New Beginnings

Monday, August 22, 2016 will mark the beginning of a new teaching 'adventure'.  I will be joining Glenhope Elementary teaching 2nd grade in the ASPIRE Academy. Last Thursday during Meet the Teacher, I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting the 16 amazing scholars and their families.  Tomorrow, we will begin to create our learning community by establishing our norms/rules as-well-as experiencing team building activities that will hopefully bring us a true sense of unity and belonging.  I believe that this is going to be a year to remember!

Kindergarten Awards

We celebrated our Kindergarten year by sharing what accomplishment we were most proud of achieving.  The scholars have much to be proud of this year so selecting that one accomplishment was not easy!  Our audience made up of parents, family and friends were absolutely beaming with pride.  We concluded the awards ceremony singing, What I Am, by Edie Brickell.

Gavin's proudest accomplishment was all the 'thumbs up' he got this year!

Aidan is most proud of being in the Hall of Fame!

Michael is most proud of learning to read!

Ariana is most proud of reading at a text level 28!

Niklas is most proud of all the designs he made in STEMLabs!

Ashaz is most proud of constructing a 6 story building with Tate!

Ella is most proud of learning to read!

Aariz is most proud of reading at a text level 24!

Tate is most proud of being in the Hall of Fame!

Sherif is most proud of building a butterfly using Keva Planks with Elle!

Elle is most proud of building a butterfly using Keva Planks with Sherif!

Eleanor is most proud of moving into a Stage 5 in Writing!

Nolan is most proud of learning to count to 100!

Logan is most proud of all that he can do in Math!

Samantha is most proud of learning all her letters and sounds so she could learn to read!

Liam is most proud of all his designs he made in STEMLabs!

Carter is most proud that he came to school and couldn't read and now he can!

Let's Build a Dam!

Our class has been working diligently to become Beaver Experts.  Now that all our research is completed, we were ready to tackle the engineering challenge: design and construct a beaver dam.  After a little thinking, I decided what better way to really internalize this process than to actually go out and build a real dam together!  So.....we DID just that!  On Saturday, scholars and their parents met me in Grapevine at the Heritage Botanical Gardens to build a beaver dam!  We began with what we know:  the materials that beavers use to construct/build their dam.  The scholars set out to gather sticks of various sizes, we knew we would find plenty of rocks and mud down by the stream.  Once we gathered enough sticks/branches, we located the perfect spot to engineer our beaver dam.  The scholars worked as a beaver family would: moving rocks, sticks and filling in the gaps with mud.  After about an hour, we had engineered a successful beaver dam!  I believe the scholars will have no problems back in the classroom designing and engineering their own smaller beaver dam.  Authentic learning is so much fun!!!!   Best Day Ever  

Career Day

Today was a day of fun and learning. Our wonderful counselor, Mrs. Coburn, organized Career Day as an opportunity for our scholars Kindergarten - Fifth grade to learn about various career opportunities. A big part of what makes this day so special is that many of the professionals that came are parents of our scholars. Here is just a small list of some careers that were shared: RN, Police Officer, Firefighters, Paramedics, a Chef, a Marine, a Professor who is also a Magician, a Lawyer, a musician, New Hope Equestrian....just to name a few. What I noticed every professional shared was the importance of working hard, setting goals, doing what you have a passion for and going on in your education after high school!