Put Your Heads Together!!!

I had to share this picture!! This was such a funny moment!! Lately in our class we have been learning letters sounds and how to blend those sounds to sound out/ recognize words. Tyrisha is really good at recognizing letter sounds. Tradarius is really good at blending the sounds to sound out the words. This day we had worked and worked and worked but were still having difficulties!!! In frustration I said "Come on! You can do it!! Just put your heads together." Then I turned around to look at the word on the board!! When I turned back around to help the students this is what I saw!!! Tyrisha and Tradarius had LITERALLY put their heads together!! Somehow every student in my class has a way of turning my frustrations into smiles!!! What a precious gift!!!

4th and 5th Grade Awards!!!

TODAY WAS A VERY SPECIAL DAY!!!

All of our 4th graders (Izaiah) and 5th graders (Lexi, Tyrisha, Eric, and Tradarius) received awards at the 4th/ 5th grade Awards breakfast at our school!!

Below are all of our award recipients!!! CONGRATULATIONS to all of you!!!

Lexi and Tyrisha pose for the camera and show off the awards that they received!! Lexi received the Science award. Tyrisha earned the Spelling and "A" Honor Roll awards!! Ms. Hairston, Lexi's mother, also joined us for the awards breakfast!
Tradarius received awards for Language Arts/ Grammar, Writing, and "A" Honor Roll!
Izaiah received awards for Reading and Math. His mother, Ms. Price, also joined us for the awards breakfast!! He was so happy to see his mom at school and had a smile the entire time!!
Eric received awards for Perfect Attendance (the entire 1st semester) and "A" Honor Roll.

Eric also received a very prestigious award!! Each teacher was asked to choose one student to receive the Eagle Award!! This award is given to the student that has exceeded classroom and behavior expectations, shows good character, and works extremely hard to achieve classroom goals!! This was such a hard decision for me because all of my students share these wonderful qualities. However, I have watched Eric grow leaps and bounds in his academic achievement, determination to succeed, and communication/ social skills!! He has very big responsibilities each day (including assisting with putting up the flags in front of the school every morning, picking up lunch counts, and taking care of our class pets) and he completes his responsibilities with pride and honor!! I am so proud of you Eric!! Lucy is the youngest student in our class. She is in the 1st grade and therefore could not participate in the 4th/ 5th grade awards ceremony!! However, she was more than willing to attend and cheer for all of her friends. In fact, she clapped for every 4th grader in the entire school that received an award!! Therefore, Lucy received a "Good Sportsmanship" award by Ms. Malcom!! Great Job Lucy!!

Christmas is the Time for Giving!

As our gift to those people at our school that are so good to our class all year, we decided to sign, seal, and deliver holiday cards to all of them! This project served the dual purpose of teaching the vocational/ job skills that are required to send cards and letters!

First, every student was required to sign their name to over 40 holiday cards! There are a lot of people at our school that are good to our class all year so it was very good practice!

Then, each student was required to stuff the cards into the envelopes!

Next, we had to lick and seal every envelope! This was a very interesting task! Some of our students had obviously never done this before! But, before long, they were professionals!! :-)

Lastly, we delivered our holiday cards to all of the people that we made them for! These cards were definately made (and sealed) with love!!

Our New Therapy Dog: Mona

We have a new therapy dog in addition to Bear and Sugar. Her name is Mona and she is a Welsh Corgi mix! We thoroughly enjoyed Mona's company in our classroom last week.

Below, Mona visits with Tyrisha during Language Arts!

Mona was so sweet and gentle. She even came equiped with a backpack that had a book in it!! Can you guess what book?? It was a book about Clifford, the big red dog!

Tradarius has come a long way in his love for dogs! Before this program, he would not come close to a dog. Now, he loves when our therapy dogs visit. He draws pictures of dogs as "extra homework" (that he assigns himself ) :-) and checks out a book about dogs from the library every week! In addition to the benefit of unconditional love by the dogs, we are also learning about dog (pet) care and safety.

