The Battleships had their achievement ceremony today where we all got to celebrate all of their accomplishments over the past school year. The Battleships have grown so much over the past nine months and it has been a real pleasure getting to be a part of that. At the ceremony we recognized their achievements as a class and distributed medals to each student that had their personal achievement written on it. After the ceremony we all came back to the classroom to enjoy some Gillen Brewer themed cookies and other treats with friends and family! Last Thursday the Battleships took a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History. While there we examined artifacts from the Mesoamerican civilizations of the Maya and the Aztecs. We have been learning about these civilizations in class, and the Battleships were incredibly excited to get to see some of these objects in person. The Battleships explored the Hall of Mexico and Central America, which has many artifacts from Mesoamerica including tools, bowls, figurines, instruments, calendar stones and models of their buildings. After spending some time studying the Maya and the Aztecs in the museum, we headed to Central Park for a picnic lunch and a chance to play on the playground. What an awesome and educational trip! The Battleships are continuing their study of Mexico by starting to learn about Mexico's history. They are currently studying the Maya and afterwards will start studying the Aztecs! So far the Battleships have studied Mayan math, Mayan hieroglyphics and Mayan architecture. The Battleships have gotten to step into the shoes of the Mayan people to solve math problems using their math system and write messages to each other using hieroglyphics! Through a center based rotation, the Battleships also got to become architects and explore some of the types of buildings that the Maya people built, such as homes, temples, and palaces. We will continue to discuss Mayan culture and explore the ancient civilizations of Mexico over the next few weeks! Last week the Battleships presented on the Mexican holidays that they had been studying for the past several weeks. Before presenting, they went over presentation etiquette, including introducing a presentation and asking for questions at the end. We invited several members of the Gillen Brewer community, including Donna! All of the Battleships got to present their slides in the front of the room in front of the whole class and all of their special guests. Each student shared their information, and then answered questions about the material. Not only were they incredibly proud of all the work that they had done over the past several weeks, but they also really enjoyed getting to be the expert on their topic and teach the rest of the class (and our special guests) about the holiday that they had studied! For the past few weeks, the Battleships have been playing soccer at Asphalt Green. They have been doing individual drills, such as toe touches and dribbling, as well as partner drills where they work on passing. The Battleships have been getting the chance to practice working on soccer skills with a variety of classmates, and learning to work together to score goals. Through the mini-games that they are playing the Battleships are also working on their ability to communicate clearly with others, plan ahead, and work as a team, all of which are skills that we will be bringing back into the classroom! Even in the past two weeks all of the Battleships have made huge improvements. We cannot wait to see them keep working on all these skills and improving at soccer! As the Battleships continue to study Mexico in social studies, they have launched into a study of the Mexican holidays. They are working in groups to study Mexican Independence Day, Cinco de Mayo, and Day of the Dead! First, the Battleships read through articles to gather information about their holiday. While reading, the students filled out a packet to help organize their information about the name of the holiday, when the holiday is celebrated, where the holiday is celebrated, how the holiday is celebrated, and any extra information that the students might want the class to know. Using the information that they gathered, the Battleships are working on putting their new knowledge into Powerpoint presentations. The last step of the project will be to present the information about their holiday to the rest of the class. The Battleships are all incredibly excited to get to be the experts on their topic and teach the rest of the class! For the past two months, the Battleships have been reading The BFG by Roald Dahl. The story is about a girl, Sophie, who gets kidnapped from London by a giant and brought back to giant country. In giant country, the giant who took her reveals himself to be the BFG, or big friendly giant. He tells her the story of how he catches dreams, while his giant counterparts he shares the country with go off and eat little chiddlers! Together, Sophie and the BFG craft a plan to go see the Queen of England, make her dream about the giants, and stop the giants from continuing to feast on little girls and boys. Read Aloud is an excellent time for the Battleships to work on skills such as prediction, inference, and figurative language. The Battleships look forward to read aloud and finding out the ending to our wonderful story! Check out the pictures below to see how engaged the Battleships are as we read the story together. Since December break, the Battleships have been participating in Martial Arts at Asphalt Green. At Martial Arts they are working on training their bodies and becoming stronger. The Battleships are also practicing telling their bodies what to do so that they can practice being in control. They are learning to do cross jab punches, stand in a guard stance, kick with both their front foot and back foot, and are even doing roundhouse kicks! While we remind the Battleships that kicks and punches should not be practiced in the classroom, we have started bringing some of the Martial Arts ideas and concepts into our class. We have been talking about teamwork, leadership, and being in control of your body! Great job Battleships for working hard at Martial Arts! Did you know that Mexico has 31 states? The Battleships do! That is because in social studies the Battleships have started studying Mexico! We have been learning about the geography, the food, the holidays, and even learned some phrases in Spanish! The Battleships have begun to learn so much about Mexico, including that many Mexican dishes use corn as a base ingredient, and chili peppers to add some spice. During screen-free week we even got the chance to make some food ourselves that would be common in Mexico, such as guacamole and quesadillas! Last week we celebrated Very Important Person Day in the Battleship's classroom. The VIPs worked with the Battleships on a fun word search that went along with our current study of Mexico in Social Studies. Then we played Battleship Millionaire, just like the Who Wants to be a Millionaire Game Show hosted by Regis Philbin. All the Battleships worked hard to answer the Mexico related questions. Each student got two turns and then as a class they answered the million dollar question, which was "What is the Capital of Mexico?" All at once they shouted, "Mexico City." Well done! Thank you VIPs for joining us. |
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