UNICEF Power Ups

Our kids are changing the world. We have joined with UNICEF to earn RUTF (ready to use therapeutic food) packets that are donated to malnourished children around the world. In order to unlock an RUTF packet, we are doing "power ups" in class.  The power ups are movement brain breaks.  We are getting exercise while helping others.  Amazing, right?  So far, our class has donated 5 RUTF packets through class power ups. We will continue to earn more every week.  It takes 10 power ups to earn 1 RUTF packet.

Further, for one month only, UNICEF and RAZ collaborated. Students could use the stars on RAZ to donate to UNICEF and release even more food packets.  By reading and donating stars, our reading champions were able to donate their hard earned stars to release 16 more RUTF packets.  Reading and making a positive global impact, yes please!

If you are interested in learning more about UNICEF's Kid Power Up program, you can watch a video by clicking here.  Follow that link and watch the video, and we will earn more points for our class.  How cool! Your family can have access to all the power ups and earn points for our class by creating a home account.  Follow this link: www.unicefkidpower.org/families-at-home and the steps below.  We would love to have you on our team!

Beach Week!

The weather didn't cooperate with my plans for beach week, but these kids brought the sunshine.  We had a great week learning beach style.  Thank you Troutmans for the decoration donation. The classroom was set up with all sorts of reading review stations.

The beach theme gave us a fun way to review important skills like context clues, prefixes, suffixes, figurative language, cause/effect, and genre.  Students rotated through 7 different reading stations each day. They worked extremely hard. Again, they were so into the theme, I don't think they even realized how hard they were working!

Of course, math was not left out of the theme. During math, we used Starbursts as square units to compare area and perimeter.  The students had to build different size and shaped beach towels according to certain given perimeters and areas.

One of the favorite activities was art! We drew a self portrait of ourselves in scuba gear. Then we did a bubble print/paint to stamp on the background of the water.  We made a mixture of water, dish soap, and food coloring. The artists used a straw to build up the bubbles in the cup, then put their paper on the top of the bubble mixture.  It resulted in a really cool textured background.

Hook, Line, and Sinker! April Fools

I got them good....twice!  We started April Fools with a long list of steps to work on silently.  The students were very diligent and worked hard at the tasks listed on their paper; however, direction one said to read through all the directions before beginning.  One of the last directions said it was an April Fools joke and they didn't have to do most of the jobs on the paper. It pays to read all the directions!

Right after they realized they had been tricked, I moved to the next prank....with a hunt to see the elusive Lirpaloof Bird.  The students learned some important characteristics like you can only see the bird at the beginning of April, Lirpaloofs like carrots, and, don't forget, you can not yell at the Lirpaloof.  You must sing to it.  The students read all about it in an article.  The students studied hard so that we would be successful on our sight seeing tour.

Unfortunately,  there were no lirpaloofs out when we were searching.  So, the students returned to the classroom and we decided to do some word work with April Fools.  We worked to find as many words as we could in the word Lirpaloof.  That is when it dawned on them....April fool backwards....Lirpaloof!  Gotcha! 

March Madness Book Tournament

Our 2021 March Madness Book Tournament is complete.  We started with the Sweet 16 and voted down to the Elite 8, then final four, and the championship round. Students followed the voting on the giant bracket in the hallway. It has been so fun to hear students talk passionately about their favorite books.

The second and third grade students participated to decide the 2021 book of the year. The teachers all read two books each day.  Then, the students voted.  Teachers added votes to a spread sheet and when all the participating classes had read and voted we were able to change the bracket.  Click on this link: 2021 March Book Madness List.  The link will take you to a document of all the tournament books in their Sweet 16 match ups.  There is also a brief description on each book.  You can check out the voting as well.

Ask your child about their favorites in the tournament.  We have been posting about our favorites to SeeSaw and practicing opinion writing.  Some of the books are funny and others are moving.  The students seem to be loving the true stories the most.  

In the final, we had The Book With No Pictures by BJ Novak and Emmanuel's Dream by Laurie Ann Thompson.  Here are two videos if you would like to hear the books at home. While our class voted for Emmanuel's Dream, the majority vote went to The Book With No Pictures.  It was a great tournament this year!

2021 Mystery Read-A-Thon

One of my favorite times of year....the Read-A-Thon!  This year was bigger than ever.  All Eagle Cliffs students participated, kindergarten to 5th grade.  The theme was mystery...

As defending champions, we were NOT going to let that trophy slip away.  The Magic of 3s worked so hard.  What an amazing team of incredible readers! The students were so motivated.  Here are some ways we encouraged each other and kept up our reading. Mrs. Niemeyer gave out snacks because reading is always better with snacks.  Students were also awarded a magnifying glass at 100 minutes, a fedora at 200 minutes and a trophy for reading three hundred minutes.

We also had dress up days through out the read-a-thon.  So fun!  One favorite dress up day was to dress as a favorite book character!

At the end of the read-a-thon, these connected combo kids read 14, 414  minutes in ten days! Two students read over a thousand minutes!  And.....EVERY.SINGLE.STUDENT...read the goal of 300 minutes or more.  Hard to beat 100% participation!  Best of all, I see true improvement in the students' reading.  The extra work has propelled them even further with meeting academic goals.  

The students were honored at a grade level assembly so that we could distance. Out of the whole third grade, our class had the the three reading minutes.  Further, one of our classmates was the second highest fundraiser for the entire school.  Thank you parents for your tremendous support both with fundraising and reading.  I am so proud of these champions.

Spy School

What better way to kick off the "2021 Mystery Read-a-Thon" than a day to train up reading agents at spy school.  These special agents worked through a series of reading missions to learn the combinations to several locks.  The main skill focus was identifying main idea and details in several short passages. The students were reading and analyzing text all day...they were truly on a mission!

In the end, students learned enough of the combinations to unlock the breakout box.  Inside the agents found secret spy pens and a confidential mini notebook. Okay, Agents, time to use your skills to win this year's read-a-thon!