Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful, blessed Christmas!! I am very thankful for the true meaning of Christmas, God's gift of His only Son, Jesus. I am also extremely thankful for my precious, talented students, and for you, their parents, for your support and for allowing me to play a part in their lives.

I would like to wish all of my students and their families a Happy New Year! As 2009 approaches, I am beginning to make plans for the upcoming year in our classroom. I have lots of creative, exciting (and yes, also educational) ideas to try out at TARGET this spring with my third and fourth graders!

I will be sending home a survey about the usefulness of our class blog with all students the first and second weeks back in school. Parents, I greatly value your input in making your child's experience at TARGET as valuable as possible! Please feel free to contact me in any of the following ways - commenting on this blog, email, by phone, or in person.

Kids Making a Difference At Home and Around the World

Before Christmas, during our "Countries Fair," 3rd grade students learned about several ways they can make a difference at home and around the world. As promised (although a couple of weeks late), here are links to some of the websites I mentioned in class and on the flier students took home:

www.compassion.org - Sponsor a needy child in a foreign country for just $32 a month through this reputable Christian organization.

www.hannahssocks.org/ - An 8-year old girl started this organization (with help from her parents) to provide homeless people with warm socks.

www.pointhope.org - Radio host Delilah's nonprofit organization created to help starving children and adults in Buduburam, a community of Liberian refugees. Services include providing clean water, food, and education.

www.soles4souls.org/ - Donate used shoes to help kids around the world.

www.motherbearproject.org/ - Knit a bear for a child born with the HIV virus.

www.letssaythanks.com/ - Sponsored by Xerox, this site allows people to write and send a free card to a soldier.

If you know of additional ways my students might enjoy helping others, please post a comment! Thank you! :)

Family Volunteer Day

One of the classes I'm teaching this year at TARGET is called "Kids Making a Difference." Third graders have chosen a problem and are working on creating a project to solve their problem, and helping others in the process. Monday students are starting a recycling project and helping the Downtown Northport Historical Society with some projects, and Wednesday students are planning a health fair and Healthy Holiday Treats cookbook, to encourage people to live healthier lives. My fourth graders also have some neat ideas for helping others during the holiday season. I love watching my students' desire and enthusiasm for helping others! It is such an authentic, fun, meaningful way to learn.

In our society today, I think it is more important than ever before that we instill a sense of compassion and desire for service in our children. I would love to invite you and your children to participate in the nationwide Family Volunteer Day on Saturday, November 22! This is an annual event sponsored by Disney on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. You could take some food to the West AL Food Bank or another food pantry, choose a needy child to sponsor for Christmas from the Salvation Army's "angel tree," fill a shoebox with small gifts for a needy child in another country (Operation Christmas Child ministry - collection dates Nov. 17-24 at Northport Baptist Church), rake an elderly neighbor's leaves, or do another activity to help someone. Click here for more info: http://disney.go.com/disneyhand/familyvolunteers/
I would love to hear what your family does! Please post your comments on our class blog! (If you have tried to comment before but have been unsuccessful, please try again. I have edited the settings to allow comments; however, I must first approve them before they are posted, as an added safety feature.)

TARGET 4th Grade Photography Website

Visit our TARGET 4th grade photography blog to see some of the digital close-up photos we took during our first lesson on digital photography:

http://targetphotography.blogspot.com/

4th Grade Websites - Knights/Castles and Digital Photography

Visit this website to learn more about knights and castles in the Middle Ages:
http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek3/castles.htm
Click on any of the links to visit different pages with interesting information. Remember, you can always use the BACK arrow to go to the last page you visited. Write down any important or interesting facts you find. Be sure to also write down the address of the webpage (www...).

Visit this website to view artistic photos taken by a local professional photographer, Tommy Coleman:
www.tommycoleman.com

Check out some great historical photos at the American Museum of Photography's website:
http://www.photographymuseum.com/index.html

Try to figure out what these close-up photos actually are!
http://www.theimage.com/closeup/closeup.html

Visit these website to learn more about digital photography for kids:
http://www.adobe.com/education/digkids/lessons/

Enter this digital photography contest for kids! Deadline: October 17
http://www.techlearning.com/portraits/index.php

4th Graders Use the Laptop Lab

My 4th graders enjoyed using the laptop computer lab for the first time! They explored a very interesting art website, where they learned about color theory, explored the art of crime detection, and even created short videos! Check it out: http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/ (Go to "Play") Students in 3rd and 4th grades will get an opportunity to use the laptop lab for an hour once every five weeks during morning work. We will also use it during other times of the day to create projects and explore educational websites and webquests. Learning with technology is so much fun!!!

Kids Making a Difference at TARGET

TARGET students are really making a difference in the world around them this year! Some third grade students have chosen to attend my exploratory class, "Kids Making a Difference," in which they have identified many problems in the world around them and are focusing on a few to creatively help solve through creation of projects this fall. My Monday exploratory students have chosen pollution as their "big" problem that they are working on together to do a whole class project, and Wednesday students have chosen the health of kids in Alabama as the focus of their big class project. Small groups are tackling projects on the following topics: kids with special needs, hungry/homeless people, veterans (recognition), publicity for the TARGET program, and history of downtown Northport (with some help from the historical society), writing books, and more! Stay tuned to find out how kids are working to make a difference by checking our website for updates each week!