I cannot stress how awesome this program has been for our class and for the dogs as well. It is hard to believe that Mona was in the pound/ animal shelter just six weeks ago. I guess this has worked out in everyone's favor! We look forward to our next visit with Mona!

The Holiday Season is Right Around the Corner!

In preparation for the upcoming holiday season, we made various ornaments that would be given to our parents for Christmas! Ms. Ford (the most crafty one in the group) came up with all of the ideas and organized all of the supplies so that we could make our ornaments!

Below, Ms. Ford is instructing the class on how to make our "elf" ornaments! In addition to the fun of making the ornaments, each student also learned how to follow instructions, work together, and show patience!

Tyrisha and Ms. Malcom pose with the "elf" ornaments that they made!

After the ornaments were made, the class posed for a picture with their creations! Every ornament that we made for our parents was a lot of fun to make. Thanks a lot Ms. Ford!

Our Class Pets!

I can't believe that I have not done this already but I need to introduce our class pets.

Miss Piggy (our Guinea Pig) has been with us for two years now! She loves to walk around the room as well as eat grass, carrots, apples, and Timothy Hay. The kids love to go outside and pick grass to feed to Miss Piggy. Eric especially loves Miss Piggy. He saves his apple and collects everyone else's from lunch everyday and puts them in her cage when we return to the room. It is so funny because some days she doesn't have time to eat all of the apples that he has collected for her. She ends up with a whole cage full of apples. Miss Piggy also loves participating in Reading time!

Freckles and Fifi (our finches) are new to our class this year. They have laid four eggs that we were very excited about. However, I don't think that they are going to hatch. I explained this to the class (that they do not always hatch) and we named them "baby maybes" for this very reason. Freckles and Fifi have a beautiful chirp and often participate in class discussion!

Okay, so now you have met our class pets. Now, parents, when your child comes home talking about Miss Piggy or Freckles and Fifi, you will know who they are talking about! :-)

Making Moo-shakes!

Last week we read a book titled Friends at School. In the book, the friends made "moo-shakes" in class. They gave the recipe for making "moo-shakes" so we decided to make them with our friends as well.

First, we had to peel bananas and cut strawberries. Then, we put them in the blender.

Next, we added orange juice and milk to the blender.

Lastly, Izaiah was in charge of turning on the blender so that our bananas, strawberries, milk, and orange juice could be blended together. He definately enjoyed his job!

Tradarius was our taste-tester. He said that it tasted a lot like a smoothie. We all liked the look that he had on his face after he tasted it so we decided to give it a try as well. It was very good!

Like the kids in the book, we had a great time making "moo-shakes" with our friends!

Sugar Passed her Test!

Last weekend, Sugar had to go for her Canine Good Citizen Certification test. It was a very difficult test but she passed! She can now officially be used as a Therapy dog! As you can see in the picture below Sugar is already putting her skills to use. She sits very quietly during calendar time!

She also participates in Exercise/ Fitness! Although, she does better on the "down" part of sit-ups! :-)

Amazingly, Izaiah (below) and Eric, who were deathly afraid of dogs, are beginning to go up to her, on their own, to pet her! We are very proud of them. They have definately overcome their fear, at least with Sugar.

Sugar has given our class many opportunities to learn about dog safety as well as shown the students unconditional love! They look forward to her coming each week to spend the day with us! We are truly greatful for her services!

Special Olympics Bowling Events!

For the past couple of Fridays our class has been participating in the Special Olympics Bowling events and AMF Bowling in Conyers. All of our athletes have worked very hard to improve their bowling skills in preparation for our competition that takes place tomorrow (11/16).

Below is a class picture at the bowling alley.

Lucy seems to very excited about something! She has really had a great time bowling this year and has become very good at it!

Lexi has made a friend at the bowling alley (sort of). This sweet lady is always there to help Lexi when she doesn't roll her ball hard enough and gets it stuck in the gutter! It is exhausting work but she always keeps a smile on her face!

