Welcome to summer school!

My name is Chad Farr and I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself.  I will be the teacher of Katie Kovall's classroom during this summer school session. I am very excited to have this opportunity to work with the children at Holy Childhood. Over the course of the summer we will be reading the story Pirates Past Noon by Mary Pope Osborne. The book is part of The Magic Tree House series. The theme for the summer will be Pirates. During our ocean adventure of learning we will visit the exciting lands of math, reading, writing and language. The other day we made pirate hats and had a great time sharing them with our classmates.

A busy time in mrs. Katie's class!

Hello again everyone! sorry for the delay on our updates, the year is in full swing and we've all been very busy! So much has happened since our last post, here are just a few of the exciting things our class has learned about:

Last month, we did our lesson on the Native Americans. We had an official Native American naming ceremony and learned about different tribes and what part of America the tribes where from.

As October came to an end we started our lesson on Halloween in different countries, and some of the differences between their traditions and ours. Then it was time for our students to get dressed up for the annual Halloween celebration at SHC.

Hunter dresses up in his martian costume for Halloween.

Everyone had great costumes and we all had a wonderful time going from class to class trick or treating!

Mason, Jake and Alliet show off their awesome costumes.

After our great Halloween, our class began preparing for November and one of our favorite holidays, Thanksgiving! We have started to make our centerpieces and placemats for our Thanksgiving feast next week and we can't wait to eat some yummy turkey!

We've updated our vocabulary words for this month so make sure to check them out and practice them at home! and be sure to check in later for more exciting updates in our classroom!

Welcome Back Everyone!

     The new school year has started, and you can feel the excitement at school of the Holy Childhood, Everyone is back and eager to get started! This first week in Mrs. Katie's class has been all about classroom rules and safety. The students made up a great list of classroom rules and also rules for the bus. Then, using a Venn diagram, our students were able to correctly sort the rules into three categories; rules for school, rules for the bus, and rules that are for both!

Our classroom rules.

     We will be updating our class blog every month so make sure to check in next month to read about our first topic of the year the Native Americans!

Jungle Book comes alive!

Some of the boys take a break from the walking.

     Well, despite the little bit of rain we had Wednesday our class bravely continued on with our plans, and with our handy plastic ponchos we where able to stay dry and have a great day at the zoo! As you know, our class has been focusing very hard on The Jungle Book this summer and yesterday the kids finally got a chance to see some real jungle animals up close!

Alliet stops for a quick photo.

     Along the way, students correctly identified almost all of the animals in our story; We saw wolves, snakes, a tiger, spider monkeys and even an orangutan just like King Louie! We also got to take a look at some different insects from around the world at a special exhibit.

Getting in close to examine bugs from around the world.

     Overall, it was a great day! Even with the uncooperative weather we actually had some great luck, as we where leaving the zoo parking lot, the rain really started coming down. We got out of there just in time!

     Also this week we had a very special performance from our very own paraprofessional Caroline Montfort! Caroline has been playing the Viola for nine years and played the students various songs ranging from the very first song she learned all the way up to the more advanced compositions she plays now.

Caroline plays her Viola for the class.

     Everyone loved Caroline's performance! We all felt very calm afterwards and it was a great way to take a break for a moment and relax.

Everyone sitting quietly enjoying the beautiful music.

     Tomorrow is Friday, and at our school that means Fun Friday!! This week we will be having a school wide cookout, check back in on Tuesday for more updates.

 

Snack time!

     If your traveling through the jungle, it's important to keep yourself fed. The last thing you want when your in the jungle is an empty stomach! This week our class made a special treat perfect for bringing along on any long trip, Safari Munchies!

Our recipe for Safari Munchies.

     It was our job to follow the recipe and identify all of our ingredients and  the equipment we will need. Each student took a turn identifying a piece of equipment or an ingredient and placed it on the correct side of our chart.

Is it an ingredient or is it equipment?

     After we got everything ready it was time to start cooking! First, we mixed all of our dry ingredients together, and then we melted our marshmallows and mixed in just a little bit of peanut butter! yum! After that, we mixed everything together and rolled our sticky treats into a ball.

Mason helps mix in the cereal.

     Everyone enjoyed our delicious travel treat and had a great time making it from start to finish.

Ben waits patiently for everyone to be served...

...And then digs in!

Tomorrow is supposed to be our big trip to the zoo but the weather doesn't look like it's going to cooperate. Check back in on Thursday for the official update!

Quick Update

Real quick entry today, everyone's getting into the swing of things as we continue our story The Jungle Book!

Jake keeps his eye on the target during bocce.

     This summer our class has been learning some fun summer games in our physical education class! We have done kickball and bean-bag toss so far, and this week the kids learned to play bocce. First we throw the smaller ball out into the grass and the students take turns seeing who can get their colored ball the closest.

Jenna takes her shot.

     Tomorrow, for fun Friday, we are participating in the school-wide scavenger hunt! be sure to check back on Tuesday to see how our class does!

The Mighty Jungle...

Welcome back to the blog everyone! it seems like heat has finally broken, which means we can get back outside and play!

Mason shakes his maraca to the beat.

Last friday we ended our week with an exciting Zumba class! One of the volunteers led our students in a fun dance and excercise routine, we marched around the room and shook our maracas in time with the music.

Alliet moving to the music.

We also worked on our new art project to continue the Jungle book theme. The children started painting paper plates grey so that we can turn them into elephant masks. Along with our tiger puppets and monkey and bear masks, we've got quite a variety of different jungle animals in our room.



The entire class works hard to get our masks painted.

Our favorite therapy dog Buddy visited us again today, We played fetch and took him for a walk, we learned that when it is hot out it's very important to give Buddy lots of water.



Alliet tells Buddy to "sit".

 There's plenty more exciting news to come so stay tuned. Be sure to check back in on Thursday for more updates and pictures!