Tis the Season of Giving!

The holiday season marks a time to give and receive gifts. We all know the exhilarating feeling we get when we run down to the tree and see that Santa has made his annual deposit of gifts. We rip into them, hearts racing...beaming smiles lighting up the room. Sometimes we seem to forget however that there are some people in this world that are less fortunate than we are. In fact, some of those people may be our neighbors and friends. That is why at Sleepy Eye Schools we make it a priority to give back by holding an annual food collection appropriately titled "The Giving Tree." The collection simply entails spending the entire month of December collecting food items to be donated to our local food shelf. Through the collection, we help to teach the importance of generosity and being selfless toward others. If you ask your child they should know what those terms mean as we discuss them often in class...especially this time of year.

Giving to the Giving Tree is a fun and rewarding experience for all students and one that we celebrate. As a way to reward students for all their hard work and generosity, we hold a party in the gym where we sing karaoke to popular Christmas carols while also enjoying the company others. This year we collected over 1,040 items to help feed our community through the holiday season and beyond. What an excellent way to close out 2015 and usher in the new year.


Merry Christmas everyone! Have a safe and enjoyable holiday season!

Amazing Auras Make Santa Come to Life

As you can see from many of our posts, technology is a huge part of the learning process in our third grade classrooms. The project featured in this next post is no exception. Each year, as a part of our writing curriculum, we write persuasive paragraphs to go along with Santas that were disguised as a part of a family project given over Thanksgiving break. However, just displaying our writing and Santas for all to see was not good enough. We instead decided to make Santa jump off the page...and not just through our amazing writing skills but through the use of technology! For this particular project, we used multiple apps to achieve the end product. This is a technique called app smashing which allows us to bring a one-dimensional, paper image of Santa to life.

As stated above, students were first asked to disguise a printed-form of Santa in a way that he wouldn’t be recognized as himself. Once we’d finished with our decorations and/or embellishments, we then learned about persuasive writing, with each student writing a persuasive paragraph to convince their reader that their colored image of Santa was, in fact, not Santa. Next, we applied an app called “Yak It” in order to make our disguised Santa figures talk. The video outcome of this was then created as an overlay to their actual Santa image, using the “Aurasma” app. When engaged with this particular app, each individual Santa was brought to life, speaking to the listener as he—the disguised Santa—presented his argument, in the voice and written words of its corresponding paragraph author—as to why he is not the actual Santa but, in reality, someone else! 

Click on the clip below to see the outcome.

Exploring the Lunar Cycle with Stop Motion

As a part of the third grade science curriculum, students spend a considerable amount of time studying our solar system. Among the things in the solar system that they study is the moon. Students are required to know many things about the moon including how it gets its light, how it moves around in our solar system and probably the most difficult to understand they need to know about the Lunar Cycle. Not only do students need to know that our moon looks a little different each night, but they also have to know each phase and must be able to explain how and why this phenomena occurs.

As you can probably imagine, this is a very difficult concept for students to grasp, especially since it is not something that they can readily observe. This is why we make it observable! In class we created a diorama containing the Earth, Sun and the Moon. The Earth (a globe) sat in the bottom of the box. The Sun was simply a flashlight that was stuck through a hole in the side of the box. Finally, the moon was a styrofoam ball on a string. Using the box and these three objects, students were able to explore the interaction that happens between these objects as they move throughout the solar system...specifically as the Moon orbits the Earth.

As if viewing the phases as we moved our Moon around the box wasn't enough, we decided to enhance our experience using technology. Not only did students perform the actions necessary to make the Lunar Cycle observable, but as we moved our Moon, we also took pictures of each phase. When we had completed these pictures we put them together in an app called iStopMotion where we created a stop motion film displaying the phases of the lunar cycle in a continuous stream. All of these actions helped solidify the students' understanding of how and why the lunar cycle occurs as well as their knowledge of the phases themselves.

Click below to view a sample of our stop motion film and see the phases in motion.

