Obi-1

I am so excited to share this cool and amazing origami project by Mrs. Smith that was completed during our challenge time.  They have taken a few weeks folding and carefully creating these origami kimonos during our study of China and Japan. 

Great idea & good brain stretching!!

Oh, What A Week!

We have had a very busy week, and next week looks the same.  Super achiever lunch was last Monday and kids watched a movie and munched cupcakes for a special treat.  Today was our celebration of Chinese New Year.  Students rotated through my class, Ms. Dewerff's & Mr. Wilson's, doing crafts, origami and a Chinese-themed work-out!  Dragon puppets are coming home tonight.  They were very interested in lion and dragon dances.  There are some links below.  Amazing!  Next week will find us busy too.  Please have your kids start bringing Valentines to school as soon as they complete writing their names.  I suggested that they could write a "warm fuzzy" to their friends on the card also.

Monday-dress rehearsal for the music program

Tuesday-all school dress rehearsal....

• 6:30pm in classrooms 
• Music Program at 7pm

Wednesday (normal day!)

Thursday-Valentine's Day

Friday-no school (February 15)

Monday-no school (February 18)

Links below are from youtube.com.  Please be careful when viewing content with your kids.  Sometimes innappropriate pictures or comments come up below or beside the video.  If you make them full screen, they cannot see the content of the page.  These are both worth watching!

Lion Dance

Dragon Dance

Plans for Tuesday

For calendar at 8:30
Weather



For Japan at 10:45
National Geographic Japan Guide

Yum!

Skyler's kind mom woke up early today to send a treat for us.  She made sticky rice and it arrived in our classroom still steamy-hot!  What a fun addition to our study of China.  Many thanks to Skyler and his mom!!

Chinese Folktale

Liang and the Magic Paintbrush

Videos for China

China

Nian-Chinese New Year

China Tour

This is China

Iowa Assessments Prezi

Iowa Assessments

Monday's PD

Blogging Away

Noodles

Mmmmm...Do you like noodles?  This is how they make noodles in China.  AMAZING!

New PWIM Poster

This airplane poster has given us many new words!  They have been great to write sentences with. We look forward to forming a paragraph and looking for letter patterns.  

Baby You're A Star!

Friday there was a Character Counts assembly for our next pillar!  RESPECT!  Students lined the entryway to the gym waving our yellow stars.  

We listened to Ms. Kleppe talk to us about how we can show respect to the 3 P's: People, Property, Pets.
Mrs. Lange brought both her dog and spoke about how we could show animals respect.  Mrs. Porsch told the story about how she rescued her dog.  

A New Year, New Challenges

2L started off the new year with a change in reading groups for a few kids.  They all returned with smiles and excitement in their eyes from a new room, new friends & a new teacher.  A fresh start can really be fun!  

Mrs. Smith was our first special today.  She really stretched our brains with puzzles involving multiple clues.

This morning we listened to CeeLo's Christmas album and made ornaments for our families.  They were tough!  But my smarty-elves worked together to complete the task!

Videos

Rudolph

Snowmen at Christmas

B.Bears Christmas

Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas

Santa Cookies

Ouch! You poked my eye!

The beautiful blue color is the retina.  You can see the clearish dirty cornea to it's' left.

The pinkish piece is the lens.  The jelly-like substance is the vitreous body from the center of the eye.  It helps the eye to keep it's shape.  The finger is touching the cornea.

Two sweet nursing students came from Iowa Central to help the kids dissect the eye.

The cow's eye dissection was the perfect ending to studying the eye.  Real life experience.  Students were so brave, all looking and touching. Little scientists!

And of course, Nurse Twyla.  Thanks for the gummy eyeballs Twyla.  What a weird treat following this activity!! :)