Field Day, STEM Day, Arcade Day 2013

Hello to my favorite parents!!  We have had such wonderful weeks of late...here is a quick run down, some reminders,  AND a great video capturing lots of our fun memories!

Over the past couple weeks we have been very involved in two particular projects...play production and our own schoolwide STEM project...the arcade games.

First, our plays.  While learning about all of the important features of a play and how they play a role (no pun intended) in producing an excellent play, we read LOTS of plays.  Then came the hard part...deciding which plays to perform...and the even tougher job...trying to get the part each student wanted!  Alas, we chose THREE plays and most students were very content with their parts.  As you are aware, they have been practicing quite a bit in order to be ready to present the plays for you all this WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12th from 9:15 am - 10:30 am.  We hope you can join us!  We will have a dress rehearsal on Tuesday, June 11th...but most of the kids have their costumes at school already, so no worries there!

Our STEM project has been so much fun!  We watched a video about a 7 year old boy named Caine who lives in East LA...he created an arcade out of cardboard one summer while hanging at his dad's shop.  Long story short, a man who creates documentary films found Caine...and Caine's Arcade was born!  The students were very inspired by the 8 min video and then began the STEM process of planning, imagining, creating, changing, and eventually producing an arcade game.  All along the kids knew their audience would be their kindergarten buddies.  They were so wonderful planning the appropriate heights, distances, etc.  They even brought in "recycled" toys and created goody bags.  All in all, that day was one of my most proud as a teacher...the joy on the faces of the kindergarten students as they played these games and earned tickets...was almost as great as the joy on the faces of your kids as they taught their buddies how to play and watched their hard work be enjoyed.  It was quite a moment for me!!

Of course, we've done many other things, too...we stopped switching for math last week, but our class worked on area and perimeter and designed our dream bedrooms!  We've been continuing our work with functional documents, and of course, Writer's Workshop!

I really can't believe we have four and 1/2 days left...I am going to miss this group of kids more than you know...it has been my absolute pleasure teaching them.

Enjoy the movie below...it was a labor of love...just click on the link, "Field Day, STEM Day, Arcade Day 2013"

Field Day, STEM Day, Arcade Day 2013