Star Light, Star Bright: Dazzled by the Stars

It may be hard to imagine, but a mere two hours away from school, it is actually possible to lie back in the comfort of a padded, reclining chair, and simply drift away in complete and utter silence, under the soft light of a perfectly projected image of the night sky. Such was the experience of the third graders last Wednesday (December 2nd) whose recent road trip landed them in Marshall, MN, at Southwest Minnesota State University's very own on-campus planetarium.

In addition to our overall viewing of our own nighttime sky as it normally appears, students were also privy to a special treat which involved an in-depth look at the many constellations visible long after the sun has gone down, including those normally seen from our own backyards as well as those we are unfortunately unable to from present geographical location as a result of the sun.  Students soon learned that the one constellation most easily seen and located in our own home is "Orion", with his belt made up of three stars all lined up in a row. Additionally, students were also instructed on how to find both the Big and Little Dippers, using the North Star as their guide to finding the former.

Once we had completed our exploration of the stars themselves, students viewed a short movie, which fell into the mystery genre and featured our very own solar system. A very nice tie in to the conclusion of our recent "Sun, Moon, Stars" science unit. Following that was the holiday laser show, which is always a huge hit with the students. Then, after a quick school-packed lunch, it was off to visit the university's Museum of Natural History where student were encourage to an unique hands-on experience, investigating and manipulating the various displays exhibited.

Not a bad way to spend midday on a windy Wednesday morning, especially with everyone's Sleepy Eye Pride so very pleasantly displayed! Nice job third graders!

Remembering Veterans Everywhere

Sometimes it is easy to forget to take a moment to remember, honor, and thank all those who have served on our behalf, but that is exactly what Sleepy Eye third graders with the help of Mrs. Jensen who arranged for an in-school visit from local military personnel.

In addition to learning more about this annually celebrated federal holiday, students were also treated to a first-hand demonstration on how to properly fold the American flag as well as an up-close viewing of various military uniforms. During which time students garnered valuable insight into the importance of and the meaning behind individual forms of merit and recognition as denoted by a wide array of medals, pins, and ribbons displayed upon the many uniforms presented to the class. Additionally, students also learned the meaning and significance behind the ever-popular red poppy so often worn in observance of Veterans Day on November 11th.

The poppy, first introduced on Armistice Day in 1919, has long since been a means to show appreciation and respect for all those serving in all branches of the military services, including both the living and the dead in our own country as well as abroad. It--the poppy itself--was chosen as an enduring and constant reminder of this now well-established remembrance tradition following the end of World War I and was selected in part because of its ability lay dormant in the soil for years before then reappearing in massive numbers. This particular icon was also selected due to the fact that it commonly grows wild across many fields of Northern France and Belgium where some of the most devastating battles and heaviest loss of lives took place during World War I.

As part of our instruction, third-graders were also schooled on the meaning of each part of this nationally known and recognized emblem of sacrifice and hope. The red flower petals themselves stand for the blood of all those who gave their lives. The black center represents the mourning of those whose loved ones did not return home, and the green leaf is meant to remind us of growing grass and crops and future prosperity after the massive destruction incurred during the war.

Additionally students also learned on one of the many popular ways to wear this iconic symbol. According to our guests, the leaf is to be positioned at 11 o'clock so as to represent the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month--the exact time that World War I formally ended.

Ready or Not, Here It Comes!

It just doesn't get much better than this for Kindergarten through sixth-grade students and staff--a spirited game of dodge ball with students and teachers paired against one another as a well-received reward for good behavior on the students' part!

As whizzing balls sailed through the air, shouts of encouragement and warning yells bounced off the gymnasium walls, while students and teachers alike pelted one another with their best shots. Each camp actively vying for that much-coveted number one spot and the chance to claim "victory". In the end, a good time was had by all, even if the good-natured exchange did leave a few of its older participants feeling a little more battered and bruised than they may have liked!

Way to go third-grade students and staff! Great job showing your Sleepy Eye Pride!