Dairy Week Finale!

We finished Dairy Week with a grand finale ice cream party. We had vanilla ice cream with all the fixings: caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, cool whip, cherries, and sprinkles galore. The kids had a great time choosing what they wanted on top. It was a delicious way to end the week.

Making Ice Cream

Today for Dairy Week, we made our own ice cream. We got lucky with the weather and were able to go outside to make it.

We put all of our ingredients in a bag: milk, sugar, and vanilla.

We added that bag to a big bag of ice and rock salt. Then we shook it.

Eventually, the milk, sugar, and vanilla harden to make the ice cream. Then we eat it!

Dairy Week Field Trip

Yesterday, we took a field trip to a dairy farm. Since we have been focusing on all things dairy, we ventured down to a local farm to see where our milk comes from.

We were welcomed in the holding barn. There, we learned about where the cows live, what they eat, and how the farm works.

We got up close and personal with some cows.

We saw some calves and even got to pet them.

The calves were five days old.

We learned about different dairy foods and the importance of getting three servings of dairy a day.

We played a memory game with different dairy items.

We went to the milk house to see where the milk is stored.

We saw the milking parlor where the cows get milked.

Dairy Week STEM

This week, we are celebrating all things dairy. We are spending our time learning about cows, farms, foods made with milk, and all things moo. On Tuesday, we also incorporated STEM activities into our dairy activities. STEM is taking science, technology, engineering, and math and doing a project with all of them. We talked about farms and focused on the kinds of fences on a farm. The students then took different materials to build fences of their own. The fences had to be a certain height, length, and be able to hold animals. We had some very creative ideas.

Happy Birthday Addy!

Today we celebrated Addy's birthday with her book. She brought in Junie B. Jones: First Grader (At Last) by Barbara Park. It is another chapter book, so we started it today and will read a little bit as we have time each day. The kids love it because Junie is in first grade just like them. It will be another great chapter book to add to the collection!

Happy Birthday Clare!

Today we celebrated Clare's birthday with her book. She brought in Puppy Pirates: Stowaway by Erin Soderberg. It is a chapter book, so we started by reading the first chapter today. The kids love dogs, so they were entertained from the beginning. They are looking forward to reading the rest of the chapters as we have time.

Cultural Day

Before we left for Spring Break, we had our annual Cultural Day. This year, the focus was the Summer Olympics and the countries that have hosted them. Before Cultural Day, each classroom studied one country that had previously hosted the summer Olympics. Our class studied Italy. On Cultural Day itself, we started with Opening Ceremonies at church where each "country" paraded in with their flags, similar to Olympic Opening Ceremonies. The day was filled with awesome activities, food, music, and dance.

We played in a drum circle.

The kids each had their own instrument.

We learned the Samba.

We did some Zumba.

We made Olympic torches.

Go Italy!

We did the long jump.

We did gymnastics.

The kids practiced their shot-put.

They did relay races.

They worked hard.