Monday, March 30, 2020

Ninja Poems


Last week, I read a different Ninja picture book from Ella's collection each day.  We listened for Ninja-like words and also for rhyming words.  Then our job was to make Ninja poems.

Here are the poems that the 3-4th graders wrote.

                                      Ninja
                       Black                  Red
       Running               kicking             Jumping
                  Ninja's Kick and Jump
      Sneaking               Peeking            Working
                       Yellow                 Blue
                                      Ninja

By Landen


Ninja Linga likes to play
with her little brother
Tat Tat.

By Atleigh


Ninjas are fast and quick as can be.
So be careful  Hehe.

By Atleigh


Ninja Nally is naughty
and not nice.
She is nine and she hates nuts.

By Atleigh



                            Ninja
         Silent                            sneaky
Sneaking          Running               Jumping
                Ninja in the night
getting                Fighting                Kicking
          Block                       Quick
                        Shadow

By Jack


Ninja running now
Ninja stealthy in the night
his mission complete.

By Jack

Ninja sneaking on the wall
he's the worst of them all

Ninja, running in the night
Sneaking, looking, finding.

By Jack


By Chaz

By Chaz

By Chaz

Newspaper Tower Challenge

Newspaper Tower Challenge


You are to build the tallest tower with these 5 pieces of newspaper.  It must be free standing.
(not attached to the floor, wall, or anything else.)


You may not use tape or glue to hold it together.  Find a way to do it with only the paper.  


You may cut, fold, roll the paper into any shapes.


Parents and siblings are allowed to help with this project.


When you are finished take a picture of your newspaper tower and send it to me (text or email). 
I will then add your picture to your blog and Facebook.

This is the Challenge that I gave the 3-4th graders. We have done this before in our Tech time with the 5-6th graders. Then they were given a time limit. I will be adding the pictures of the towers as I receive them.

The first to send me the tower picture was Atleigh. Way to go Atleigh! This is some amazing work.

 
69.5 inches
















Here is the second tower picture. Super Job! It looks very stable. 64.25 inches









Here is our third tower. Wow, Raya! We are all getting pretty tall towers. 65.4 inches























This is our 4th tower. Chaz, that is amazing! 81 inches!






















Time for our 5th tower. Eli built a tower that stands 59 inches tall. These are so much taller than the ones we built with the 5-6th graders. I am super amazed!




Here is tower number 6.  I love the flag, Cason!  That was a great addition.  70 inches tall







Prayers for the week of March 30th


On our hearts this week:                                                                      Praying Hands Free Stock Photo - Public Domain Pictures








Here are a few of the people or things that we are placing in our Lord's hands.  Please add any new items to the comments so what we can pray together.

Izaiah's family
Elli's family
Atleigh's arm
Chaz's grandparents in MN
Ms. Montoya's parents
The Montoya family as David (my kids' uncle) died this weekend.
Landen's Grandpa fell this week.
Eli's Great Grandma broke her hip.
Eli's Great Grandma is having her 95th birthday. 

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Explore the stars!



I have a couple of things to share with you today.
500+ Beautiful Night Sky Pictures | Download Free Images on Unsplash
Here is a link to the Mueller Planetarium in Lincoln.  They are planning on putting up a couple of videos a week while we are at home.  This link should get you to the first of these videos.

https://www.facebook.com/unlplanetarium/


They also have a lot of other things on their Facebook page.


The software that they talk about in the video is something I showed you in school.  It is Stellarium.  I love this software and have been using it for years.  I look at it before going out with my telescope so I know where to find things.  I have also used after looking at the stars to see what I have 'discovered' with my telescope.

Here is a link to an online version.
https://stellarium-web.org/

Here is the link to the downloadable FREE software program.  Have your parents help you, if you are going to download the software.  They can choose the version that will work on your computer.  The choices are across the top of the website.  There is also a users guide that can be downloaded.
https://stellarium.org/

This is a fun program.


Here is another site I found.
https://bit.ly/2vPE7xg


And one more.
https://bit.ly/2JhZM4e

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Recipes


pink heart shaped sugar cookies




Confetti Cookies  (These are the cookies Ella just made this week.)

