Legos, Legos EVERYWHERE!

The St. Ambrose's ACES haven't fallen off the face of the earth! We have been busy working on lots of new projects during this 2011-2012 school year. The biggest project we have tackled this year is Jr. First Lego League and First Lego League! It has been an exciting learning opportunity for both the students and myself. Enjoy a few pictures and check back soon for more information about what we've been working on in our classroom!

Saintly Scholars

Now that school is out for summer break, I plan to catch up on all the exciting things that happened in ACES during the 4th quarter of the school year. It gets crazy with assessments schedules, spring break, etc.

I wanted to take a chance to recognize a few very dedicated 2nd grade ACES. These students worked diligently on their Saintly Scholar's Challenges throughout the year.

This little girl learned ALL 50 states and capitals and recited them to me in a matter of minutes. She also learned all the presidents of the United States in order - ten presidents at a time. Can you say AMAZING!!!!

This fine young man probably wins the award for the most visits to my classroom before the 7:55 bell! He completed a variety of challenges including knowing all the mysteries of the rosary. He also had the great strategy of organizing his answers to his challenges into manageable groups and even sometimes the answers were alphabetized. Great work young man!

The next gentlemen worked through a variety of challenges and knew them well when it was time to recite them from memory to show mastery!

The last 2nd grader I would like to mention is Jacob! Unfortunately I don't have a photo of his saint. Jacob also completed a variety of challenges and no doubt could show mastery of the challenges he completed.

*The numbers on their trophies don't necessarily show the final number of challenges that were completed by these ACES. These pictures were taken a month or so before the last day of school!

Thank You Dr. Kannarr!!!

Dr. Kannarr visited the 3rd/4th and 5th/6th grade ACES for a cow's eye dissection!

First up were the 5th/6th graders. When planning the dissection, Dr. Kannarr and I were going to be the ones actually working our way through the eyes and the ACES would be spectators. Well . . . Dr. Kannarr came with enough cow's eyes, gloves, trays, chewing gum, and blades for the students to work in pairs and do their own dissection. Such a great opportunity!

A few days later, Dr. Kannarr returned for round 2 with the 3rd/4th graders. We recruited the help of some of our 5th grade ACES to lead the younger students through their dissection. It was great to watch the 5th graders recall all they had learned from Dr. Kannarr! I think we just may have some future opthamologists or surgeons in our midst!

Click HERE to link to a site that we used to prepare in advance of the dissection. It has lots of great information and I'm sure your super scientist would love to tell you all about the parts of the cow's eye!

ThAnK yOu DR. KANNARR for this fantastic learning opportunity!

Better Late Than Never

During December, the 1st and 2nd grade ACES participated in a Holiday Card Exchange hosted by Jen Wagner here. I registered our group and we received the names and addresses of 24 classrooms in the United States and Canada. The theme this year was GiNgErBrEaD mEn! So . . . we made these cute cards to send.

The idea came from Family Fun Magazine. We used colored dots and reinforcement circles to decorate our houses. We wrote messages inside the houses and added gingerbread boys and girls. We also had an information sheet to complete about our school and town. The ACES were proud of their creations!

The students were each assigned to a classroom. I made a map of the United States and we found all the towns and cities using Google Earth. Everyone added a star with their name and we waited for the cards to arrive.

The kids had a great time reading about all the classrooms that were part of the exchange and looking at all the cards! We not only had fun, but also learned about geography!

Google Docs Experiment

I am hoping to be able to share documents with parents and other teachers. This is my first attempt at embedding a Google Doc into my blog! Here goes...

Designer Dinosaurs

The 1st and 2nd grade ACES have been studying dinosaurs for the past several weeks. Our most recent learning adventure was to "create" a dinosaur using a list of word chunks and their meanings. The students L.O.V.E.D. this! They begged to take the list with them so they could create, create, create! Enjoy the Voice Thread we created - you may need to crank up the volume as we were having microphone issues.

Rudolph . . . We Want Your Job!

I have recently found the greatest treasures in other teacher's blogs. This idea I saw on a wonderful blog here. With the crazy, hectic schedules right before Christmas and the illness that was going around at school, unfortunately you will not see every one of the ACES in this slideshow. The children pretended that Rudolph was planning to retire and Santa was looking for a replacement. They not only had to create the finest looking set of antlers, but also they had to complete a job application highlighting the skills that would make them a good choice for Rudolph's replacement. Here are some of their responses:

*I can jump high.
*I am in good physical shape.
*I like being cold.
*Santa is so nice I'd like to work for him.
*I am very reliable.
*I am really daring and not scared of anything.




I'm sure Santa will have no problem choosing a replacement with these highly qualified applicants!! Who knows, he may just have to hire them all!