Prayer list

In our prayers for the week of April 27th:

• Chaz's family
• Pastor Barbey
• COVID-19  :  Doctors, nurses, those who are ill, the President and the Governor
• Chaz's friends as they travel
• All of us keeping safe
• Landen's foot
• Thankfulness that Raya and Atleigh's injuries are healing
• Galen's family (Ms. Montoya's cousin.  His wife just died on Sunday.)

Nerf gun fun!

I know that most of you have a nerf gun collection.  I found some fun things you can build to play with your nerf guns.  I thought I would share these ideas with you.

Here is a spinning target that you can practice your nerf shooting skills on.  I like how the targets here spin when you hit them.
https://frugalfun4boys.com/spinning-nerf-targets-diy-cardboard-toy/


If you have some empty water bottles and some ping pong balls you can try this idea.
https://frugalfun4boys.com/ping-pong-ball-nerf-targets/


For this you would need helium and balloons.  You set up a balloon target range.



Here is a different type of target to practice your nerf shooting skills.
https://frugalfun4boys.com/swinging-nerf-targets/


Of course you can always just use some plastic cups, and set them up for targets.

National Book Day

April 23rd is National Book Day.

Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland

I have to say I am happy to celebrate a book holiday.  I was very interested to find out how many book related holidays there are.  So my challenge to my 3rd and 4th graders is to let me know what their favorite book is.

I know this is an ever changing list.  At least for me, I would see this question as somewhat unanswerable.  I have way too many favorite books.  In truth, I am not even sure I could do it.  I might be able to choose a favorite author.  But even that doesn't seem a fair question to me.

Favorite picture book author.  Author who's books touched me the most.  Favorite book/author today?  What about last week?  Or last year?  Did I have a favorite book in 3rd or 4th grade?  Do I pick an author as my favorite because I have actually met them.  Sometimes that is how they get on my favorite list, I meet that at a convention, listen to them talk, and hear about their work or writing process.  Which book or author made me love books?  Or was that my parents?  If it was my parents, what book did they read to me?  What is my favorite book that I read to my children?  Was it the same book for all of my kids or did each one bring a new favorite to my world?  Which book have a read over?  Which book to I give to others?  Do I read a book to my class because I love that book and have to share it with them?

I am just sitting here looking at the cursor blink trying to think of my favorite book/author.  Just ask my students how many times I share a book with them and say, "This is my favorite author."

National Book Day!    Party at Ms. Montoya's house!  Bring your own book, or pick one off of my shelf, find a pillow and lets read some words!

Here are some of our favorities:
Atleigh - The Babysitter Club books
Cason - The Big Game
Chaz - How to Eat Fried Worms
Raya - Dogman
Landen - The Refugee
Eli - The Compound
Jack - Harry Potter
Ms. Montoya - Good Omens (This is one of my favorites today.)
Ella - Septimus Heap series

Fun things to do or watch today.

Here are a couple of interesting things that are happening in the next day or two.

You can go outside and watch the Lyrid meteors.  My kids and I went and laid in our yard last night to watch these shooting stars.  The first one we saw last night was the best and most beautiful one we have ever watched.



Rocket launch is happening today.  SpaceX is going to launch at 5:30 pm today.  I am sure I will be watching this.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-6-satellite-constellation-launch-webcast.html?fbclid=IwAR06CB3R-lEfMFqaZCQQbnQE3Ql5A5HZWQI4scM6rwQuFUjoG5SCHMygAYg


Lego and NASA are teaming up to celebrate Earth Day.

Earthlings, assemble! 🌍

We’ve teamed up with LEGO to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and we have a challenge for you: BUILD YOUR OWN PLANET! Share your creations using #LetsBuildTogether and #EarthDayAtHome so we can see your masterpieces!

Toilet Tube Characters

We were all given a task of creating a character either from a book we have read, or one we have written.  This character will be made using an empty cardboard toilet tube.  I can't wait to see what we have all come up with.

Chaz's character

Chaz created this character.  He is Tomato Head from Fortnight.















Ms. Montoya created this character.  Her name is Beria.  She is one of the main characters from one of my novels that I have written.  I wrote about Beria when I was in college.  She is the youngest in her family, and has 5 older brothers.  She wanted to be like them and learn to weld a sword.
















Raya created this character.  She made a Minion.












Eli made this character. 

Prayers for the week

This has been a very strange 4th quarter of school.  It is hard to imagine that we are nearly finished with school.  We are so thankful that all of our families have remained healthy and safe during these past weeks.  We have had blessing of new babies, and birthdays to celebrate.  As well as Easter, our biggest blessing of all.

Here are our special requests for the week:

• Zari and Raya's family
• Pastor Tim and his family
• Cason's aunt is sick
• All the families who are at home
• All the people who work at stores
• All the doctors and nurses
• Landen's great grandpa
• Landen's Aunt
• Landen's Aunt's cat
• All the farmers in the fields

Kites! Kites! Kites!

Time to build a kite!

I want you to research the type of kite you would like to make.  There are many different kinds and types.  Then find the supplies and get started building.  You may make more than one type, in fact it would be a good idea.  Find out which is the best type.  Or use different materials to see what works the best.
Then fly your kite. 
Take pictures.
Write a couple of paragraphs about your kite.  Why did you choose this type?  How did you build it?  How did it fly?  What would you do differently if you made another kite?


As I get pictures and paragraphs from you, I will add them to this blog post and to the school's Facebook page.

Please have your kite finished and flying by next week.  Make as many kites as you would like.
And have fun!

Here is a great site that I found.  You can get started here.  But look around and see if there are other good instructions.  If you find something great, let me know, and I will put the link here to share with the rest of the class.

Landen's kite

https://www.my-best-kite.com/how-to-make-a-kite.html



Landen's Kite.
I made it from my own design.  I chose the diamond shape.   I used a trash bag for the kite.  It could fly, but it never got very high.








Jack's Kite
  I chose a delta kite because it looked cool. To build it, first, I got the materials. Then, my grandma looked up how to make it on YouTube. Next, my dad helped me put it together. Last, I tried to fly it. We tried different locations to get enough wind, but it just kept flying in circles.

  It might have flown in circles because the dowels broke, it needed another stabilizer, or more/longer tails. Another problem we had was that the string was wadded up too loose.

We tweaked the design, adding a dowel across the bottom, adding two lower stabilization points, 

and it still flew in circles. 

Eli's Kite

This kite is made with square dowel and plastic.  Alexis helped to decorate the kite.

Cason's Kite

This kite is a diamond shaped kite.  it is made with boards and plastic.  It was mostly low flying.  It did fly in circles.

Chaz's Kite

THE MBK 2-SKEWER Delta 

It’s a 7 piece kite I used a trash bag for the sail and keel and string and 9 skewers and scissors

Here are some of the directions from the website.The first thing that we did was gathered supplies.then we marked the dimensions for the sail. Then I used scissors to cut it out. We taped the edges.We cut the skewers to 29 inches. We glued the skewers together. We took the skewers and put them on the bag and taped them on to the bag. We took another skewer and tied it to the other two skewers with string. Then to make the keel, mark out a triangle on the plastic trash bag, as per the dimensions. Once the bag was marked I cut it out then we put the keel on with string and 4 holes.The keel is what the string is connected to the string 

Raya's Kite

I made the kite out of four pieces of card stock ribbon string and tape. It surprisingly did to take long. But when I tried to fly it. It would spin and go up in the air a little bit. Oh and most importantly straws for the base.

Atleigh's Kite

Here is the Rainbow Racer!  She took flight for about 20 seconds and nose dived!  But she does fly.