Enrichment

We finished up our cookbooks for 4th and 5th enrichment and we finished our STEM units on food for 2nd and 3rd grade. In November and December, we will be doing a unit on Japan and then also Christmas around the World. The students will get to pick projects of interest to work on during this unit. We will also be working on Lego Robotics as part of our STEM. On December 3rd, I need enrichment students to help sell our cookbooks at the church services. We will need to be there from 8:45am until about 1pm. Of course, kids will be signing up for hour shifts so they do not have to be there all morning. The last week before Christmas break, I will invite parents to come at the end of the day to see their Japan projects and also participate in our Christmas around the World presentations. Please stay tuned for the dates.

I received glowing reports from the sub about both enrichment classes. Huge praises for being so respectful and loving! The 2nd and 3rd graders received their class pets today- two guinea pigs named Abby and Mady. I'm listening as they stand around the cage singing "Peace Like a River" to their new friends. Pretty cute! It was difficult to focus after the new classmates arrived but we managed to do some logic problems this morning, work on challenge math and our stories, investigate some science, and research our guinea pig origins. In 4th and 5th grade this week, we will be diving into our Odyssey of the Mind project for those students who are interested. You will receive a permission slip and explanation. There will be an alternate project for those students who are not interested. We will also be working on logic problems, analogies, STEM, and writing.

I am having such a great time with your students. They are delightful. All students have received a login for the Challenge Math. We will be doing this weekly in class. This week, the 2nd and 3rd graders worked on some challenge math and logic problems. They also worked on their "So there I was..." stories. We also started investigating what local businesses do with their leftover food. Next Tuesday, they will bring in their findings (my guest teacher will have the results from the four places Kennedy and I visited). The students will also be researching the care of a class pet. Yes! Our guinea pig purchase has been approved and we will be putting together a brochure about caring for this pet. This week, the 4th and 5th graders finished our cookbook. I'm doing a final edit and then it will be sent to the press! They did a great job. The next step will be putting their sales skills to work as we are going to try to sell 200 copies! They will be working on Odyssey of ...

September 28, 2017 Today, we started the day with a journal write beginning with the phrase "so there I was...." The students wrote some creative adventure pieces that they will turn into stories for entry into a competition in December.  They then wrote creative recipe poems that I may feature in the cookbook. We spent most of the day inputting recipes and working on challenge math. They learned how to edit and save recipes into the website. At the end of the day, we learned a little about chromatography while studying the separation of colors in a jelly bean.  I also introduced the Word Masters analogy competition. We ended the day with a little game of Chronology to work in some social studies challenge.

We had a fun day today. We did some journal writing, math challenge problems, and some prayer time. We walked down to Petco and did some research on a class pet. They took notes on the prices of pet set-up and came back to add up the total cost. In the afternoon, we started brainstorming for the story we will enter into a contest in December. We also learned about the accidental discovery of silly putty and then made our own. They are an energetic, inquisitive bunch!

Today, I saw the benefits of having a small class who directs their own learning. I did not have "class pets" on my lesson plan but when they all started discussing wanting a class pet, I turned it into a spontaneous lesson. They researched the best and worst class pets and then I had them start a persuasive letter to me detailing two reasons why it would be good to have a class pet. I would like to see a nice edited letter turned into me next Tuesday. What else did we do? free journal write class meeting and prayer. We opened up Operation World  to the country of Laos and prayed for the country we used homemade tubes to see how our eyes can get confused. Have your kids show you how to make a "tube go through your hand." we started our milk-fed pumpkin. Ask your kids to explain the procedure of starting a milk-fed pumpkin we researched how to make a worm bin. We are going to discuss food waste and come up with a plan to waste less food at ECS. we started o...

I enjoyed meeting your students this week.  Here is a brief recap of what we did and what we will be doing. I will post any long-term projects/assignments here. I have communicated to both classes the need to be humble and sensitive about what we do in class. We do not want other students to feel badly that they are not doing the various projects we will do in enrichment. Your students have the privilege and opportunity to challenge themselves in different ways and we want to make sure they are not "advertising" that privilege. If you can encourage them to be sensitive to others, that would be great. They will have wonderful opportunities to be leaders and actually involve their peers (who are not in the class) in some of our projects. 2nd/3rd grade Enrichment Played ice breaker games Introduced our "food" unit and the milk-fed pumpkin we will be watching grow. Also introduced the long-term project of building a worm bin. Next week, we will be researching th...