Monday Memo: Holiday Family and 20% Time

We are off to a great start for our three day week. There are no after-school activities on Wednesday. Our holiday family total is fantastic so far. We have made 2/3 of our goal and it looks like we should make or exceed it.

Our holiday family wish list is here. If anyone would like to purchase one of the items on the list, that would be awesome. Please e-mail Melissa (hellwig.melissa@wgmail.org) or Don (eckert.don@wgmail.org) to let us know so that we don't have duplicates. Again, we really appreciate everything you are doing to help.

Our 20% Time projects are coming along nicely. This week we are working on our presentations for Pitch Day. The kids are both excited and anxious. We are going to have all of the kid work on public speaking with Mrs. Gado, one of the elective teachers here at Hixson who has great experience and expertise in this area.

Monday Memo: Field Trips and Family

On Wednesday, we are going to the Downtown St. Louis Public Library for the St. Louis International Film Festival. There is a chance we may have to cancel the trip if the Grand Jury decision comes down before then and there are protests downtown. We want to make sure that the kiddos are safe. In the event of a cancellation, we will e-mail home and plan an alternative here at school. We will have a great time either way.

We are still raising money for our Holiday Family and our total is up to $549.49!  We are doing a great job to make a very special Christmas for a family.  We will also be collecting items as soon as we get our holiday family's wish list if you would like to donate in that way.

Tuesday Memo: Field Trips and 20% Time

Today we went on our field trip to the Symphony. The kids really seemed to enjoy the program and their behavior was excellent. Powell Hall was packed with students from Hixson and other schools. Our kids made our school proud today.

Our Holiday Family collection is going beautifully. Our goal is to raise 1500.00 by December 15 and right now, we are at 350.00. That is awesome! The kids are stoked about raising money, partly because they feel it is a good cause and want to help, and partly because they are competitive. 

We are going on another field trip next week. We should have all permission slips in by this Friday, November 14. Our trip is to the Downtown St. Louis Public Library for the St. Louis International Film Festival.

20% Time is going really well. You can check out your kids' blogs at harmonizedlearning.blogspot.com. The student blogs are on the right side of the page. They are looking good and the ideas are really coming along.

Monday Memo: Field Trips and Holiday Family

We know that some of you have been having trouble accessing the field trip permission slip for the Film Festival trip. We have changed the permissions on the form so that everyone with the link (click here) can get it. Our trip is November 19.

Tomorrow is election day. We will have no student attendance here at Hixson.

We are beginning our fundraising for our Holiday Family service project. We spoke to the kids on Friday about this and they seemed excited to get started.

Melissa will be contacting chaperons for next week's field trip later on in the week. We appreciate your help with the field trips. It makes a big difference.

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!

Please Pass the Pumpkins!

Tomorrow we are having some very fun and educational events on team. One of those activities involves pumpkins. We have about 10 and need about 40. If you have an extra pumpkin laying about and are willing to donate it, please send it in with your kiddo in the morning. Thanks in advance!

Wednesday Memo: Pumpkins, Parties and Potpurri

Melissa and I are back from the MOREnet conference in Columbia, MO where we got to brag about the amazing things your kiddos are doing for 20% Time projects. Dozens of educators showed up to our session and are planning on adopting some features of 20% Time in their own classes and schools. We learned a great deal while we were there, including some really cool technology that we introduced to the kids today.

Friday marks the end of Term 2. It is amazing how quickly the year flies by. It seems like just yesterday we were meeting all of the kids on the first day of school and all of the parents soon thereafter. Wow! Grades for Term 2 will close Friday.

This Friday is Halloween and we will be doing some special events on team during core time that day. If you have a pumpkin you would be able to donate, we would love to have them. We are going to use them for a Pumpkin Decorating Contest and also for an activity about gravity (you can guess where we're going with that one). There will be a variety of fun events during core time this Friday.

On Friday we will also introduce our Holiday Family collection. Every year, each team adopts a family in need for the holidays. We raise money, purchase gifts and try to make the holiday a special time for them in a time of need. Harmony Team has always come through in a big way during this time. In fact, for 9 consecutive years, we have raised more money than any other team in the building even though we are only half the size of most teams. A couple of years ago, we set the all-time Hixson record for money raised for this project, over $3,000.00. Our goal each year is $1500.00 and in each of the last 9 years, we have met or exceeded our goal.

Please stay tuned for a TOP-SECRET e-mail that you will be receiving within the next week. Speaking of e-mail, school e-mail has been down for the past three days. It may be a few more days until it is up and running again. As always, you can still reach us at ecker.don@wgcloud.org and hellwig.melissa@wgcloud.org. Please feel free to use those e-mail addresses.

On November 11, we are going on our St. Louis Science Center field trip to see the "Forces of Nature" presentation. We will be back in time for lunch. On November 19, we are going on a field trip to the St. Louis International Film Festival. This event takes place at the St. Louis Public Library (Downtown Branch). The field trip permission slip is linked here. We will be going to Happy Joe's for lunch on the way back to Hixson. The cost for the entire trip is only $7.00