sutton007

An opportunity that couldn't be passed up presented itself this morning.   It seems that our local high school is hosting three exchange students from Germany who happened to be visiting our elementary school this morning.  They were good enough to come to our classroom and spend some time with us. When they entered our classroom we were preparing for our Mystery Skype call . They sat right down with the to help and guide the students as they worked to guess the state.  (Kansas has now been added to our growing list of Mystery States!). Towards the end of the day the three visiting students, Daniel, Maren & Esther, returned to Room 310.   They were given a list of color, number, food and sport words and asked to teach the students the German translation.  All of the students Americans and Germans enjoyed the experience.  It was an engaging and heartwarming activity. The fourth graders were so interested and curious about what life is like in Germany. ...

Grab your pogo stick and hop your way right into the Guinness Book of Records! That's what I think my students will be doing after our lesson on MAIN IDEA and supporting details.  The worksheet being used to review the skill had information about a gentleman who climbed up and down Mt. Fuji on his pogo stick.  Imagine the stamina and strength it would take to accomplish this feat! As the students continued reading they became fascinated by Ashrita Furman , the man who holds over a hundred other records in the Guinness Book of Records. The students started asking lots of great questions .  Why did he decide to break the records?  How many records did he break? Where is he from?  Why did climbing Mt. Fuji on a pogo stick bring inner peace? (the paragraph mentioned it brought Ashrita inner peace)  What is inner peace?  Is he still alive? Not realizing the interest this would spark , we decided to take a few moments to research this unusual record-brea...

by Tatiana Gerus on Flickr While waiting for my packets of state testing to be delivered to my classroom, amid the noise of scraping chairs and the whir of the pencil sharpener, one of my students approached my desk and shared the following with me.    "My family and I were looking up 'fruits' this morning before school.  We found that Mangos are the most popular fruit and did you know that there are 1000 different types of mangoes?" Hmmmm...actually, I didn't realize that.  As a matter of fact, I really never thought much about Mangos before now.  Since my little fourth grade friend was fascinated by the mangos and had learned so much,  I felt the need to check them out for myself.   Here is what I learned.... Mangos are grown in tropical climates. In the Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala and Haiti are the leading importers of mangoes in the US.  Mangos are a good source of dietary fiber and low in calorie.  The mango is the national ...

Crew of Apollo 7 (NASA photo) Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham may not be household names, but they are names that are now known in our fourth grade classroom thanks to one 10 year old girl and her Grandpa.  These gentlemen were the crew of Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo space flight!  Our young fourth grader shared a piece of their incredible story, but shared it through the eyes and stories of her Grandpa who was fortunate enough to see the end of Apollo's mission. In honor of Veteran's Day our class wrote letters thanking a veteran in our family (or neighbor).  My student wrote to her grandfather (who happens to also live with her) and he wrote back.  Not only did he write back but he sent in his yearbook from the ship on which he was stationed, pictures of that vessel and some amazing photos of Apollo 7 's splashdown from 1968! As this young lady shared the photos (via the class document camera) she spoke knowledgeably about each one of them. The photos were ta...

Making our way back to the classroom from Phys. Ed. the other day, one of the kindergarten teachers stopped my class in the hallway and invited them into her classroom.   I'll admit I was a tad bit annoyed because it was near the end of the day, and we still had some pressing things to get accomplished.  Quickly, my annoyance turned into absolute fascination !  Staring right at us was a momma eagle sitting on her 3 eggs waiting for them to hatch!  Talk about a 'Teachable Moment'! Well, our kindergarten teacher was actually projecting a live stream video feed of a bald eagle's nest sitting high atop a tree in Decorah, Iowa.   The ' Nest Cam ' is part of the  Raptor Resource Project whose mission is to "preserve and strengthen raptor populations."  Raptors are birds of prey. The eagle's eggs which were laid in February have an estimated hatching date of April 1st!      (This video created from a PowerPoint show produced by Colorado S...