Daycation to Ancient Greece & Rome - 3rd Grade

Third graders traveled halfway around the world and back - all in a day in TARGET! Last week, we took a "daycation" to ancient Greece and Rome, where students made passports, completed a travel guide to learn about each civilization, viewed an educational video, sampled Mediterranean cuisine, saw some authentic Greek "souvenirs" at the market, and even wrote postcards to friends and family back home! While making a timeline, we found that ancient Greece happened before ancient Rome, as students learned the meanings of B.C. and A.D. We also made relief maps and learned all about the continents and map skills.

This week, we began our Values and Beliefs unit with an introduction to Greek and Roman mythology. We learned that myths are creative, made-up stories created by ancient cultures to explain why things happened. After creating their own unique mythological characters and reading creation myths from various cultures, students created watercolor masterpieces of either the Greek creation story or their personal belief about creation. Next week, we will "meet" some interesting characters from Greek and Roman myths!

Let Learning Take You Around the World at TARGET

I have had a wonderful first two weeks with my third and fourth graders! Third graders are learning about ancient Greece and Rome all year as part of our humanities curriculum. Do you know what "humanities" means? Your 3rd grader does! Ask them! We have had so much fun sharing our "Greece and Rome Challenge" projects. The students have all impressed me so much with their creativity and the great connections they made between ancient and modern times. Way to go!!! :) Third graders also attended the Exploratory course they selected for the first time this week. Our fall Exploratories are China, Japan, Mexico, Kids Making a Difference, and Performance (practice for Disney Magic Music Days).

In fourth grade, our year-long humanities topic is the Middle Ages. We were very sad last week when Rome fell... right before our very eyes! Students "became" collapsing columns as we discussed reasons for the collapse of the Roman empire and made some interesting comparisons between Rome and the United States. My fourth graders are such deep thinkers! In our Art Mini-Course, we had a blast learning about the elements of art. We defined each element, then identified the elements in items hidden inside our treasure chest. This week, students will work in small groups to make a creative presentation for each element, which they will share with the class. Other Mini-Courses students will be attending this fall are Science (Chemistry) and Problem-Solving.

3rd Grade Greek Architecture Projects

Greek Architecture Project Fair Winners

One of my 3rd grade classes with their projects

Third graders returned to TARGET this week after staying at regular school for standardized testing the past two weeks. I was so glad to have them back! We participated in a Greek architecture project fair, in which they shared the Greek architecture projects they created at home over the past two weeks, as a culminating activity for our architecture units. Projects included poster illustrations of Greek temples, 3-D models of Greek buildings, "Look Alikes" Greek buildings, and photo essays of Greek architecture. My class had some very creative, resourceful, and "tasty" creations! One of my third grade classes and the "Best Overall," "Most Creative," and "Honorable Mention" winners are featured above.

Pottery and Knights

Third graders are busy designing Greek pots! Last week, we began our Art and Architecture Unit by learning all about Greek architecture; this week, we learned about Greek pottery. Students learned the difference in red figure and black figure (Ask them!), and we created our own pottery designs. Students also started their new Exploratory Course, in which they will be working to creating individualized projects related to their interests for our upcoming Greek Festival, which will be held in March.

Fourth graders are learning all about the knights of the Middle Ages in our "Those Who Fight" rotation. They have all been formally dubbed as "knights" and "dames," so hold them to their code of honor by expecting chivalrous manners! :) Today, my Thursday students were the first to pilot our NEW laptop computer lab!!!! I was thrilled, as were the kids! This is a four-year long dream come true for our school, and we can't wait to put it to good use. We viewed several informative webpages about knights and the Middle Ages, including one created by a fourth and fifth grade gifted students like us! We began making plans to write an ABC book about knights and/or create a webpage. Last but not least, students finished their independent projects for "Those Who Work" and "Those Who Pray," and they attempted (some successfully) to solve Einstein's Riddle in the Problem Solving Mini Course w/ Mrs. Belew.

Internet Activities for Gifted Students (at school AND home!)

As promised in the January calendar I sent home, I am finally sharing some good resources for gifted kids - activities to do at home, websites, games, etc. I will continue to post resources and ideas through the month of February, so that you will hopefully have a plethora of ideas to try at home with your gifted child! I will also include some resources for parents of gifted children.

This week's focus is online resources. Here are some great websites that I have found:

http://www.adifferentplace.org/index.html - contains MANY high quality activities created by a gifted teacher especially for g/t students. This could be used by students at home, as well as by the teacher at regular school as a method of differentiating instruction.

www.hoagiesgifted.org/brain_teasers.htm - lots of problem-solving activities and games

www.mathplayground.com - math games, logic puzzles, etc.

www.freetypinggame.net - Of all of my third and fourth graders, only a few know how to type (the correct way). This site features many FREE games to learn typing skills.

http://42explore.com/pottery.htm - 3rd graders are in the process of learning about pottery in ancient Greece. This site includes lots of links to kid-friendly info. and activities.

http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/kids/greecepot.htm - We used this cool site in class to make our own Greek pots! Very neat!!!

http://library.thinkquest.org/J002767/index.htm - a WebQuest about knights, our current fourth grade topic of study in our "Those Who Fight" rotation.

These are just a few; many more to come later! Visit our site often for new postings!! :)