Today, the children had their last session with our Artist in Residence.  Their last session included an opportunity for the children to make a connection to our “One Book, One Year” theme.  We have connected many things this year, with a red thread, which was a big part of the Grace Lin book we read as a school.  The children were given a white rock with a red line running through it, that they placed somewhere near their animal/insect habitat.  The children also placed red rocks that first graders painted, along the path, to help guide visitors along the path.  This was their last chance to finish up their animal/insect habitats, as well.  The kids are excited to share their experiences and hard work, with you!

We have been working on a biome research project.  The children were given an overview of six different biomes.  They then chose which biomes they were most interested in finding more information on.  Once they selected their biome, they compiled information from two web-based resources.  The first being Pebblego.  The children are very familiar with this resource, as we have used it previously, and the children have had some free time to explored it as well.  On Wednesday, we used a source called Factcite.  This web resource has text that is a little more complex, so we worked with our book buddies to take notes off of this website.  The children have done a great job exploring both these sites.  We have also used some text resources, as well.  I’m proud of the children for being so focused and engaged through this process.

In class, we have been reading and learning all about landforms.  The children have created some pretty great maps, including several landforms.  On Friday, we had some fun with salt dough.  The children created three dimensional landform maps of their islands, including several landforms.  Their maps look pretty great, and they had a lot of fun creating them.

We had a wonderful afternoon, getting our bodies moving and our hearts healthy!  Mrs. Moulton set up four stations in the gym, for our Jump Rope for Heart time.  The kids had so much fun rotating through the stations.  Everyone was engaged, smiling, and even sweating a little, by the time we were done.  We raised a great deal of money, for an excellent cause!