4 tablespoons butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 teaspoons of milk
3/4 cup and 1 tablespoon flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 greased cookie sheets
small cookie cutters
For the icing:
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons warm water
red food coloring

Preheat oven to 350~.


1.  Put the butter and sugar into a large bowl.  Beat them until they look creamy, then add the egg yolk and beat it in.

2.  Stir in the honey, vanilla, and milk.  Sift the flour and cornstarch into the bowl, then start to mix everything with a spoon.

3.  Then, use your hands to squeeze the mixture until you make a ball of dough.  If the mixture is a little dry, add a drop of milk.

4.  Sprinkle a work surface with flour, then roll out the dough until it is about 1/4 inch think.  Use the cutters to cut out shapes.

5.  Put the shapes onto the baking trays.  Then squeeze the scraps into a ball, roll them out again and cut out more shapes.

6.  Bake the shapes for six to eight minutes, then carefully lift them out of the oven.  Leave them to cool on the baking trays.

7.  To make icing, sift the powdered sugar into a bowl and mix in the water.  Spoon half of the icing into another bowl.

8.  Cover one bowl with plastic food wrap to keep it from drying out.  Then, mix a drop of food coloring into the other bowl.

9.  Spread half of the cookies with white icing.  Then, spread the others with pink icing and leave the icing to set.


Ninjabread Cookies

Sift into a bowl and mix:
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
Image result for ninjabread cookies1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Beat together in another bowl:
1 egg
2/3 cup dark molasses
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons softened butter


Add dry ingredients slowly to wet mixture until well blended.  Cover and refrigerate for one hour.  Preheat oven to 350~.  Sift flour onto your board and rolling pin as you work to keep the dough from sticking.  Roll out in portions of dough 1/4 inch thick.  Cut out your gingerbread men with a floured cookie cutter.  Place one inch apart on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake 8 minutes, or until slightly firm to touch.  Cool on wire rack.  Decorate with frosting, raisins, and candies to create your own Ninjabread cookies.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

New Activities


I will try to keep updating the blog with interesting and fun things to learn and do.  Here are a few for today.


Art: 
This is a large group of art / drawing videos.  Some of the 3D projects are amazing.  If you are looking to draw something new explore these videos.

https://www.youtube.com/user/poendrawing/playlists


Music:
I was playing around on this Chrome Music lab.  I think my favorite part was the "Song Maker"  I was having fun making my own songs.

https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Technology



PE: 

https://www.gonoodle.com/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc1Ag9m7XQo


https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyCLoPd4VxBvPHOpzoEk5onAEbq40g2-k


Lego Challenge:
Image result for Lego challenge ideas

Monday, March 23, 2020

Prayers for the week of March 23rd


Image result for praying hands imagesGod is always with us no matter what is going on in the world around us.  The last couple of weeks have been very strange.  But we know that God is still holding us in his hands.  We should be still and talk to him every day, any time, and any place.  He will help us through any situation.  We have many things to share with our God.  There are a few of the things that are especially on our minds this week.




  • We want to pray for all of our families, but especially this week we are praying for Tatum's family and Lofton and Kenley's family.
  • Cason and his mom's upcoming move to a different house.
  • Anyone who has COVID-19, and all of what is coming about because of it.
  • Eli's Aunt Jan had hip replacement surgery last week.  She is home and doing well, but needs to work on her physical therapy mostly on her own due to COVID-19.
  • Jack's grandpa has a cough.
  • Landen's Great Grandpa has been struggling with walking and getting around.
  • For anyone who is lonely or in need.
  • Thank you for warm houses, food and families.
  • Thank you for spring and the warmer weather.

If you have any other prayer requests or needs you can add them to the comments.

The Dot

The Dot
by Peter H. Reynolds

Image result for the dotYesterday I read this book to my classes.  We actually saw Peter Reynolds at Plum Creek a couple of years ago.  He has been one of the favorites of mine of all the authors we have meet.  But for me, the list of favorite authors is pretty large.  I do not believe I have all of his books yet, though I am working on doing that.

