Thank You, Veterans!

Josiah's dad came in to talk with us about Veterans Day.

He served our country for three years.

We had a lot of fun learning about life in the army and he answered lots of our questions!

Attention! 

At ease!

 He brought in pictures....

Shared about the different symbols on his uniform.....

He even shared a video of what it was like to jump out of a helicopter!

 We learned about how we can remember our soldiers.

We also learned about getting "coined."

We got a taste of what it is like to be in the army if you make a little mistake...

We did lots of push-ups and squats!

 We really enjoyed learning from our own personal Veteran!

Josiah's family must be so proud!

 Here is a video of the highlights.

Building a Log Cabin

We are in the middle of our read aloud chapter book, Little House on the Prairie.

We have had a lot of discussion about the Ingalls family went out west and what happened to the native americans as white settlers started taking over the land.  We recently got to the part where Pa builds their log cabin with his own two hands.

We got out the Lincoln Logs and built some log cabins of our own.

This was a great opportunity to introduce them to Dick Proeneke.  I shared the story of his life and his dream of living off the land in the Alaskan wildnerness.  He built his cabin from scratch using nothing but hand tools, just like Pa!

The DVD called Alone in the Wilderness shows us how he did this, so we can imagine how hard Pa worked just like Dick Proeneke.

If you want to learn more about Dick Proeneke, click here and here.  

As we watched the DVD, we learned that he was a writer (he kept a journal of his adventures) as well as a mathematician (he used lots of math in building his cabin).

Here are some highlights from the DVD.

What intringues you about the life of Dick Proeneke?

Getting Serious

At the end of our coalescing stage we started thinking about our audience and how we want to go public...who can learn from our research about animals? What information should we share with them? These are just some of the questions we pondered.

Steve Jenkins: Researcher, Author & Teacher

We have been doing a Steve Jenkins author study while we are doing our animal inquiry.  Steve Jenkins is such a great author and illustrator (and often works with Robin Page on his books), and we have really enjoyed his books.

These are just a few of our favorites:

By studying his books, Steve Jenkins has taught us to to think in different ways about our animals.

If you're interested to learn more about Steve Jenkins and his artwork, click on the video below!

Which is your favorite Steve Jenkins book?

Going Public

This month we wrapped up our in-depth space systems inquiry by "Going Public."  We shared our research with others, in order to teach them what we learned.

A few weeks ago, we thought about who we thought our audience might be...Who do we think needs to know about our important space research?  Room 408 made lists of people we wanted to invite and teach.

Next, we thought about what kinds of visual aides would help us teach others what we learned.  Then we got to work collecting "Big Ideas," painting posters, printing pictures, and creating!

We practiced by inviting Mrs. Oss' 4K class up for a "Gallery Walk."

Look what they noticed!

Finally, we were ready for the real thing!  Each research group presented two times last week.

Planets Research Group

Captive Audience

Sun Research Group

After presentations, the audience posted their learning and wonders.

Space Exploration Research Group

Moon Research Group

More new learning!

Stars/Space Junk Research Group

Soon I'll have the presentation videos ready to post.  They were so proud and excited to share their research.

Great work, Room 408!

Another Great Field Trip!

Today we went on a field trip that Mrs. Beyersdorf set up for us.  It was so cool to learn about all the jobs and work that is done at the Shawano County Highway Department.

You can come on the field trip with us by watching this video!

Officer Grignon: AKA, Logan K.'s Dad

For Sharing this morning during Morning Meeting Logan brought....his dad!  Logan's dad is a police officer on the Menominee Indian Reservation.

He was able to share lots of tools that he uses to help keep everyone safe.

I have never seen them so focused and attentive!

He uses sound waves to hear the dispatcher.

He carries lots of tools with him like a gun, taser, handcuffs, a knife, and pepper spray.

He uses a flashlight (light waves!) to see at night.

The kids especially loved the taser and the sound it made.

Thank you for sharing your time with us, Officer Grignon!

What was the most interesting thing you learned about police officers?