There are so many reasons to celebrate this time of year. The holidays, of course, but in our school world we are celebrating the end of the 1st semester and all of the accomplishments, big and small, of our teachers and students.
Join me as we take a short visual journey through recent pictures of some of our amazing lower school students working and growing! (Did I mention short? Learning is so much fun that I forget to stop and snap pictures!)
First stop…
4th grade students worked with a partner or small group as they researched and chose a method to share and teach others about topics related to American history and as the title of the 4th grade play suggests, American Voices! Students chose ways to share their research in a variety of ways to be included on this mall covering timeline including: a graphic novel, a video blog, Google Slides presentations, diorama, posters, and so much more!
Next up…
Learn and eat!?!? I’m a little sad that I didn’t get to join class for this activity, but what a fun and engaging way for 4th graders to learn about the phases of the moon in Ms. Cosgrave’s class. This is one opportunity where the students can actually eat their work. No blaming it on the dog here!
And moving right along…
1st graders made direct fossils by creating petrified paper. They then explored trace fossils by creating footprints of our very own St. Andrew’s kid-o-sauruses in science class!
Speaking of 1st graders. Do you know the actual measurements of the Mayflower? Our 1st graders do! The 1st grade students, along with their teachers, joined me on the May Day Field as they worked on estimating, on a very grand scale, and then measuring out the length and width of the actual Mayflower ship. (Grand visions of creating parts of the ship like rails or the bow to scale danced through our heads, but alas, there just isn’t enough time in a teacher’s day to build a Mayflower replica, even if it would be made out of cardboard and paper. A teacher can dream, can’t they?)
Our next stop…
The 3rd grade students recently accepted a mission, Mission:Impossible, as they learned how to navigate the world of Google. Not just “googling” in the search engine, but the applications in the Google Suite. It can really feel like a scary and foreign land for beginners. The students acted out conversations with mission control to help remember keyboard commands on their chromebooks, and then used Google Slides as a tool to help collect information for their research project.
The research project mentioned above: Owls! 3rd grade students are building their background knowledge and developing research and writing skills as they discover and write about owls in preparation for their upcoming novel study of Poppy by Avi.
And our final stop…
2nd graders are discovering ways that writing, history, the nativity, art, nature, and technology can all come together in a super special and meaningful way. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, only a sneak peek here. These 2nd graders want to do the grand reveal at the end of the week.
I hope you enjoyed seeing and reading about a few of the special things happening in the lower school! The growth of our students is always something to celebrate!
-Mrs. Scott