Izaiah and Eric sit beside each other at the bowling alley and have become good friends. They are great bowlers!

Great Job to all of our students for their hard work and dedication during the Special Olympics bowling events!! We wish you the best at competition tomorrow!

D.A.R.E Graduation!

Friday, November 2nd was a very special day at our school! It was the day that our 5th graders graduated from the D.A.R.E program. D.A.R.E stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. In order to complete the program each 5th grade student is required to attend all but two D.A.R.E. classes, create a poster, complete their entire D.A.R.E. book, and write an essay. All of our 5th graders completed all of the required tasks and graduated from the D.A.R.E program.

Ms. Dubois, the school principal, came over after the graduation to congratulate our 5th graders: Tradarius, Lexi, Eric, and Tyrisha. She was very proud of them!

Tyrisha and Ms. Malcom pose with their D.A.R.E. t-shirts on before the graduation.

Ms. Malcom was also very proud of her D.A.R.E graduates. They worked very hard this semester to complete the program. Great Job Eric, Lexi, Tyrisha, and Tyrisha!!!

Reading Books with Bear!!

I had to share these pictures!! They are too cute! Ms. Stowe and Tradarius found a great book about dogs that they wanted to read with Bear when he visited our classroom last week! Bear seemed to enjoy it!

Later, I looked over to see Tradarius reading the book to Bear again!! I thought that this was such a sweet picture. Our therapy dogs, Sugar and Bear, have been a wonderful addition to our class. Our students have really enjoyed having them around and sharing their skills with them!

Pumpkin Versus Jack-o-Lantern!

Last week, we learned the similarities and differences between a Pumpkin and a Jack-o-Lantern. Each student was required to vote for their favorite face that Ms. Malcom would then cut into our pumpkin to make our jack-o-lantern.

Then, each child was given the opportunity to help clean out the pumpkin. We counted all of the seeds that we pulled out of the pumpkin!

Finally, we had our jack-o-lantern! Happy Halloween!!!

The Great Pumpkin Patch!

On Monday, October 29th our class visited the Pumpkin Patch at the First Methodist Church in Covington.

After posing for a picture with the Pumpkin Patch sign (above), each student was given the opportunity to pick out their own pumpkin. Then, we all got our faces painted and sat down to listen to a great Halloween story!

When we were finished at the Pumpkin Patch we walked to Academy Springs Park. There we played on the swings, slide, and walked around the pond.

To conclude our trip, we posed for a picture at the park with all of the pumpkins that we got from the Pumpkin Patch! It was a very fun trip!!

Special Olympics Basketball Skills!

Last week we went to Turner Lake to particpate in the Special Olympics Basketball Skills event!

Our friends in Ms. Henderson's class also joined us there!

The athletes were required to participate in several basketball skills competitions, including shooting the basketball, aiming the basketball, and dribbling the basketball. Izaiah (below) definately enjoyed the dribbling competition and happened to be very good at it!

After completing all of their basketball skills events each student was awarded a ribbon for their performance. Several of our students received 1st place ribbons! Eric (below) was very proud of his ribbon!

Ms. Malcom, Ms. Stowe, and Ms. Ford are very proud of all of their athletes for their performance in the basketball skills events! Great Job!

Our Trip to the Downtown Covington Square!

In addition to our trip to Scoops, we took a walk around the Downtown Covington Square. The purpose of this part of the trip was to learn about places in the community as well as community signs.

The boys couldn't resist taking a picture with one of the Halloween props outside of one of the stores on the square.

When we passed by the Village Deli we saw Grandma Charlotte, Tyrisha's very sweet grandmother!

Per Izaiah's request, because he loves music so much, we stopped in and visited one of the stores on the square that sell musical instruments. Come to find out, the owner is Mac McKibben, a wonderful pianist and one of Ms. Stowe's good friends.

Mr. McKibben was so nice and took time to sit down and play a few songs on the piano for us. Of course, we had to dance!!! :-)

To escape the rain, we sat on the old courthouse steps and sang some songs together!! It was a very nice time!