have all of our work turned in to make the barns.
We took a social studies test today about the Midwest region, but we did it as a whole class so that we can use it to study later!

Written by Stephen and Hunter

No School on Monday

Just a reminder that we do not have school on Monday, January 18th! It is Martin Luther King, Jr Day. The teachers have a professional development day.

Thursday 1/14/10

Today in math, we studied pounds and ounces. We got to weigh stuff on regular scales and on hanging scales. We weighed using metrics and using regular measurements.
Today we finished our covered wagons. We drew inside of the flap to show what would be in a covered wagon. Yesterday we went online to find information about covered wagons and we wrote that on the back page of the covered wagon flipbook.
Written by Luke and Lauren

Wednesday 1/13/10

Today we ate cupcakes for Madison's birthday and we also had chocolate milk. The cupcakes had butterfly rings on the tops of them. Today in Social Studies we were working on covered wagons and we got to use the laptops to look up facts about them. We got pictures of them and we are coloring them and we are writing facts about them on a paper shaped like a covered wagon.
Written by Faith and Cade

Spelling Bee photos

These are a couple of photos of our Spectacular Spellers at the spelling bee today! We are so proud of them for getting up in front of everyone and strutting their spelling skills!

Spelling Bee 1/12/10

Today the entire school had a spelling bee at 12:30. Every class got to send 2 representatives and one alternate. Our class representatives were Hunter and Lauren, and our alternate was Luke. They did a great job in the spelling bee. Hunter says his hardest word was the word "sauna" and Lauren says her hardest word was "lettuce". The school winner was a 6th grader. She will represent our school in the county spelling bee.
We were excited to be able to go outside for recess today, after all the cold days when we've been stuck inside!
Written by Sara and Joshua

Measurement Games 1/11/10

We have been learning about measurement lately. We are studying standard measurement, like the kind the U.S. uses, in math class. Then we study metric measurement, like the rest of the world uses, in science class. So far, we have studied length and time, but we will also be studying volume/capacity, weight/mass, and temperature in the next couple of weeks. Yesterday, we played a metric measurement game called "The Great 2,500 Millimeter Race" and the kids had so much fun! They used dice to roll how far they got to measure toward their goal on each turn.