Hide the Santa with Kate

Kate and her mom brought in some of their favorite ornaments and told us why each one is so special to their family. The Santa ornament is the one they use to play Hide the Santa! One family member will hide the Santa in the tree and whoever finds it will get a turn to hide the Santa next!

Kate and her mom passed out candy canes for us to take home and play Hide the Candy Cane! 

Lizzie the Snake

Mr. Bush showed us Lizzie the snake today. He taught us about cold blooded animals and how a snake's jaws unlatch to eat prey whole. We also got to pet the snake.

Emma's Nutcrackers

Emma dances in NABC's Nutcracker every year! She and her mom brought in materials for us to make our own nutcrackers after sharing the story with us. 

Jacob's Ornaments

Jacob and his family collect new ornaments each year! They brought in materials for each of us to make our own ornaments to take home! 

Ben's Chicago Weekend Tradition

Every year Ben and his family spend a December weekend in Chicago. They explore the city and eat at their fave pizza restaurant, Giordano's. They visit Christkindl Market, Lincoln Park Zoo, Macy's and several other favorite places. Ben and his mom made a bingo board of their Chicago visits to play with us! 

Ryan Shares About the Chinese New Year

Ryan and his mom told us about the Chinese New Year. It lasts 15 days and they wear red because it is the lucky color. They gave everyone chopsticks and a fortune cookie! 

Brody's Advent Calendar

Goodbye Miss Franz!

We have finished an entire week without Miss Franz. We miss her and have written some notes to her already! 

Design Challenge

Last week the kids were presented with a design challenge to work as a group and build a boat with specific requirements. 

Look at the submarine the boys built! 

Visit from Mrs. Denny

After writing a persuasive letter to Mrs. Denny asking to use the greenhouse, she stopped by for a chat! The kids explained the project they have been working on and told her their plans. Mrs. Denny told us to do more research on what plants we want to grow and make her a shopping list! Woohoo!

Turkeys and geometric shapes

Miss Franz has been teaching the class about angles and straight edges the past two weeks. They have learned to draw and identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, heptagons, and octagons. The kids have identified square angles and understand polygons. Today they used math to make art! 

Greenhouse planting!

After we shared our findings for favorite lunch foods we moved on to the next phase of our inquiry project: How do we get healthy foods?

The students brainstormed several options:

- go to a store

-order from a restaurant 

-go to a farm

-plant a garden

We discussed the pros and cons of each option until they agreed that planting a garden would be the easiest and most efficient way to get healthy food. Lucky for us we have a greenhouse, as one of the kiddos pointed out! We took a tour to see what we had to work with for our project. 

The kids were fascinated with what they found! We saw hoses, electrical blinds, tables set up for growing, and tools to plant. They also commented on how warm it was inside and how this would help the plants grow in the winter. 

Our next step was to write a persuasive letter to Mrs. Denny asking her to use the greenhouse. We included reasons and details why the greenhouse was necessary for our project. Mrs. Denny wrote back saying she wants to come talk to us!!

Presenting Data

The kids worked very hard analyzing their data that was collected from the students around the school. They created graphs to share the top food choices for lunch! We hung them in the cafeteria for the lunch team to view!