It’s October and that means pumpkins are everywhere! Pumpkins here. Pumpkins there. Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere! Big ones, fat ones. Round ones, flat ones. Small ones, tall ones. Orange ones, white ones. Green ones, blue ones. Bumpy ones, smooth ones. So many to choose from!
Let’s harvest them and bring them to school for some book character fun! Follow the detailed directions below to participate in the October Pumpkin Character Challenge.
Select a book you have read or want to read.
Choose one character from the story to focus on.
Create this character using a pumpkin. Please be sure the pumpkin is small enough to carry to school. You may decorate it, glue things on it, carve it, or paint it! Be Creative!
You MUST complete the book report below or your October Pumpkin Character will NOT be accepted.
Deadline for the October Pumpkin Character Challenge is October 14th!
Today is Scrabble Day! It celebrates the popular board game on the birthday of it’s inventor, Alfred Mosher Butts. Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a gameboard marked with a 15×15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary.
This Scrabble online free game is great practice for the real thing. Combine the letters into high-value words on a timer for the most points. Sharpen your vocabulary and memory skills with this fun, fast-paced word game!
To begin, go here and click the Small | Medium | Large under the picture. This opens the game in a pop-up window.
This week in library we shared the book titled, The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns. Bored and dissatisfied with his life, a triangle visits a local shapeshifter to add another angle to his shape. Poof! He becomes a quadrilateral. But then he gets greedy and keeps adding angles until he’s completely transformed. We really enjoyed this review of shapes and basic math concepts!
Newt, we were challenged to build a 3 dimensional triangle with a partner using Stawbees. Strawbees is a construction kit based on one simple unit that lets you connect straws to each other. Mrs. Narciso says they remind her of Tinker Toys!
This week in library we learned and practiced how to research using authoritative resources. We used print resources and digital resources to select 1 fact about a bird of our choice. The challenge for the month of May is to research a bird of your choice. If you would like to participate in the challenge….Once you have researched and learned about the bird, you will be ready to transform ordinary recycled materials into that bird!
Try this at home! Follow the set of instructions to fold your paper into the origami bird of your choice. Some of the links below have a video to help you!
Place your bird on the branches available throughout the library.
Learning about birds goes beyond researching print and digital resources. When we actually observe birds closely we see how they communicate eat, move and build their nests. Observing the behavior of birds is what scientists do! These scientists are called ornithologists. Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds.
Each day, bird watchers report tens of thousands of bird observations to citizen-science projects at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, contributing to the world’s most dynamic and powerful source of information on birds.
Anyone who likes to watch birds can participate in a citizen-science project. To get started, click here!
We have been to Philipsburg Manor where we saw many artifacts that taught us about how life was long ago. We have examined primary documents during our library lessons that taught us about how mail was delivered long ago.
Observe. Reflect. Question. Analyze the primary source document below. Discover, prove, and investigate your ideas. Leave a comment about your thinking below.
In library this week, we looked at primary source documents to discover how trains were used to transport goods. Students were asked to discuss what they saw. The Students provided evidence and made connections.
A 1903 silent, black and white film, Train taking up mail bag. The subject of this Postal Department documentary is “snatching” the mail bag from the suspended post by the railroad mail clerk. As the film begins, a man climbs the steps leading to the device that suspends the mail bag in the air. A train can be seen in the distance approcaching the mail bag. At the end of the film, the mail bag is just being snatched from the suspension device.
Students were provided a copy of the image, Men working in a railway mail train and asked to “Circle and label what you see that helps you guess where you think these men are working.” Analyzing primary source documents allows students to discover, prove, or investigate, their ideas. The thinking routines they use to make observations and reflections when analyzing visual primary sources are transferred to other academic areas.
Using a carousel protocol, students expressed their thoughts and ideas around a set of three early 1900s photographs of a horse-drawn U.S Mail wagon at a railway station, unsorted mail at the post office, and a girl handing a letter to the mailman in “A letter to papa” and then asked to create a time line.
In order to model the mail delivery observed in the primary sources, next week, the students will create his or her own postcard reviewing a book of their choice. The “postcard” book review will be mailed to the public library of their choice. The public libraries have agreed to display the ‘postcard” book recommendations. Take your child to library to ensure it was delivered safely!
