On Friday we learned about Veterans Day and the soldiers that keep us safe! Then we made Veterans Day cards to thank them for all that they have done. These cards will be presented to some of our Veterans in Red Feather for their Veterans Day luncheon. Cards from the kids are always a hit, and these are sure to put some smiles on their faces! Some of the kids chose to make their cards by hand, and some of them used the computer to create their heartfelt cards! Way to go kids...our veterans will love them!
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Poudre school district hosted their Super Connected Conference this Saturday, with over 300 educators from the surrounding districts of PSD, Weld and Thompson in attendance! Our mountain schools were represented by Stacy Wurtz from Livermore, Jo Johnson from Red Feather, and myself from Stove Prairie! The theme this year was Creativity...and the Keynote Speaker was Mark Schreiber. The conference had an excellent array of classes to choose from...myself, I attended the Grant Writing Workshop, a Mini Maker Faire, Tech4Learning: Deep Thinking & Creating in the Elementary Classroom, and then I joined Mark Schreibers class: The What, Why, Where & How of Integrated Making. He had all kinds of fun stations set up...there was a Makey-Makey station, Strawbees, Candy Making and more. r The conference was very informative and fun, and we were all inspired to share some of these new ideas with our students and staff! Looking forward to sharing some of these ideas with you soon! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
Teresa Funke, author of the Home-Front Heroes Series, visited our school today! She discussed her books with us and shared her life as an author. She also talked a little bit about history, and World War II, which is what her series is based around. She shared some wonderful slides about the children during that time, and what their life might have been like. The kids were fascinated with all of her stories, especially when she shared her box of rejection letters, explaining...never give up! Teresa generously donated a set of her books to the library, and another 21 books for the kids to earn in a writing contest. Good luck kids, the writing contest should be a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to reading all your stories. And THANK YOU Mrs. Funke for an awesome afternoon! If you would like to learn more about Teresa Funke and her Home-Front Heroes Series, visit her website at http://www.teresafunke.com/ Inspired by the topic of her books, I set out a display of World War II genre books for the kids to enjoy, until they can earn one of the Home-Front Heroes Series books. I plan to add more WWII memorabilia tomorrow, including some of my family's war ration books and some old photos, so please be sure to stop in our library this week and check it out! If World War II isn't your thing, you can check out our Thanksgiving display and our Makers Space Theme for the month: Learn To Draw! There's something for everyone at the Stove Prairie Library! See you in the halls!
Last Friday we had to escape Igor's Dance Dungeon using the Breakout Box! There were 7 puzzles that we needed to solve to unlock the box and we had only 45 minutes to solve them. If you've never done a Breakout Box, its a lot like an escape room...and the kids love it! Naturally this one was Halloween themed! This activity requires teamwork along with math, literacy and problem solving skills, and the 4/5 class was ready for action! They worked hard to solve most of the clues, and 20 minutes in they cashed in a "hint" card, which put them back in the race! They solved the clues, and "escaped" with only 9 minutes and 6 seconds to spare! Treats were inside the box to celebrate! Way to go 4th and 5th graders....You Broke Out!!! Now it was time for the 2/3 kids to give it a go and see if they could beat your time! Ready...Set...Go! There was lots of excitement and running around, but the kids worked well together as a team, and each person had a hand in solving the clues! Madison solved the last password, "escape" and Basil unlocked the last lock with 15 minutes and 22 seconds to spare! Way to go 2/3!!! You Broke Out!!! What a great team building activity! The kids were fired up and ready for their Halloween Party after this! Let's celebrate!!! Happy Halloween!!!!
Last week I was on my way to work when I came across this cute little dog running down the Poudre Canyon Highway. He was running in the road and I was concerned he might get hit by a car, so I pulled over to see what he would do. He ran right up to my car, and when I opened the door to see if he was okay, he hopped right in. I took that as a sign that he didn't want to be loose on the highway anymore. I noticed he had a tag, so I figured I'd call the owner when I got to work. The owner didn't answer, so I called around to a few places, and it turns out the owner was staying at a resort in the canyon, so I left my info, and told them they could swing by the school to pick him up. Meanwhile, Maxxis joined us for storytime in the library as we read a spooky book, The Ghost-Eyed Tree by Bill Martin, Jr. When Maxxis' person showed up, he told us they were out hunting when Maxxis got spooked at the sound of the rifle, and he took off running. His person, Steve, was sooo happy that Maxxis was safe and okay! He told us how much Maxxis loves kids, so he probably had a great time hanging out with us at storytime instead of hunting! Steve wanted to give me some money for taking care of his dog, and I refused, telling him I just did what anyone would have done, so he asked if he could give me some money for the kids...to buy something nice for the kids. I accepted, and told him I would purchase books for our library with his generous donation of $100.00 to our school, courtesy of Maxxis. I shared the news with the kids and they were soooo excited! (sad to see Maxxis go, of course, but excited about more new books for the library).
