Pioneers

 Welcome to our Pioneer unit!  We started off with smart board activities for vocabulary instruction.  Students were able to choose the items they thought they would need for a trip across the country if they were a Pioneer!

Packing the wagon is half the battle.  Students had to make sure they were prepared for the long journey.

We read a variety of books about Pioneers in our small reading groups.

 Students are encouraged to use personal voice when writing.

We had a great time playing Pioneer Bingo.  Everyone won a prize.  Ask your child to tell you about some of the vocabulary words on this Bingo sheet.  You will be surprised how much they know!

Mrs White's class is writing a Day in the Life of a Pioneer Journal.  We made the journal out of deer skin (recycled paper bags) and twine.


Mrs. Guevin's class will be learning about the difficult travels on the Oregon Trail and the students will be documenting their life as a Pioneer on the trail.

We also have watched a few clips from Little House on the Prairie.  Click on the link below to watch a the clip we did in school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV-o59ffbic

Coming soon is our Pioneer day.  Parents come join us for a half day full of Pioneer projects.  We will be rotating through different classrooms to make log cabins, story quilts, play Pioneer games, make butter and pomander balls.  Don't forget to send an orange, cream and cloves in for the projects.  Pioneer day will be here soon!  November 29th

Water Filters

On Tuesday, we made water filters.We tested different materials to see what worked best to filter the really dirty water. Mrs. Guevin made filthy, disgusting, mucky water. The class collected old two liter soda bottles and reused them to make the filter container. Remember, always reduce, reuse, recycle!  We used sand, cotton balls, screens, rocks and paper coffee filters.  We all agreed that sand worked the best for cleaning the water.  Some children found that using cotton balls with sand also had a cleaning effect.   We used the Engineering design process!
          First, we asked a question: "How do we clean the water?" .  Then we imagined how to make a filter for the water.  Next, we made a plan by drawing a diagram.  Then we created it using the diagram.  After, we made improvements to our design.  We wrote in our science journal what we observed and wondered.

This post was written by our class!