What Exactly Can We Do?

If the last image gave you some good ideas for the summer, but you'd like some more specific links or activities to do with your child then I have the post for you! Resources to Prevent Summer Slide is an article by Edutopia, a great educational resource on any topic, that will give you links for things like virtual field trips (I had to giggle at the Hershey Chocolate Factory field trip - can you do that without getting the free chocolate at the end??), things your child can build, and reading, writing and math resources.

Don't limit yourself to worksheets or flashcards when it comes to learning in the summer. Asking your child what he or she would like to learn about or letting the kids come up with possible solutions for problems around the house are great ways to keep your child actively learning throughout the summer months!

Exercise Your Brain

While it's easy to think about reading and practicing math facts as fun things to do over the summer, there are many other ways to keep your brain in shape! You can click on the image below to see some fun and different ways to keep your brain (and your parents' brains!) working over the summer.

End of Year Fun!

To celebrate the end of an exciting, and all too fast, school year, our team had a day full of learning and fun. We started off this morning with four different learning stations. Each teacher picked a different subject, and the classes spent a half hour learning, creating and cooperating. While there were fun activities in each room, Mrs. Towsen's Sweet Science took the cake. Groups took a look at what happened what you soaked Skittles and M&Ms in water, and we were all shocked!

Can you see the S and the M?

After our morning stations and special classes Team Kit Kat celebrated with a picnic lunch. We enjoyed eating in the classrooms with our friends, and we would like to say a special thank you to the many, many parents who sent in food items and volunteered to help serve our lunch today. We certainly wouldn't have been able to do it without you.

Thankfully the rain took a pause just long enough for us to get out and get some fresh air, and then it was party time! All of the students on the team were divided into 10 groups, and we played Minute to Win It all afternoon. Again we have to say thank you to all of the parents who brought in materials and all of the parents who helped run the stations. We played games that required all sorts of patience and unique skills, and even the teachers AND Mr. Kingsborough and Dr. Spagnolo got in on the fun. See if you can spy our principals in the slideshow! Our Team Kit Kat Picnic and Challenge Party was the perfect was to end the school year. It sure does look like everybody had a great time!

Regions Projects

Over the past month, our class and Mrs. Towsen's class have been working very hard to take our individual state research projects and combine them into presentations about the regions of the US. Below pictures of our posters, and the Midwest group's slideshow. Hopefully I will fix whatever glitch is going on and get the videos of the presentations up soon!

The Northeast Region poster

The Southeast

As you can see, the climate of the Southeast includes some dangerous weather

The Southeast includes many fun sporting activities.

The Southwest may be our smallest region, but their presentation was big on details!

The West Region includes many unique places and landforms.

Because of the different locations, the West Region has a variety of natural resources and industries.

There are many interesting facts and areas of different climate in the West Region as well!

Summer Reading

It's hard to believe that the school year is almost over! It seems like just yesterday that everybody showed up at Bear Creek for the first time. Now that summer is almost here, I want to use this week to offer some suggestions about what you can do to help your child over the summer.

First of all, I hope you and your family have the opportunity to go exploring these next few months. Whether it's exploring a far-away place or a park or trail close to home, your child will learn amazing things through these experiences.

Second, I hope that you and your child will read together this summer. So often during the school year, despite our best efforts, your children aren't always able to read books on topics of their interest or they begin to equate reading with filling in bubbles and taking tests. Summer is the time to help your child remember that reading is FUN, and reading is also another way to explore places and learn some pretty cool stuff.

There are many different summer reading lists out there, but my favorite comes from James Patterson, yes - the James Patterson of adult thriller stories, and his website Read, Kiddo, Read! You can check out his summer reading list here, and you can also look around the website to learn about some other amazing books for kids (and adults) of all reading levels.

If your child is one who likes a little incentive for their work, Barnes and Noble combines their summer reading list that allows your child to earn a free book! You can check out their reading list and how to earn that free book here.

Don't forget - reading is more than picture books and chapter books. Having your child read websites, instruction manuals, the Sunday comics, travel guides... anything!... will help them see how important reading is in our every day lives, and hopefully it will also give them the opportunity to find topics that he or she really loves!

If you are looking for more summer reading ideas, please check out the local libraries in Elizabethtown and Mount Joy or drop me a note and I can help you out.

History Comes to Life

Today our class had the exciting opportunity to visit the 6th grade students' Living Museum. The 6th grade students have been working very hard to learn about an important individual from ancient history. Today each student had the opportunity to be an exhibit in a very unique museum.

As we walked up into the main hallway, we saw many different kids dressed in costume and standing perfectly still. We were in groups, and each group had 6 tickets. Our groups walked up to the person and put our ticket in their cup. As soon as we did that they person came back to life and told us all about themselves and what life was like when they were alive.

We liked the living museum for a lot of different reasons. Some of us like the kids' costumes. Ian thought that the props were really cool, especially when the person acted out something with his or her props. Makenna really liked that, unlike a regular museum, these people came to life and you could actually learn all about them by listening to them instead of just looking at them. Several people talked about the interesting facts they learned as they listened. Lydia really liked the costumes, as did many other kids. You can see some of what we experienced in the slideshow below.

Our class was VERY impressed by the 6th graders. It was obvious that they worked very hard to learn their about their people and spent a lot of time perfecting their speeches so they could do it for us today. Congratulations to the 6th graders, and thank you for inviting us to come to your museum!

Exercise, Enterprise and Animals!

It has been another busy week in the Bair's Den! We started off on Monday with our first intermediate field day. This day long event, similar to a track meet, is part of the Phys Ed curriculum. Ms. Shenk and Mr. Klose, along with many parent volunteers, work very hard to make this day a success. While it was VERY confusing at first, once we got into the swing of things we were all able to find our events, and many kids in our class earned many different ribbons. You can check out Ms. Shenk's website for a slideshow of our day.

Tuesday we were back into the swing of things, but there was no slowing us down. Since everybody finished their state research it was time to get into our regions groups and start synthesizing the information to create projects about the 5 regions of the United States. Groups of two or three got right to work combing the information from all of the states in the region to come up with a summary about one of six topics: location, physical features, climate, natural resources, industries and culture information. You can see from these pictures our teams were working VERY hard!

Wednesday, we celebrated the end of our 4th Junior Achievement sessions by simulating what it's like to have a world-wide supply chain. We used our supply chain to build a computer, and we had to figure out what to do when our one supplier was having a strike and couldn't get us the part we needed. During the past 5 weeks, Mrs. Kimball, our JA volunteer from Hershey's Foods, did an excellent job teaching us about entrepreneurship and running a business. We also appreciated the fact that she brought us yummy treats from Hershey each time she visited! Thanks, Mrs. Kimball, for a job well done!

Our busy week continued on Thursday when we took a short walk to the Fairgrounds for a presentation by the high school agriculture students. We visited 10 stations, and the high school kids did a great job teaching us about large and small animals, agricultural businesses, machinery and our environment. We're so lucky to have high school students that care enough about our community that they are willing to do so much extra work to teach us about things they enjoy. Check out the slideshow of our morning at the Fairgrounds!