This book is great.  I love the message that it gives, and the way that Peter Reynolds gives it.

After having read this yesterday, I gave everyone the assignment of making their own dot pictures.  As you turn them in to me, I will add the pictures here to this post.

So here they are:

Reverse Dot  By Jack
The Tree  By Eli
Balloons  By Chaz



The Journey Home  By Ms. Montoya
Dot Signature  By Cason
The Bright Sunset By Landen






   
Snowman by Raya





         

Sunday, March 22, 2020

GAME TIME!


Today, I thought it would be a fun idea to play a game with your family.  You can pick any game you want.  This is going to be a hard choice for us at my house.  I have 3 cupboards full of games, and that doesn't even count the games that I took to our classroom.  I will let you know what games we played today.

Image result for munchkin gameHere is a secret...  I think one of the games might be Animal Crossing.  Remember Zeb got that for me for an early Mother's Day gift.  I was able to play it on Friday *after school.  Ella and Zeb both played on Friday also.  Our island is starting to look pretty good.  We all also played for a little while on Saturday.  I am pretty sure we will be playing a little bit of Animal Crossing today.  Maybe we should try some Mario Kart as well.

But it shouldn't be just video games, at your house or mine.  Maybe we will try a Munchkin game, or Story Cubes.  Oh, it might be really fun to let everyone in your family to choose a game.  I like this idea.  We could play four different games today.  Make it a whole afternoon of fun with our families.

GAME TIME!

Let the rest of know what games you played in the comments.

Here is one more suggestion.  Remember a couple of days ago, I told you about Mo Willems lunch time videos.  In one of them he has us design a game.  Super Bounce.  That might be fun to make our own Super Bounce board and play that game.  Here is the link to his video, if you want to give that a try on Family Game Day.

https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/mo-willems/

Choose episode #5

Have fun!


I couldn't add the pictures in the comments.  If you have pictures of GAME time you can email or text them to me, and I will add there here.

At my house today, we played

  • Animal Crossing
  • Mirror Mansion
  • Risk   (this was the never ending game - we finally called it after 3 1/2 hours)


Here are the pictures.



Saturday, March 21, 2020

Emily Arrow


Image result for emily arrowI found out that Emily Arrow was doing videos everyday this week.  She is also reading books to us.  Lots of fun.


This is the video she did on Monday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBACzwn-tEY

This is the video for Tuesday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhDN6mBucpo

Wednesday's video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY7BRSfRbCg

The video from Thursday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxpd7FE1ivo

And Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPirGEMWWy0

Emily has videos for lots of other books and songs. 

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Science Fun

Here are some things you see if you can try at home.  Be sure to ask a parent before you do any of these activities on your own.


Explore gravity!



What about sound waves?  Can you make an instrument?  Maybe you can figure out a different instrument.  There are so many possibilities.  Share your discoveries with me.  I can't wait to see what you come up with!


How does a thermometer work?  See if you can make your own.  Test, explore, learn new things.  This is an amazing work that God has given us.



You can also try and do the experiments from our science books.   If you try any of these, write about your experiment in the comments.  Send me a picture, or add the picture to the school's Facebook page.

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Authors and Illustrators and books, Oh my!

Today I found some sites for Authors and Illustrators who are doing live get togethers while we are at home.  Some of them are set up so you can watch them later as well.  I posted one of them on the school Facebook page.
Image result for narwhal and jelly
Ben Clanton is doing a FB live video on March 20, at 4:00.  It sounds like fun to go and see what he is planning on drawing.


https://www.facebook.com/narwhalandjelly


Mo Willems is also doing some drawing with kids.  I watched part of his video.  Some of them are posted so you can watch them anytime, and you can also watch them live.  His live videos are weekdays at 12:00.
https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/mo-willems/
Image result for mo willems


Here is another site that could be fun for you to explore


Scholastic has also opened up things that we can go and read about.


Here Neil Gaiman is reading some of his books for us.
http://www.mousecircus.com/videos/



How about storytime from space.  On this site astronauts will read a book to us.  I love this!
https://storytimefromspace.com/library/
Story Time From Space

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 Pr...