Dot Day Fun!

September 15th is International Dot Day.  This is a day based off the story The Dot by James Reynolds.  It is a story of a teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities and be brave enough to "make her mark".  What starts with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, which has inspired adults and children to celebrate their own creativity on this day.  Each year, people all around the globe are encouraged to "make their mark" to show they can each be creative.  While the official "Dot Day" is September 15th, it can be and is celebrated throughout the month and longer.

Students in 3rd grade at Crestwood Elementary will be celebrating "Dot Day" with various art activities inspired from the story.  Students can also come to school dressed with dots on their shirts, pants, sweatshirts, cheek, etc. to fully celebrate creativity.  A note was sent home today sharing information about Friday.  I know it is going to be a wonderful day!  Stay tuned for pictures to be posted next week.

MAPs Testing....Two Down! One to Go!

I am sure many of you have heard that we have started MAPs/MISIC  assessments.  These are district assessments that students take in the fall and spring of each academic year to show growth and progress.  Being we are 1 to 1 with iPads, the students in grades 2-6 are doing their assessments on the iPad.  As with anything, the first time has lots of bumps and bruises, but the students survived and were very calm while our tech department and teachers smoothed everything out.  There are three test the students take: reading, language arts, and math.

Overall, the students have been trying very hard.  I am sure they will be glad though when the assessments are over (as I will be too and we can return to normal routine).

September 11....Always Remember

It was a day of learning about an important day in our history that was not that long ago.  Having been to Ground Zero soon after the attacks on September 11th, I wanted the students to understand the impact that day had on our country then and now (in kid friendly terms). We shared some great videos, listened and read some wonderful books, and shared our thoughts by creating a visual using the app of Doodle Buddy, which you can view on the students' blog pages.  The students had a lot of questions. I shared some pictures from my trip there a week after the attacks as well.  We ended our day with a super discussion about what a hero is and this will lead into a writing activity for tomorrow.

Here are a few pictures of the students working on their visual picture using Doodle Buddy.  It was a powerful day of discussion and caring.  I was very touched by the empathy the students showed.  Such big hearts!

The students also wrote a post about a hero to them.  Check it out!

Picture Day!

Just a reminder that school pictures are tomorrow.  Please remember to send your picture envelope with the necessary money for the order.  It is not required to order pictures if you do not want to but every child will have their picture taken for the class composite.

Smile big!!!

We are Building Our Stamina!

I am very impressed with the students and their Read to Self stamina to start the year off!  After 3 days, the students have already built their read to self stamina up to 15 minutes!!!!  That is great for the beginning of the year!  Keep it up 3B!  Let's see if we can get to 20 or 25 minutes by end of next week!
You can do it!

Will They Layer or Will They Mix?

Thank you to the students and parents for remembering to send our "liquids" to school.  Students did awesome learning about the scientific method through a hands on activity!  After I modeled what happens when you pour blue Gatorade, Diet 7-Up, and cranberry juice together (they layered), the students worked in small groups to decide what liquids they wanted to test out.  As they worked through this, they applied the steps of the Scientific Method that scientist use.

Here are some pics of the students working.  Most of the groups found that their liquids mixed, but there were a few that had some layer.

Congrats to the students who went home and discussed their findings with their parents.  Many parents were right on the mark with the correct answer:  It depends on the density (sugar content) of the liquids if they will layer or mix.  If they have are about the same density, they will mix.  If they are very different in density, they will layer.

Everyone is a super scientist!

What is Your Passion?

We have had our second "Genius Hour" of the week (we have this every Wednesday), and the students continue to be so excited about the whole idea behind Genius Hour.  This week I showed the following video to them to get them thinking about what they would like to learn about.



The students then made "Word Salads" listing some of the things they are passionate about.  We discussed what it means to be passionate about something and created a huge list.  You can see the students' "word salads (created by an app on the iPad) by checking out their blog pages at

     http://kidblog.org/mrskerians3B

We would love to have some comments so please take a look!

We are loving Genius Hour....stay tuned for great things to come!

Great Celebration Friday and 3 Day Weekend!

I hope everyone had a very nice 3 day weekend. Funny how we were all sweating last week and thought the heat would never let up, and today I am feeling like I better dig out the warmer clothes.  It is chilly!  I am not ready for the cold weather yet!

My 3 day weekend was wonderful and relaxing.  It was super to see so many of you at the game Friday

night!  Beautiful night for football......and the Cadets pulled off a win!  Go Cadets!  My family attended a beautiful outdoor wedding Saturday night before heading back up to our cabin again for a few days.  We don't get up there much in the summer because Elyse and Alex are in sports so we take advantage of it now whenever we can on the weekends.  I had to include this picture of my dog Norah sitting on the table out on the porch.  She loves to sit up there so she can see out over the water at what everyone is doing.

Now we are back at it ready for another great week.  This week we will continue to explore scientific question about if all liquids layer or mix when poured together.   We will also start building our reading stamina, apply our math skills, and dive into our passions!  I am very excited about the activities planned this week!

Here are a few pics from last Friday's award celebration.  I think everyone had a super time eating watermelon, dancing, and trying to dunk various teachers and community members in the dunk tank.  It was hot, yes, but great to be part of a super celebration.  It was quite an honor to have the Governor and Lt. Governor skype in to congratulate the school district on the Healthy School Award!  Pretty cool!

Remember to return your Cadet Nation order form if you have not done so.

Have a super week!

Genius Hour and a Message from Kid President

Another great day.....even better considering we did not have a break today for specials.  The students were troopers and had an awesome day learning, thinking, planning, and solving.

I introduced a part of our Wednesday schedule that everyone is very excited about.  It is called Genius Hour.  Instead of me explaining it in writing, you can listen and watch this short video to learn what Genius Hour is.  Basically, it is time set aside to learn about whatever you are passionate about.  Watch the video below to get an idea of what it is.



I also showed the following video titled "A Pep Talk from Kid President".  This is one of my favorite videos with a very powerful message.  We spent a lot of time discussing the message behind this video. I was so excited that the students walked away with the message that "You were born awesome!".  LOVE this video and message!

Becoming Bloggers!!!!

We are working our way to figuring out all the "details" of posting on our student blog pages.  Today we learned about posting comments on other blogs.  It is great that we have a connection with a class from China and we can share blogs with one another.  The students thought it was so cool they were blogging with students from around the world!