Tuesday, 2/2/10

Hello everyone!
I hope everyone enjoyed their snow day and long weekend! It was nice to be able to go outside for recess again for the first time today - although the playground is surrounded by snow, our blacktop play area has been cleared off, so the students can run around at recess time!
I wanted to let you know that although your student hasn't been bringing any Social Studies papers home for the past couple of weeks, we ARE studying that subject at school! As we do more and more of our activities online and as hands-on projects, it sometimes means that there aren't as many papers coming home. Many of these activities are graded, however, and you can always check their grades at any time on PowerSchool. We have been creating Kansas objects lately in social studies, and we have created models of sod houses, covered wagons, tepees, and buffaloes. All of these objects are currently on the walls of our classroom and hallway, but they will be coming home soon! I'm planning to post some photos of our creations on Thursday.
Also, I got some interesting information about an opportunity for Wednesday, February 3 - the International Space Station's line of orbit will pass directly over our area for one pass, and we will be able to see it clearly if the skies are clear. It will pass for a 5-minute time span, from 7:13 - 7:18, traveling from SW to NE. My family got to see it the last time it's orbit crossed our path in an evening, a few weeks ago, and it was pretty interesting - it looks like a larger airplane light traveling across the sky! Isn't it amazing to think that we have astronauts living on the Space Station and that we can see their home from our yards!
Mrs. Goertzen

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