Celebrating the Holidays

Do you and your family celebrate Christmas? If you do, there is a fun website to help you count down to Santa's arrival!

NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and its predecessor CONAD began tracking Santa in 1955. Since then, how the organization has tracked Santa has changed, and on Christmas Eve NORAD uses Google Earth, one of the applications that our class uses in Social Studies, to track Santa and teach kids a little bit more about unique locations around the world.

In addition to following Santa's journey, there are some fun logical thinking games that you can play in Santa's Village. Each day a new game is added to test your thinking skills. This year Day 1 is the Christmas Tree Light Up, and it is super challenging even on the easy level. Give it a try and tell us how fast you and your family (or your classmates) can light up the tree in the comments!

Twin Day

Today we had another school spirit day here at Bear Creek. Friends could dress alike for Twin Day to show off their friendship and their school spirit! Please enjoy our little slideshow of all of the "twins" that were spotted in the lower level 4th grade hallway.

Free BEAR

Every Day 6 all of the 4th grade students at Bear Creek who have completed all of their assignments and followed the Code of Conduct have the opportunity to participate in our Free BEAR time. Students are able to choose from a variety of activities that change each month. The choices include group games in the gym, nature walks, reading, playing board and card games, learning a foreign language, using the computers and doing arts and crafts.

We recognize how hard our students work each and every day, and we are happy to give the kids an opportunity each cycle to pick a fun activity to do. Take a look at the kids enjoying themselves during our last Free Bear time!

I'm Thankful!

Dear Families,

It's hard for me to believe that it is the end of November already. It seems like it was just yesterday that I met you all for the first time, and we went through the ridiculous floods! As we begin the holiday season I would just like to take a moment to share with you some of the many reasons that I am thankful.

- I am thankful for your support of your child's learning. I know that having kids do homework is definitely not at the top of everybody's fun to do list, but I appreciate the time you take to help your child see the value of their education.

- I am thankful for all of the comments you have been leaving for the students on their blogs. Every comment you leave shows them that they have an audience and people care about what they have to say.

- I am thankful for our wonderful student teacher, Miss Coleman, who is doing a fabulous job with the classes.

- I am thankful for our beautiful new building. I know there may be some things that are taking a bit of getting used to, but we are very lucky to have such an amazing facility.

And most importantly, I am thankful for my wonderful students. I love all the hugs, smiles, questions and challenges because each and every one reminds me how lucky I am that I get to be a teacher. Thank you all for sharing your children with me each day.

:)

Mrs. Bair

Social Studies with Miss Coleman

Hello Bair's Den Students!!!

Today we started our new social studies unit on Pennsylvania! I introduced our essential question for the unit: "What makes Pennsylvania a unique part of the United States?" and we had a great discussion about why all of you love living in Pennsylvania and many great things about our state.

We also came up with some great questions to research throughout the unit. One question that our groups asked the most today was "Who Founded Pennsylvania?" What a great and important question! Tomorrow we will learn more about our state's founder, William Penn!

Throughout our unit I would love to see some of your pictures from Pennsylvania. Have you been to the PA Grand Canyon? Do you like to camp in the beautiful the State Forests and mountains in Pennsylvania? What kinds of animals do you see in Pennsylvania?

In the meantime, here are some pictures from our discussion today! Can you tell me what we're looking at?

Thanks for all of your hard work today! I can't wait to talk more about Pennsylvania tomorrow with all of you! See you tomorrow!

-Miss Coleman

Another Busy Week

It has been another busy week in the Bair's Den! We wrapped up our Map Skills unit, and all of the students did a FANTASTIC job on their common assessments. We'll be incorporating all of the skills we learned during this unit as we move on to Pennsylvania and the United States during the rest of the school year.

We also finished our first theme in reading where we focused on a variety of skills and strategies. The students continue to learn, use and review these strategies as part of our CAFE menu:

We also just completed talking about asking questions and noting details. Be sure to ask your children about the different types of questions and why it's important to ask questions before, during and after reading.

Time is going so quickly in the Bair's Den. I'm looking forward to meeting many parents at conferences!

Can You Help?

Today a purple Aeropostale hoodie went missing in our classroom. My guess is that because we switched seats somebody may have grabbed the wrong sweatshirt off of a chair. If you happen to find a purple hoodie sweatshirt at your house that doesn't belong to your child, you can send it back in tomorrow.

Thanks, Bair's Den Families!