"I'll trade you 2 chocolates for 1 dill pickle," said Adam.

Yep, that's exactly what Adam said to Joshua. I wrote it down after I stopped laughing.

What he was talking about were pencils...scented pencils...VERY popular scented pencils...pencils that some kids have spent LOTS of money on. They come in all 'flavors'...chocolate, cinnamon, dill pickle, coconut, bubble gum, lime...I don't even remember all the flavors.

So Parents...if you're very loved Room 8'er is telling you how desperate they are for a new pencil, it may not be because of an extensive amount of writing. They might be starting a collection of pencils!

Bailee shares about Hannukah

Bailee brought in her Menorah to share with Room 8...and to tell us about how her family celebrates Hannukah. She brought a book, which she read to the class, and some Star of David cookies.

She also brought a dreidel...and told what each of the letters stand for. The book she read also talked about the dreidel game. After talking about Hannukah, the Menorah, and the dreidel, she took questions...a lot of questions...and answered them all with poise and confidence. I was impressed, Bailee!

Happy Birthday, Joshua!

Joshua is getting old...like now his age is in double digits! Of course, we had the 'grey hair' hunt today in Room 8. I actually thought I had found one so it was quickly yanked out! (Joshua said, "Ouch!"...not sure if it was pain or surprise that there was a grey hair!) We also looked for wrinkles, and I'm glad to post that Joshua is holding his age well...no wrinkles to be found!

Joshua is my kind of guy...he had listed DARK CHOCOLATE as his favorite candy bar!

In this photo, he's checking out THE grey hair!

Happy Birthday, Joshua!

We're a jumping group of guys!

Some of the boys are trying their hand at a group jump.

Jump roping definitely caught on as a recess activity. I think it first started when we had to stop football for a bit...we had a few too many rough games! I have to hand it to these guys...they're giving it a good try!

Room 8 doesn't let grass grow under their feet!

The title of this post is an expression I grew up with...it means you don't stay still. Well, Room 8 isn't letting any grass grow under their feet either. When we were collecting phone books, Room 8 did a great job and we were in the top 3 - our party for winning that will be December 14th. Now that we've been selling Mary Kay as a fund-raiser for our school, grass didn't grow under our feet again! No way...Room 8 sold the most for the upper grades! We have now won another party! Oh boy!!!

The Lung Model

As room 8 has been learning about the human body, the respiratory system is one area that has been explored. Ms.van Ark brought in a model to show how lungs inflate.

In this photo you can see how captivated Ty is. When I have been in the classroom before school or during recesses, any student still in the room has been experimenting with the model.

Mean, Median, and Mode

New terms to learn in math for the math scholars in Room 8! Ms.van Ark has introduced these terms and how to find them. Mean is another name for 'average'... median is the middle piece of data **after the data has been arranged from lowest to highest**, and mode is the piece of data repeated the most.

Wasn't Room 8 excited when Ms. van Ark brought in M&M's to illustrate these concepts!

Found Poetry

Room 8 has been involved in some 'Found Poetry.' This is a way of writing poetry where you select some random phrases from the text of a book. Each phrase is written and cut out so they can be arranged and rearranged. Once the author likes the way it sounds, then we 'publish' it on construction paper. Room 8 did Found Poetry from Charlotte's Web.

BIG NEWS FROM ROOM 8

Room 8 came in 3rd place for the school in the number of phone books collected to recycle! We collected 619 books. Mrs. B came in 2nd with 769....and Mrs. C came in 1st with 1115!

Fortunately...the top 3 classes win a PIZZA PARTY!!! Ours will be Thursday, December 14. Thank you to all the parents who helped with collecting!

Happy Birthday to Amanda Rose!

Happy Birthday, Amanda Rose!
Even though I'm not in the classroom this week, Amanda was still able to let me know a couple of different times that Wednesday (yesterday) was going to be her birthday. I didn't get to sing the room 8 version of Happy Birthday, but Ms. van Ark filled in perfectly!

Our compliments to the chef...I'm assuming it was Amanda's mom...for the DE-licious cupcakes! Thank you, Amanda, for sharing one with me, even though I wasn't in the room!

I hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Check out those bones!

It seems like it's been a very long time since I posted...with the Thanksgiving break, I guess it has!

This week is Ms. van Ark's SOLO...she's teaching for the week and is doing a wonderful job! I see the faces on my long lost students...and they look happy...and relaxed. (There have been semesters when that wasn't the situation!) So I've been stationed up in the conference room working on report cards (they come home Friday), and doing some planning.

A couple of new things Ms. van Ark has introduced are Charlotte's Web and a science unit on the body.






Ms. van Ark had the students tell her the names of bones they knew and come up and point to them. The other ones with the string are from learning about the digestive system. Room 8 looked at the length of the esophagus, stomach, large intestine and small intestine. It was too long to take one picture of.

Here we are with our first grade buddies!

Mrs. Johnston, would you take our picture for the blog?

Sure I will! Aren't these cute?
This is Ty and Joshua. Joshua loves to hang upside down!

Here's a bunch of the awesome guys who live in Room 8!

Boy do we sound good!

Today was ****testing**** day in recorders! Some were nervous...some were excited...some were absolutely scared to death. I went in to watch and listen to them play. I was there to hear Tiffany take her **test**. I think she did superb! I think the song was 'Hot Cross Buns'...but I might be wrong. It really is amazing how good they sound. In January, all the 4th graders will play together in a concert which will be held at night. I'm always amazed.

Learning to play a musical instrument is something I wish I had done - well, something I had continued when I was young. There is research to show how playing an instrument/reading music correlates with academic success. Next year in 5th grade, students have the option of taking band. At that time, they can pick the instrument they want to learn to play. Be thinking...

The new recess pastime

Old things become new...reuse/recycle...the simple things in life...

Well, this can all be related to the new pastime during recess which has caught on like wildfire...JUMP ROPING!!! Oh my gosh, it's THE thing to do! My first clue was when some of the guys were making a bee-line to the ball-box to grab the jump ropes. "Um?" I thought..."What is going on with this?" Well, since I have recess duty this week, I quickly figured out that jump roping is the new craze at our school...it's not just Room 8...



Today, Anne kept trying to get me to jump rope. I told her I couldn't since I had my camera around my neck. I think she thought I couldn't do it...so...I did. But I kind of did the 'gallop jump rope' - you know not jumping with both feet off the ground at the same time. Anne decided to show me how you were really suppose to jump rope...again I pointed to the camera around my neck. I think she believed me.

It's Better to Give than Receive...

Room 8 had the privilege of helping make tree decorations for our local Toys for Tots campaign. They were so enthusiastic to make the ornaments, knowing they weren't for them, but to help make some children who are less fortunate - happier!




Tracy, Brenden's stepmom who is a realtor, brought in all the supplies. Over two days, each student went to four different centers and made an ornament in each one. They made candy canes, snowflakes, wreaths, and a bulb-type ornament...all out of different kinds of beads. They are beautiful.



Here are some more photos of us making the ornaments...

Cool Slideshows

How sweet it is to see them so excited about giving!