Gingerbread Houses!

We made foam gingerbread houses today and the students had so much fun! Here are some pictures from our adventure!

Four Winds: Rocks and Minerals

Jen and Bobbi visited our classroom today with Four Winds and they taught us all about rocks and minerals. We talked about the rock cycle and the three different types of rocks -igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.  We talked about erosion and how rocks change over many hundreds of years. We did lots of hands experiments including studying various rocks with magnifying glasses, classifying rocks, and we even made our own fossils! Here are some photos from our adventures!

It's Gingerbread Time!

We have started one of my favorite units, Gingerbread!  We are going to read various versions of the this whimsical story so that we can compare and contrast them. We are also working on telling the key story elements such as main character, setting, problem, and solution.  We have talked about new vocabulary words such as brazen, boasted, and sly.  We have a friend named Gingerbread Fred who has joined our class. Hopefully everyone will get to spend some time with him and complete a journal page for the class book we are making!  We are also hoping to earn the chance to build a foam gingerbread house just before vacation!  (I will be  asking for candy donations next week!) The students are very engaged in this unit and they are so excited to read the new gingerbread book each day!!

Burnham Library Visit

This afternoon, we walked to the Burnham Library with Mrs. Davis' class. The weather was chilly but our excitement was high!  We met Pam and Hannah at the front doors and we were ushered into the original part of the library. Hannah went over the history of the Burnham library and then went down to the children's section. We admired the new mural on the walls and we all took a close look at an exhibit that one of our students has loaned to the library.  Pam read us a silly story called "My Teacher Is A Monster" and then everyone had time to browse through the books and pick one to check out. Remember that these books need to be returned to the  Burnham Library, not to school.  Here are some pictures from our adventures!

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween party was a huge success! Everyone ate delicious food and we read one of my favorite holiday stories. Here are a few pictures from our afternoon!

Lake Champlain Watershed Presentation!

We've been busy learning all about Lake Champlain during the last few weeks.  We brainstormed 5 ways that the lake helps our town of Colchester.

1.  Water - we get our water for cooking and washing from the lake

2.  Recreation - we use the lake for fun like boating, hockey, swimming, and paddle boarding

3.  Tourism - people visit the lake and they bring money to our town hotels, stores, and restaurants

4.  Food - we can eat fish from the lake

5.  Exercise - we use the lake to stay healthy by swimming, kayaking, ice skating, or scuba diving

Yesterday, we had Stephanie Larkin from the Lake Champlain Basin Program, come and talk about ways that our town can harm the lake.  She brought a great watershed model of a town and each child  had the opportunity to "pollute" with food products that we pretended were pesticides, cow manure, oil, grass clippings, fertilizer, soil, and pet waste! We then had a spray bottle rain storm  and watched how the rain water carried these pollutants right into the lake! The kids were mesmerized by this great hands on activity!!  We then talked about ways to help keep the lake clean. We talked about protecting wetlands, using plastic bags for your pet waste, putting up fences around farms and houses, and planting trees and grass to keep soil from eroding into the lake.

                                Here's the watershed model that Stephanie used with the kids.

                                    We started to pollute the lake with "cow manure".

                                    We polluted the lake with oil from cars and machinery.

                                          The rainstorm is starting as a gentle sprinkle.

                                                          The lake is so polluted!

                               We added many buffers to our community to protect the lake!

Fire Safety Presentation!

This week is Fire Safety Week so we had a Colchester Fireman come into our class on Monday and talk about some fire safety tips.  We talked about the importance of practicing fire drills both at school as well as at home.  We learned that if your clothes catch on fire, you stop, drop, cover your face, and roll.  We also talked about if there is a fire in your house, you first feel your door for heat, then, if it's safe, you stay low and GO!  We learned about all of the various parts of a fireman's uniform and watched Fireman Jeff put each piece on. He explained how each piece of clothing keeps him safe and protects him from fire. The students had a lot of wonderfully insightful questions and our half hour with Fireman Jeff flew by! Here are some pictures from our presentation.

Four Winds - Sun and Shadows

Yesterday we had two amazing volunteers come into our classroom and teach us all about the sun and shadows!  We watched a great puppet show and then we talked about how the Sun stays still while the Earth rotates around it.  We  conducted an experiment to see if sunlight can shine through certain materials like wood, plastic, paper, water, and glass. We also looked at the shadow the sun creates as it moves across the sky.  Here are some photos from our wonderful afternoon.