Saturday, September 27, 2008

Field Trip Fun and Homecoming Parade

Students attended the Annual Prairie Land Heritage Days in Jacksonville on Friday. We had beautiful weather for our day outdoors. Upon arriving students compared long ago to today by viewing a blacksmith shop, general store, various types of transportation including tractors, and a museum housing rooms such as a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, a vet and doctor's office. They also toured an old church, working barn, and an old one-room school building. They observed lye soap making, wheat weaving, quilting, and cutting trees into lumber. Rides were definitely a highlight of their day. They had many to choose from such as the steam engine train, bumpy wagon ride, bumpy pole ride, horse-drawn wagon ride, and were even able to drive a tractor themselves! Souvenir money could be spent on fields full of flea market items or simply on tasty treats such as kettle corn, homemade ice cream, elephant ears, corndogs, and soda. We witnessed a Civil War scurmish and some of us rode the train with Abe Lincoln. Our parents and WHE cafeteria cooks prepared great sack lunches for us to enjoy at lunch. Mr. Hoesman arranged for us to be able to leave Prairie Land and get back in time to take in the NGHS Homecoming Parade. We enjoyed the many floats, band, other entries, and seeing our high school friends and family. It was a perfect way to end a perfect day!

Thank you to all the wonderful parents who chaperoned small groups of students and helped us compare long ago to today. We learned so much with your help. Thank you for sharing your day with us and taking the time to help us learn. We appreciate it very much!

Homework for next week was sent home on Thursday. It is due Friday, Oct. 3.
Remember to checkout the homework link on the WHE website if you need to know our homework assignments.

Midterm Progress Reports were sent home Friday.

Students will be using their experience at Prairie Land to write a paragraph next week during writing class. We will be using photos to jog our memories. Students will publish their work by displaying it in the hallway outside our room when it is completed.

This week in math, we worked on strategies for addition such as the nine-shortcut, plus one, minus one, and doubles. Students also honed their skills playing math games on the computer that coordinate with our math book.

We began our new unit of science about animals by learning our new vocabulary words in preparation for reading the chapters next week.

We are looking forward to the Scholastic Book Fair next week. We love to buy books!