Box Top Winners!

Winnnnnnnners!

My class brought in the most Box Tops For Education for the month of February - a grand total of 169! The amazing Sonoran Sky PTO treated us to an ice-cream party for this outstanding accomplishment. Way to go everyone! Keep saving those Box Tops!

Celebrity Readers - KNIX's Ben & Matt

On Dr. Suess' birthday we were treated to a hilarious rendition of Oh, The Places You'll Go! presented by the morning show at KNIX, Ben & Matt.

The students (and staff!) were wowed by Ben's incredible celebrity impressions. Students eagerly called out requests and Ben patiently read to us as Barack Obama, George Bush, Arnold Schwarznegger, Justin Bieber, Cookie Monster, Morgan Freeman, Elmo and Adam Sandler just to name a few of his incredible voices.

Matt was equally entertaining and had us all in stitches with his one-liners and witty comments. Both of them answered many student questions after their reading and explained their jobs, what it's like to work in the radio industry and gave us a brief history of KNIX.

Students and staff all had a fabulous time at this hilarious presentation! We are pretty lucky that Ben & Matt chose to visit Sonoran Sky on Dr. Seuss' birthday.

Click the video below for a little sample:

Some Q & A:

Thank you Ben & Matt! You made Read Across America Day unforgettable!

Reading Across America - Literally!

From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere. ~Dr. Seuss

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday we participated in a two person reader's theater of Green Eggs and Ham. My class played the role of Sam-I-Am and our pen pal class in Massachusetts played the role of Sam's friend.

We took turns reading our lines in front of an iSight camera and broadcast our buddy class reading their lines using a projector.

It is pretty amazing that we are able to participate in a traditional cooperative learning classroom activity with a classroom nearly 3,000 miles away, in another time zone! Curious to see what a cross-country reader's theater looks like? Click the video links below to see a few snippets.

One more...

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

"Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one." ~Dr. Seuss

We had an amazing time celebrating the 107th birthday of Dr. Seuss! Today was such an absolute whirlwind, I cannot possibly write about it all in one post, so I will take it one event at a time. The day began with a visit from "The Cat In the Hat". The cat also brought along a friend, to read the text of this classic tale. 

March Madness!

This month is going to be absolutely action packed! I sure hope I can keep up with all the events and activities! 

Monday and Tuesday are World Math Day, which the students started gleefully competing in today, and will resume tomorrow.

Wednesday is Dr. Seuss' birthday. I've lined up Ben and Matt from KNIX and Matthew Blades from The Mix 96.9 to come in as celebrity readers. There will be a few other surprise readers throughout the day and other fun activities! We will also literally be Reading Across America, doing a Green Eggs and Ham reader's theater with our pen-pal class in Massachusetts via Skype.

Wednesday and Thursday are the very first World Spelling Day, (spanning multiple days due to time zones) which based on the reaction of the class, will surely be as big of a hit as World Math Day, which we have been participating in for years.

Friday is school photo day and it is the day our class photo will be taken. Order forms were sent home last week. Please return the form by Friday if you are interested in ordering the group picture.

This is only week one. March is going to be one wild ride!

Bowl of Chocolate Ellen Teb-BITS, Anyone?

Just a quick reminder that the cereal box book report is due Monday, February 28. The students and I have been communicating throughout the duration of this assignment and it sounds like everyone is in good shape. Students that finished early and presented last week all did a beautiful job!

Many students completed the Super Bonus Challenge this past week, and brought in amazing presidential presentations. So far we have seen a model of a Abe Lincoln's log cabin, an incredible president themed board game, a creative timeline on a scroll and several posters! We ran out of time for every student to present, but we will get to them all next week.

James and the Giant....Cabbage?

We had a fabulous time with our Third Grade Buddies this week, pretending we got swallowed up by enormous cabbages, similar to James in Roald Dahl's classic, James and the Giant Peach.

We had a discussion about the book and watched a very brief video clip of the movie. Then we substituted a giant cabbage for a giant peach and students worked with their buddies to write a story about their adventure living in a monstrous cabbage. Every student got to keep a cabbage plant to plant at home. Details about the this interesting cabbage program can be found here.
Happy gardening!