Rainforest Explorers

B1-2 classes are learning that the rainforest is not just tall trees and cool animals--lots of medicines, spices, and foods such as cashew nuts, vanilla, chocolate, gum, and cinnamon come from there as well. Mrs. Croft's class is trying to figure out what these items are in the containers. The ginger root was a tricky one! This week we will make gum with real chicle from the rainforest.

Kindergarten in the Garden

K students have been learning the parts of a planta--semilla, raices, tallo, hojas, and flor. We've had fun acting out the parts as our body "flores" grow, and we have talked about different parts of the plant that we eat. Last week we ate cactus for the hojas--a new experience for everyone! Most said "Me Gusta!" This week, after reading Carlos and the Cornfield, we are eating semillas in the form of blue corn chips. Delicioso! Look at our beautiful coloring sheets of a jardin in our Friday folders.

Earth Day Activities

3-4 tech classes are finishing up an Earth Day powerpoint called "Save the World with the 4 R's". They are learning how to custom animate their text ideas for reduce, reuse, recycle, and refuse. We are also adding links to the virtual ribbon around the world--check it out at planetfesto.org My B1-2 Spanish classes are working on a Rainforest unit. For Earth Day, we are participating in the National Earth Day Groceries Project (earthdaybags.org) by decorating paper bags with Rainforest and Recycling messages in English and Spanish. Mrs. Green will deliver the bags to both local Krogers stores so that people can have their groceries packed in one of these custom bags instead of plastic. Here is Mrs. Sinclair's class with their finished products!

Market Day Commercial Preview

I'm slowly working at incorporating some web 2.0 tools into our tech classes; hence, this blog. Students have enjoyed my "guest speakers" made with Crazy Talk animations and now they will be able to create their own. As 3-4 gets ready for Market Day, I am planning on having each student make a poster advertising their good or service. We'll take a digital picture of the poster, animate it, add a voiced commercial, and combine the results with Windows Movie Maker into a "Minimall" movie for each class. I'll post the movies here for easy viewing. It should look something like this example: