Week of Oct. 26th - BOO! Happy Halloween

Senior Kindergarten
The SK children had lots of fun playing and participating in our Halloween Games. We continue to work on our dodging used in tag type games. To practice our skills of dodging, chasing and fleeing from the tagger we played Pumpkins and Witches tag, where the Pumpkin taggers tag the witches and turn them into pumpkins. Then the special witch or wizard goes to the tagged pumpkins and rescues them by saying the magic words “abracadabra.” Once they were freed, they turned back into a witch again! We also played a game called Haunted House, where the three ghost taggers who lived in the haunted house and were trying to protect their Halloween candy from the trick or treaters. The children each have a “Halloween Basket “– a hoop to help collect their candy they took from the haunted house. The ghost try and tag the trick or treaters when they come into their house to take a piece of candy (cut up pool noodle pieces.) If they were tagged, they had to sit down on a stone (spot marker) and await the help of another tricker treater to rescue them and take them back to their Halloween basket. Finally we played a game called Pumpkin Run, this activity worked on building up some stamina, worked on counting backwards and forward as well as an opportunity to work on jumping jacks. Around the gym were posted pictures of pumpkins. Each child would begin by running around the gym and touching ten pumpkins, and then do 10 jumping jacks. When completed, they would go touch nine pumpkins followed by nine jumping jacks. This continued until they reached one!

Lastly for this week, we began our rolling activities. The children worked on rolling a ball so that it didn’t make a sound! We talked about the difference between a bouncing ball and a rolling ball. It’s a little tricky to keep that ball rolling smooth and quiet. We practiced rolling the ball with various body parts, rolling the ball through tunnels and rolling the ball back and forth with a partner. This will get us ready for our rolling and bowling activities coming up.

1st Grade
A fun week of low organized games that worked on throwing and catching as well as throwing at a target, the giant pumpkin. The children also had their trip to the Health Education Center to see the program called Bodies Alive. In the program the children were introduced to Seymour who helped guide us through all the different body parts and systems in our bodies. We learned about the nervous, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, skeletal and muscular systems. Fun facts were learned about each system with special help from our students who help make all these systems come alive on our friend Seymour!

2nd Grade
Speed Stacks were introduced this week (sometimes referred to as cup stacking.) So far we have learned the 3 stack and the 3 – 3 stack. This is a wonderful activity to work on crossing the midline of the body and using both the right and left sides of the body – particularly the use of both of our hands. There have also been studies that demonstrate that cup stacking does use both sides of the brain as well! The other components that cup stacking work on are, directionality, organization, coordinating both hands, focus as well a sense of accomplishment. As we become more proficient at the stacks we will begin to add a movement element. This will allow the children to practice the patterns as well as moving quickly to different stacks to perform the “cycle.” Watch for next week’s Friday Folder for an order form to purchase a set of cup stacks for at home.

The students went to the Health Education Center to see the program the Digestive System. Students learned about the digestive system, talked about the food guide pyramid and the importance of eating healthy, along with being physically active. Children also learned about the importance of fiber in their diets and drinking lots of water. Finally, some the children participated in an activity where they were the food and traveled through a digestive system that brought to life all that they had just learned. Lots of fun!

3rd Grade
This week we started working on both cup stacking and juggling. Both are great activities for crossing the mid line, which develops new connections in the brain. These new connections help to spur brain growth which in turn promotes greater academic achievement. We talked about “muscle memory” in doing these activities since our brain needs to help teach the muscles the patterns in both of these activities. Who would ever think doing two fun activities would also help our brains!!! We will continue to work on these skills for the upcoming weeks. In cup stacking they will be introduced to the cycle 3-3-3, 3-6-3, and the 10 stacks or “they cycle.” Students will have a chance to use the timer mats to test their skill and speed. In juggling we began by working with two scarves and progressing to the three scarf pattern with a partner. In juggling, the children will be developing the pattern of the three scarf juggle. Moving to three scarves becomes a challenge, however, a challenge the children love to try and achieve.

The third graders went to the Health Education Center to further learn about the circulatory system, the first of six systems we learn about this year. Prior to attending, we worked on our heart packet called “It’s All About the Heart.” The children will be bringing this booklet home in a week or two to share with you. I will be asking that parents go over the booklet with their child and sign and have them return them to school.

4th Grade
Patterning for quickness and accuracy really becomes the focus for fourth grade juggling and speed stacking (also known as cup stacking). For most of the fourth graders, this is their third year working with the speed stacks and second year for juggling. What makes these two activities an important part of our curriculum is the fact that they develop bilateral proficiency, equal performance on both sides of the body. By increasing bilateral proficiency, a student develops a greater percentage of the right side of the brain, which houses awareness, focus, creativity and rhythm. Stacking and juggling help train the brain for sports and other activities where the use of both hands are important, such as playing a musical instrument or using the computer. Sequencing and patterning are also elements of juggling and cup stacking which can help with reading and math skills. A university study by Dr. Brian Udermann, currently at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse (my alma mater for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees), confirms that cup stacking improves hand-eye coordination and reaction time by up to 30 percent.

Drug Defense – Get UR Facts, our current unit in health has been a good opportunity to for the children to delve further into the study of their bodies – in this case the cells. Most of the children are at the end of unit one – Healthy Cells. As the students learned about the complexities of our cells they played some games that helped the children solidify their knowledge. Unit two “Do Drugs Do That?,” will focus on drugs and how they affect the body. Students will most likely be asked to work on some of this at home. Students should know their passwords and can access the program from their home computers. I will send an e-mail to you so that you can help your child get on at home to continue the program.

** Please note that next week there will be no new blog posting as I will be away at the ISACS Conference where I will be speaking at two sessions. The first session I will be doing with Mrs. Margie Voss, our SK-2nd grade learning center specialist. We will be talking about our Action Based Learning Lab that we do at school Tuesday – Thursday through April. My second presentation is on our Team Building Curriculum that I wrote for our third and fourth graders.