Snowflake STEM Challenge by Michelle

Our class is making snowflakes.  Our teacher gave us a STEM challenge and said we’re going to be making…SNOWFLAKES.  We worked in groups of 3.  My group and I began to make our first snowflake.  We had to follow long directions.  I had trouble making the snowflake, but I finally got it!  Our teachers hung all of the snowflakes on our classroom bulletin board.  I think all of the snowflakes are great.  Every snowflake has 6 high points and 6 low points or we did something wrong if it doesn’t.  Some of the snowflakes have butterflies or hearts on them, but ALL of the snowflakes are different.  Some are small and some are big.  They make our classroom look beautiful!!!

Cursive Writing by Jake & Bella

Isn’t script so pretty?!?!?! We think it is. Guess what...a lot of schools have stopped teaching cursive writing. We know, we’re just as shocked as you are! Well in Room 217, cursive writing is making a comeback. It all started when our class read a Scholastic article titled, ”Should Schools Teach Cursive Writing?” Of course our class voted to see if we should learn cursive or not. It was a close debate, but we ended up LEARNING CURSIVE! Now every morning we learn at least one new letter of the alphabet in our cursive book. Luckily, our workbooks have QR codes that teach you how to properly make the letter of the day. We’re hoping by the end of the year, we’ll be cursive experts!!!! Our advice for you is to convince your teachers to let you learn cursive too!

What the holiday season means to us!

XtraMath Greatness by Austin & Connor

This is an easy one!

Have you ever gone on XtraMath???  If you haven't, you should try it! XtraMath is a computer program that helps us memorize our basic math facts. It's great for kids, and it makes us smarter.  XtraMath can help you before a big math test.  It gives you a whole bunch of multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction problems to practice.  If we’re finished with all of our classwork, we can log onto the computer and work on XtraMath.  

If you’re a teacher and you don't have much to do with your kids, you can set up XtraMath.  It will pick random kids in your classroom to practice their facts. Our class always does XtraMath first thing in the morning.  It gets us ready for the math activities that we’ll do later that day.  I hope you find XtraMath as fun as our class does!

Reading Buddies by Sofia & Matthew

Reading buddies are really AMAZING!!!  Our class pairs up with Mrs. Binns’ Kindergarten class every Thursday for about 20 minutes to read.  We get to pick new books each week to read to our reading buddy.  We each have a reading partner, and they’re the CUTEST little 5-year olds ever!!!  Each week we pick an easy book to read to our little buddies. This time of year, we’ve been reading holiday books!  We try to change our voice and use expression when we read to make it exciting.  We ask them questions to check if they’re listening.  Whenever our class gets to see our reading buddies our hearts MELT like snowmen just because they are so adorable!  Our reading buddies are amazing!  We hope by reading to our buddies that they will be encouraged and love reading as much as we do!!

Our Awesome Board by Hayden

Our Awesome Board is one reason why we do great work; we REALLY want to get our classwork or homework up there!  When the teachers know that we worked really hard, they hang our work up on the Awesome Board for all to see.  When my work goes up there, I know that my teachers know that I did a great job, and that I worked really hard that day.

You should create an Awesome Board in your classroom because it gives children lots of confidence.  When you see your classmate’s work up there, you want your work up there too!  And when you actually see your work displayed, it makes you feel more proud of your work.

Tis the Season to be Giving by Keira

Secret Santa is a good way to get to know the other kids in your class. This is the way I think we should do it in our class. First, everyone should write down their names on a folded piece of paper. Next, the teacher collects the papers and puts them in a hat. Then, each kid comes up, one by one, and picks a name from the hat. That kid is a Secret Santa for the person picked. The Secret Santa "makes" a special gift for the person they got; the gift cannot be bought. You can also give your person a special note or two that may brighten their day. Finally, the Secret Santa gives the gift and the Secret Santa is revealed. Everyone is surprised and everyone had fun. Our class will get to know each other even more. Our Secret Santa's in Room 217 will be revealed on December 21st!!!