I'M GOING TO COLLEGE!

An ecard by Smilebox

Sunrise Elementary April 15th 2011!

Here we are in our colors, with our pennants and  mascot; The Banana Tech Monkeys!

Our PTA hosted a week of fun called We're Going to College Week. It is to encourage the students to plan for and to get excited about college in their futures. On Monday we all wrote essays entitled, "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up and How I'm Going to Get There".  My kids had some interesting ideas about that. I never knew so many wanted to be paleontologists! Oh the power of 1 first grader's suggestion on another first grader....

Emma, Allie and Joe won prizes for their Essays on Going to College

Tuesday was Career Day and we had all these cool people come and share their jobs with us. We had dental assistants, pharmacy techs, CPR & Emergency Medicine, Flower Gardening, Haircutting and Computer careers represented.  These were really technical educational opportunities in our district. It was cool when Addie ran into her step grandma! What a coinkidink! 




Addie's grandma showed us lots of jobs we could learn as early as high school!





It was fun to see some of the gear they wear in different jobs!



Here's some high school kids explaining their engineering projects to the kids...



We learned some Engineering thing kids in Technical School do....



Our PTA ladies did a cute skit about our Fun Run Fundraiser coming up on May 5th!



We got to grind beans with a morter and pestle! Just like a pharmacy tech grinds pills...





We got to make "flour capsules" and count the flour pills like a real pharmacist tech!





Be a Paramedic or EMT! Or do landscaping! We got to see the CPR Doll too!



Or learn hair design,  or house building  or computer training at the Canyons Tech Center!

 

Then on Friday was the big day. Every single classroom had to come up with a mascot, school colors and a NAME for our college. My class chose  THE BANANA TECH MONKEYS! . They made it up, don't blame me! Here are our school pennants. Aren't you just SO PROUD!

So we went to the gym on Friday to see everybody else's college colors and mascots. The fun comes when our surrounding colleges show up to represent. We get to see Swoop from U of Utah, and Cosmo from BYU, and many others.  It is a really fun day.  Here are the ladies behind College Week at our school.

Our PTA Rocks BIG TIME, as I've said before!  They did it again! Here's the College Week Committee. I've taught 2 of their kids! So they let me take pictures with them.  LOL. They are celebrities around here. Oh Yeah! Mrs. Anderson has her own blog too! It's called "Off the Wheaten Path".

Swoop from University of Utah came....

Cosmo from BYU came too!  With silly string!

Big Dee of Dixie College in St. George came!

So did Dr. Doty, our Superintendent of Canyons District



California Teachers ROCK! Utah Teachers do too!



There were 13 college attended between these 4 teachers...Whew!





Our Going to College Chairwoman, Margo Andersen! She rocks!

 

Swoop loved playing the obstacle course against 6th graders!



The PTA made up this College Chutes & Ladders Game for us to take home! Thanks PTA!

 S 

Every class stood up, waved flags and yelled a cheer!



Here is our class doing our cheer....."Banana Tech.....Banana Tech....Go Monkeys! Eek eek  eek!

Cosmo autographed this picture for Allie and Andrew! Woo Hoo!

We are the proud  Class of 2022! The Banana Tech Monkeys!

OUR PTA ROCKS BIGTIME. THANKS FOR A WONDERFUL WEEK!

WHERE IS SPRING?

Onion domed churches of Moscow

Here in Utah we have Easter Break really late this year. So I actually get to use all my Easter stuff in my classroom! Woo Hoo!  But I am longing for a break and some better weather. This year we made spring flowers, Easter chicks and Rechenka's eggs in a basket. 




I love the story Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco. It's got the character Babushka,  an old Russian lady who crafts beautifully painted Easter eggs to go to market for a festival in Moscow. It show the onion domes of the Moscow capital city all in their splendorous colors in the book.


                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                                       It reminds me of when we went to visit Armenia to pick up Devin from his mission. We had to stop over in Moscow to catch a small commuter plane.(word to the wise, never fly Aeroflot Airlines...we had a fuel line break in mid flight and almost blew up right over Budapest! not fun) Our flight was  forced in an emergency landing in Budapest and we were finally able to get to Moscow in the middle of the night. So then the airport officials made us go to this creepy Moscow hotel with barbed wire around it. The grumpy looking Russian in the fur hat who taxied us to the hotel never spoke a word to us.
                                                                                                         

 I remember begging him to drive us up to to see the Kremlin thinking it should be just a short jog away. Silly me, I thought it would be like a fun little tourist side trip. Little did I know that they don't even give day visas to tourists in Moscow! When we got to the hotel, they placed a guard at a little desk outside our door. Since we were Americans they did not trust us I guess. And the only thing on TV was this creepy song sung in a spooky voice all about "It's Time For Us" and it still gives me Heeby Jeebies thinking about it. Yuck. I'm NOT a good traveler. And really, what's up with the concrete boards for beds in those countries?

Here's a close up of one of the eggs, and Andrew's Spring poem...

Anyway, then I had made copies of some really decorated eggs we called " Rechenka's Eggs" and we have a contest to see who can make the most beautiful eggs to send to the Moscow market. The top 3 eggs win a prize. I don't like to do this very often or the kids start asking "What do we get for doing this?" you know how old THAT gets. Mmmmhmmmm....

Spring Art

I typed up this poem to sing and put on the back of our Spring Chicks...

Then I brought in some plastic eggs for each table in a basket. It will be a center activity all next week. They look at the number on the outside of the egg. Inside they write all the addends (addition number sentences) and factors (multiplication number sentences) that would end in that number.  The kids will be creative I know!


Spring Acrostic Poem by Saige.....turned out sweet!


Then we talked about the season of Spring and read a book called It's Spring by Linda Glaser. It has beautiful illustrations and it was a good springboard for a brainstorm on the board of spring things that start with the letters S-P-R-I-N-G. They are really good at brainstorms now, although somebody thought rhinoceros would be a good spring word...hehe.

Kate's poem....very cute....

Then I had them write sloppy copies with all these wonderful S and P and R words on the board like sunshine, storms, pretty flowers, potted plants, rainbows and raincoats.

Easter Chick craft....Moby Chick



 

Easter Chicks made from traced hands....we added orange feathers to the tops!

 Then I edited their simple poems and then handed them this cute printed poetry form for the SPRING Acrostic.  Lastly I showed them how to put together the little spring chicky art project. We had a funny poem called Moby Chick we added on the back and read and sang together to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider.

I just couldn't resist putting this little Easter "Chick" on my blog....it's my granddaughter Josie! peep peep!

Easter Crafts and Easter Art

 Here's how our finished bulletin board looks!  Spring is so bright and beautiful! I love it! And boy is it raining hard and thundering loud tonight! Tomorrow will be a snowstorm again. Snow one day and 30 degrees, Sun and 70 degrees the next, wind and rain and thunder with lightening the next! What the heck?! CRAZY weather! Can't wait for SPRING BREAK!!!