We Got New Books!

Thanks to the generosity of many parents, family members and anonymous donors, we were able to get about 50 new books for the classroom through a website called Donors Choose. The books totaled $575!!!

Last week we "released" the books and many have yet to find their way back to the shelves. 

Thanks again to all who were able to donate! We love new books!

Poem in Your Pocket Day

Our classes participated in "Poem in Your Pocket Day" on Thursday, April 17. It was a fun day of sharing and celebrating poetry. The students and staff chose a poem to carry with them all day. The poems were shared throughout the day whenever someone asked to hear them. 

Click here to go to our picture page.

Community Contributers!

Recently our class has participated in two charitable projects. 

One project is our Clynk for Cromwell project. The Cromwell Center is dedicated to educating the community on disability awareness. The center came to Great Falls this winter and led third through fifth graders in an interactive class where they learned about different disabilities and discussed accepting differences. Click here to read Allison and Kayleigh's post. 

Following this visit Quentin Wise, from Mrs. McAllister's class, contacted The Cromwell Center asking how he could help raise money for the center. This is how Clynk for Cromwell was born. 4th and 5th graders will be taking home Clynk bags and filling them with returnable bottles and cans. The money will go to the Cromwell Center's Clynk account! 

As some of you may know, Mrs. McAllister has a son with autism. She and her family participate in the Annual Walk for Autism that benefits The Autism Society of Maine. The walk is Sunday, April 27. We also have students affected by autism in our class and we have learned a lot about autism this year. 

The students on the McAllister/Tibbitts team collected change for Mrs. M's walk for a couple of weeks and raised $40 for The Autism Society of Maine!

It is so nice to have such generous and giving students on our team!

Books for Jamaica!!

Recently Mrs. Gustafson asked for our help in collecting books to donate to a school in Jamaica.  Her daughter visited Jamaica and saw that the school had very few books and supplies so she decided that she wanted to help. 

The McAllister/Tibbitts team was happy to help out. 

Our books were combined with those collected at Family Art and Reading Night for a total of 1000 books!

This is what 1000 books looks like in Mrs. G's garage.

The books will be shipped to Jamaica in these barrels. 

We were happy that we could help deliver books to kids that need them in Jamaica!

Learning About Our Armed Forces

We were so excited to see Miss Cushing again this week, but this time she brought Army Specialist Aaron Lewis with her! Specialist Lewis has just returned from a 9-month deployment to Afghanistan. 

In November, for Veterans Day, our classes wrote letters to Specialist Lewis to support his efforts in protecting our country. He said the letters meant a lot to him and that he shared them with other soldiers. 

It was such a treat for everyone to meet him in person and to get to talk with him.

The students were very respectful and asked great questions. They learned what it is like to be deployed so far from home and some of the jobs in the Army. They also learned that a lot goes into keeping our country safe and that real people are putting their lives on the line for this safety every day. 

Specialist Lewis is returning to Kentucky shortly and soon after he (and his new fianc'ee Miss Cushing) will be moving to Colorado. 

We wish them both the best of luck!

A Visit from the Cromwell Institute

Earlier in March someone from the Cromwell Institute came to our school to teach us about different kinds of disabilities and how we should treat kids or adults with them. These are some of the disabilities and what they are like.

A.D.H.D is when you have trouble learning because, you focus on everything that is going on around you.

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is when other things get in the way of your important things and you think you have to do those before you do your other things (Justin Timberlake has OCD).

Autism is when you have trouble controlling yourself and trouble communicating and getting relationships with other people.

Dyslexia is when you have specific learning disabilities such as seeing letters upside down, backwards, and sideways.

It is very important to treat people with disabilities the way that you would want to be treated.

By:

Allison and Kayleigh 

Here are some pictures of the activities we did.

Read Across America Week

We had a great time during Read Across America Week!

Parent volunteers decorated classroom doors with the teacher's favorite book.

World Read Aloud Day was Wednesday!

There were lots of read alouds throughout the day.

We Skyped with author, Laurel Snyder.  She read part of her newest book to us and asked our opinion on the cover design for the paperback version. 

We read aloud to each other. 

Friday was "Seussical" hair day!

Visit our pictures site for more pics.