Learning While Community-Building

There is much more to school than the classes in which kids are enrolled. Sometimes, because of learning opportunities or the time of year, we can plan fun events that incorporate learning into a fun "day off" of regular classes. Today was one of those days. Being Halloween, we had our own costume contest on team. Here are a few of our favorites.

Kids voted by secret ballot and our winners were: Sam (pictured below) in third place, Carter (center) in second place, and Owen (right) first place. The kids had a lot of fun dressing up and really got into the spirit of things. After our costume contest voting, we played some Halloween Trivia. A few weeks ago, we discovered Kahoot, a game-like quiz app. We used it to introduce our Digital Citizenship program in Discovery and the kids loved it! So today, we Kahooted again!

Sam in armor

During second hour, kids collected data on all of the pumpkins that they brought in (thanks again for your pumpkin donations). They were to measure, circumference, mass, radius, weight, etc. Once the data was collected, they were ready for the Pumpkin Drop later in the day. 

Kids collecting data

In third hour, we introduced our big service project for the year, our Holiday Family. Every year our team adopts a family in need for the holidays. We raise money, purchase gifts and help out in any way we can to make this season a great one for a family that has fallen on hard times. It is extremely rewarding and the kids develop even more compassion and empathy during this time. Of course, we have a bit of a competition between Hellwig's and Eckert's classes, so that is fun too!

We did the Pumpkin Drop during fifth period. One team member would stand in the second-story classroom and hold the pumpkin out the window. Upon the release, other team members on the ground would measure the time if took for the pumpkin to fall, the depth of the "crater" in the dirt-filled kiddie pool. All of the data collected will be used in science on Monday. 

It was an eventful day full of different and fun activities. We try to honor the ebbs and flows of the school year by mixing in a variety of learning events at every opportunity. Today was a great day for that!