So stay tuned for the Maxxis Collection that is on order and should be arriving in our school library soon! Thank you Maxxis! (and Steve) :) We worked on some Pumpkin Poetry and Pumpkin Art using Pixie this week in our technology class...and the kids got rather creative, so, if you're in the building, be sure to check out their wonderful work hanging in the halls!
In other news, we are thrilled to be welcoming Teresa Funke to our school for an author visit on Wednesday, November 1st. She will be speaking to the kids about her writing story, her WW II books, and the importance of learning history. Also, new to the Media/Tech website, I've added a symbaloo of websites for students to peruse and have access to from home, so please check it out. The link above, "websites for students" will get you there. I would like to remind parents, that it would be wonderful if your children could spend two nights a week in typing club to advance their skills in this area. Typing is required for testing, and if the child is using two fingers to type their answers, this will hinder their scores, by slowing them down as they work. Please encourage your child to type at least two nights a week from home in our typing club account. The children are graded on typing, and this will help them along. The link is listed on the symbaloo under the websites for students link, but I will include it here as well. Thank you! https://stoveprairie.typingclub.com/ Our mountain school teams trained hard last week during teacher collaboration day! We were introduced to our new math program, Dreambox, and then we had an awesome training with PSD Mathematics Facilitator, Kelly Shank! We were excited to introduce our kids to Dreambox this week, and the kids loved it! Thanks for a great collaboration day everyone...its working in the classrooms and the kids are digging it! Don't let Mr. Schachet fool you...he's only there for the baked potato bar! :) And here's a few photos of our kiddos trying out the new Dreambox App...and they are loving it! In other news, Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Z have been working hard to get us an Otterbox grant, and we are one of the finalists to present for the grant! What is this grant for? To supply a new innovation station for our school. This grant would award us almost $10,000, to purchase new technology for our school...a 3D printer, ozobots, beebots and more! To make our presentation booth the coolest one there, the kids worked hard today to create these videos in technology class about what they would do with the money, and why we should get it! We created it on flipgrid and we'd love it if you checked it out! Here is the link https://flipgrid.com/atgx0gw. Meanwhile, things are looking awfully spooky in the library as of late! Who doesn't love a great mystery or ghost tale?!? Thats right, Halloween is just around the corner, so why not get yourself a scary book and keep yourself up reading all night!
And if scary books aren't your thing, we have a bunch of new books that were added to the "New to the Library" cart this week...so there's lots to choose from! A HUGE thanks goes out to our PTO again for donating $150.00 to our library for new books!!! The kids are delighted with all the new titles we have on our shelves! Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Grades 2-5 have started back up in typing club! We created a new typing club account and would love it if the kids could access it at home 2 nights a week for some extra practice! Typing skills are a must in todays world, and it will definitely help the kids in the classroom. To log into the site, go to..... stoveprairie.typingclub.com The kids use their 5 digit school account number and then the password (they should know it, but if they forgot, they can contact me as a reminder). Here is a shot of the 2-3 class working in typing club...check out their fantastic form with both hands on home row! AWESOME! We also shared our slideshows with one another today! We learned some interesting things about each other, but most of all, that we all love puppies, kittens and pizza :) The kids can log into their google accounts at home and share them with you too. Some of them are incomplete, but then, we had Eco Week in there and we wanted to move on to some other activities, so they can work on them on their own time if they would like to complete them. They learned to navigate google slides though and they did a great job! Have a fabulous weekend!
P.S. Stove Prairie's schoolpay account has been set up if anyone is interested in making donations to our school! Please check it out and share with any alumni you might know! Thank you! https://www.schoolpay.com/pay/for/Stove-Prairie-Elementary-Donations/IdDww We have some new library books on display and the kids have checked out about 2/3 of them. The PTO has generously donated $150.00 to our library for books, so we have even more new books on the way! Nothing is better than to see a child excited about a book, and that's just what I've witnessed the last week as the kids have explored the "New to our Library" cart with total enthusiasm! I can't wait to see their faces when even more books line those shelves on the cart! Huge thanks to the PTO and all who participate in helping to raise money for our school...this is what it's all about!
This week the 2/3 class and the 4/5 class worked on their google slideshows. They are sharing some things about themselves while learning how to navigate google slides. They have practiced logging in with their google accounts (with their school emails), and we will continue to build their knowledge of the google platform. We plan to start typing club when the kids return from Eco Week, as well as share our slideshows, so stay tuned! The K/1 class continue to get familiar with their computers by logging on and off, and playing mouse games for motor control. Meanwhile some of the mountain school staff, along with other PSD employess, attended a Lego Robotics class on Saturday to learn more about the Lego Mindstorm EV3 Robots and Robotics Clubs, and here are a few of the pictures from the fun! We spent the day coding, exploring and creating and it was a great afternoon! I'm hoping to explore some of these concepts with the kids soon, and maybe even create our own Lego Robotics Club in the future, so stay tuned!
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Media/Tech FunI will be blogging about our weekly adventures in Media and Technology, so be sure to visit often! We're always doing something cool! :) Archives
October 2018
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