Our Garden is Here

Last spring I put my 5th graders to the task of designing their "dream garden." One of the criteria was to measure and design sketches for a garden that could fit in some of the open spaces near our portable. They were so excited by the idea we wound up planting beans, tomatoes (donated by Al's Gardens Center), and herbs in planters outside our portable.

All along our ultimate goal was to get a garden going at Sexton Mountain. So, in June I sent a Capital Improvement Proposal for our potential garden into the Beaverton School District, which included sketches and measurements created by my 5th grade class. Our garden was approved within a week.

With the help of some dedicated Sexton Mountain parents we created a slideshow to promote our potential garden at the school carnival last year. We were lucky enough to make contact with someone at Home Depot. It turned out HD has a whole division of volunteers who specialize in building school gardens. I sent our plans to HD and we were awarded a $2000 grant for our garden.

Long story short, HD's team of garden construction volunteers came to Sexton Mountain today with trucks, tools, lumber, and soil and built our gardens for us in the quintessential Oregon rain. Despite the weather they stuck it out and the garden beds look great. We are very thankful for their efforts.

Parents...if any of you happen to have a green thumb, extra tools, supplies, or ideas for our raised beds we welcome your contributions.

Some Things We've Been Working On

Our entire class showing off their Alien Writing. The students worked on these pieces for a little over a week. In most cases they completed several, however in the end they chose one or two of their favorites to be displayed in the hallway near the library. These aren't as easy they look, especially for fourth graders. Other than being cool to look at, the object of this lesson is to get the kids to slow down, trust their hand eye coordination, and think things through. They did an amazing job!

The pictures below are some of the final products from a mini class project we did together called Vegetation ABC's. Each student researched a plant, tree or flower that started with the same letter as their first name. They were asked to create a poster with illustration that included the plant's scientific name, habitat, physical description, and interesting facts. Some students chose to do extra credit by doing two, or including a poem, or including animals that depended on their topic. They did a great job for their first integrated project. There is many more to come.

It Has Begun

Signatures: As you may have noticed after this first week of school, parent signatures play a significant role in not only our classroom, but in Mrs. Krueger's and Mrs. Tanksley's grade four classrooms as well. We all feel that our students' success in school improves when their parents are active, engaged, and aware of the goings on at school as well. Therefore, you will find your children coming home quite often this year with various projects, assignments, and activities for you to read through together and for you to sign off on.

Project Criteria Sheets: Almost all the major projects we do have criteria sheets that break down the various tasks involved in completing the project. Since these projects can be complex and can take anywhere from a week to a month to complete, we like our students to take the criteria sheets home to read through with their parents and sign. We always go over the criteria sheets together extensively at school and refer back to them constantly until the project is complete. Therefore, it's important for students to have these with them at school.

Our first criteria sheet, Cereal Box Project, should have made it's way home for you to read through and sign this weekend. This project, like most of our projects, has many parts that add up to one completed whole. Due to the opened ended nature of such projects, we typically do not set a due date for the entire project at the beginning. Rather, we break it down into parts with individual due dates for each part determined in class and then we set an overall project due date based on student progress once we've made some headway. That said, all students are expected to meet all due dates unless there are extenuating circumstances. The first aspect of our Cereal Box Project is a personal timeline, which is why the kids were asked to brainstorm some ideas for their timeline with you over the weekend.

Daily Planner: This is a hugely important resource for our class this year. Students use it everyday to record both what we did in class and what is expected for homework. Your child's Daily Planner should look very similar to the Daily Planner you can find on our blog under the School Survival heading. On Thursday each week they fill out Skill to Support Lifelong Learning section and ask for your signature. I see this as another time for you to connect with your child's learning. Their planner should be neat and legible. And, they should be able to explain every aspect of it. If they're having trouble completing work or forgetting things it usually means they're not completing or using their planner correctly.

I hope this helps with some of the questions you may have had this first week of school. I think we had fun and productive first week. I've been very impressed with the overall make-up and effort of our class. I think we're in for a great year. Remember, we have Curriculum Night September 30th. Please do not hesitate to get ahold of me if you have any questions or concerns.

Mr. Schwindt

First Day

We had a great first day of school today. We started a lot of different projects and activities that we'll be working on over the next few days, including:

1. Me Poster - rough draft in spiral to be finished tonight (DUE 9/8)

2. Student Interviews - pairs interview each other and create a Venn Diagram about each other

3. Blog Hunt

4. Vegetation ABC's research project - each student has been assigned a letter to research a plant starting with that letter to be included in a class ABC book of vegetation.

It's very important all students get the supplies from the Supply Check List I created. We went through it today as a class and the kids should have brought it home. It's slightly different than the supply list provided by the school. Sorry about this, but there was some confusion and the office did not have the right supply list for our team. Please let me know if there's any confusion, or questions, or if help is needed to get any of the supplies.

The kids were great today. They were helpful, courteous, and eager to learn.

-Mr. Schwindt