Monday, March 31, 2014

Curriculum Night - American Treasures

Wednesday, April 2nd 5:30-7:00PM
Each class has been involved in a unit of study around an American Treasure.  

  • Pre-K -  Pioneers
  • Kindergarten - American Breadbasket
  • 1st/2nd - US Presidents
  • 3rd/4th - National Parks
  • 5th/6th - Ellis Island
  • 7th/8th - US Constitution
Come to curriculum night for the culminating events of our units.  Upon entering the school you will be given a program that lays out the evening's events.  Some students will have booths ready to explain and answer questions, others have performances, and yet others, like kindergarten, will have you participate in activities.  Refreshments will be served in the cafeteria.


Friday, March 28, 2014

Hint #7 - Some Artists Paint the Things Around Them They Think Are Important

Addison Taking Her Time With a Farming Landscape
On Wednesday we drew pictures of tractors with Mrs. Jochem in Art class.  We see a lot of tractors in our area and we decided that they were important because they make the farmer's job much easier.  The American artist, Grant Wood liked to draw the things around him that he thought were important.  We read Grant Wood, The Artist in the Hayloft yesterday and saw that he painted a lot of farming landscapes.  Today we tried our hand at landscapes, using repeating patterns for the field.  


We watched this short video in class today.  The students especially enjoyed the end, so I told them I would post it on our blog.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Hint #6 - Plants Need Sun, Soil, Water, and Air to Grow


Wheat Sprouts: Day 9
US Map Labeled with Major Landforms

Mrs. Weronko's Lunch Club


When I was gone yesterday visiting another school's Leadership Day, I asked our sub, Miss Fry to leave me the names of any students that were exceptionally cooperative.  Congratulations Harry and Lilie on your proactive behavior!  They were rewarded today with the privilege of eating lunch with me in the classroom.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Purple Day March 26th


Monster cookies, balloons, and prizes for individuals and classes with the most purple.  To learn more about epilepsy awareness visit www.purpleday.org

SMS Fish Fry Classroom Silent Auction


It has become a tradition for classrooms to provide items for the silent auction at the St. Mary Lenten Fish Fry.  This year Kindergarten has a framed poster titled "When We Grow Up," which shows each child from the 2014 Kindergarten class dressed in their desired career in a black and white photo.  The poster is 11"x14" without the mat or frame.  This is a one of a kind original and there will not be any duplicates printed.  Bids can be made any time during the St. Mary Fish Fry April 4th at the KC Hall. All proceeds go directly to Friends of St. Mary School (FOSMS).  This item will be on display in the classroom until the day of the auction.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Legos as a Math Center

Thomas is following the directions to build the construction site in our new Lego Juniors.
We have always had Legos as one of the choices during Activity Centers at the end of the day, but with the introduction of the new Lego Juniors, Legos are now one of our math center choices during small group math time.  We have a castle and construction sets and students can work alone or with one other student to follow the directions and build 3 different items from each set.  Using visual discrimination to work with these 3D shapes is an important skill for kindergarten students.  Creativity and open ended projects are still enjoyed during Activity Centers.

Farmer Steve and the Theory of Farming Economics

Hint # 5

As part of our study of the American Breadbasket, we are exploring the basic economics of working for money to buy the things we need.  At the same time we are solving addition and subtraction word problems, a kindergarten learning standard.


Farmer Steve has 5 acres to grow his wheat.



Each day Farmer Steve (a fictitious character) presents us with a new step in the cycle of income and expenses.  First he buys the seed, then harvests and sells the wheat, pays his bills, and finally has a few dollars left over for fun.  The students are working in pairs to illustrate their thinking in solving the math involved in each step in this process.

Protecting God's Children


The spring offers many opportunities for you to volunteer in your child's classroom.  We will be taking a field trip to Roger's Bakery and Koch's Dairy Farm and are planning some fun whole school activities for the last day.  Don't let the fact that you have not taken the Protecting God's Children class get in the way of you sharing these experiences with your child.  A spring class is being offered on Monday, March 24th in the school cafeteria at 6:00 PM.


Kindergarten Round-Up

Do you know a student not enrolled at St. Mary School that is entering kindergarten in the fall?  Please invite them to our Open House and Kindergarten Round-Up.  Our current kindergarten class will be participating in Moving Up Day visiting Ms. Saxer's First Grade classroom.


Thursday, March 13, 2014

The "H" Brothers


As you well know, we have been working with the consonant digraphs CH, SH, WH, and TH.  To help students remember the sounds, we have been using the silly story below.  It seems to be a fun way to make associations for the sounds.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

A Picnic in the Snow!


While grades 2-8 were gone on their field trip today, Mrs. Clarke treated Kindergarten and First Grade to a special lunch.  It might be snowing outside, but we enjoyed a picnic inside with hot dogs and corn on the cob.  She even had a special surprise dessert of iced graham crackers and vanilla ice cream!

Thank you, Mrs. Clarke!

American Treasure Hunt - American Breadbasket

Ms. Sara Showing Us Golden Wheat

When Roan brought in his treasure hunting gear last Friday for sharing and I realized how crazy the kids were about treasure hunting, our curriculum night study transformed into a Great American Treasure Hunt looking for the American Breadbasket.  Here are the hints we have collected so far…


  • Hint #1 - Whole grains are healthy foods.
  • Hint #2 - We live in the United States of America.
  • Hint #3 - Some of the landforms in (or bordering) the United States are mountains, canyons, plains, lakes, oceans, deserts and forests
  • Hint #4 - The seeds from wheat can be ground into flour which we use to make all kinds of breads and pastas.

Ms. Sara and Ms. Dana from the Brown County Bureau helped us with Hint #4 on Tuesday.  They shared Soil Sammy with his shock of hair made of newly sprouted wheat and golden stalks of mature wheat.  They read the book From Wheat to Pasta.  We got to grind wheat kernels into flour and make necklaces out of different types of pasta.  We leaned a lot about wheat which took us one step closer to discovering the American Breadbasket.

Drew Using His Muscles to Grind the Wheat

Making Pasta Necklaces

Kayla Grinding the Kernels of Wheat into Flour

Work those muscles, Lilie!

Making Pasta Necklaces (There's Soil Sammy in the lower left hand corner!)

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

American's Breadbasket - Week 3

AMERICA'S BREADBASKET
What is it?
Where can I find it? Can it be found in one of the landforms we learn about?
Why is it an American Treasure?

American Landforms

This week our focus will be on landforms found in the United States.  Students may appreciate the good rich farmland of the central plains if they understand other types of landforms as well.  We will be making a class map of the United States and labeling some mountains, canyons, lakes, rivers, desserts, forests, and plains.

Each part of our great nation offers something to the people who live there.  We will be reading Town Mouse Country Mouse by Jan Brett and looking for advantages and disadvantages of each home.

Next week we will be exploring wheat production.  

Recording Our Journey in Learning


Thomas' Architectural Masterpiece
(Who would want to knock it down without a picture first?)

While it is a blessing that our classroom has one iPad for each student, as a teacher it is also a huge responsibility.  How can I best use this investment to aid my group of concrete learners? One way that we have been using our iPads lately is to document our learning.  When the students have done something spectacular that they cannot take home, they take a picture on their iPads and then using the app Showbie, they share it with me.  It is also a way that I can document work done in independent groups and hold the students accountable.  These are some of the pictures I have received.  I am in the process of figuring out a way we can share these at home.

Alivia composing numbers 11-20 in small math group

Harrison building sight words with play-doh ropes

Alivia building sight words with play-doh ropes