The students did an amazing job presenting to the School Board
Monday night on our Quincy Wetland Project. They worked together
flawlessly and moved through the presentation they had put together,
solving technical issues as they would arise. To see them working so
well as a team and trouble shooting little glitches with the iPads in
front of such an important audience was a major celebration! I couldn't
have been more proud of them!
We have been graphing our Quincy Wetland Wristband Fundraiser totals, and noticed that whenever we do an announcement we see a small spike in sales. So, we decided to have a little fun competition to see which group could create the best commercial to keep our sales moving up. All of the groups did a great job, and all are sharing their commercials with different classrooms throughout the school.
The above commercial was the student voted winner, and was featured throughout the school in an email to the staff and shared with many classrooms. We have currently sold a little over half of our 600 bracelets, so if any parents would like to sign 10- 20 bracelets out to sell around town that would also help.
The interesting part about the wristband fundraiser is that it's turned into such a great economics project within itself. Throughout the years of teaching econonmics I've noticed how difficult it is to get kids to understand the basic concepts. This year we are having daily discussions about markets, profit, debt, goods, and consumers. I have the feeling that this experience will make the study of economics much easier when we get to the unit.
We are hoping to raise enough money with these wristbands to fully fund our information signs for our Quincy Nature Interpretive Trail in the Wetland. So, again if anyone wants to sign a few bracelets out and sell in the community that would be fantastic! They make great stocking stuffers!
Check out our trail building progress! We would like to thank you Mr. and Mrs. Timmer for helping us dig and get our trail started. Also, Mrs. Sturm has been with us quite a few Fridays helping brainstorm and write grants to local businesses to help us build our trail and outdoor classroom.
This Friday we had some special guests from the Zeeland West High School Wetland class. A few students and Mrs. Soucome stopped by to help us and brainstorm about what we have here at Quincy and how we could make our Q.W.P. a reality.
Our Quincy Wetland Project Wristbands are here!
Our Quincy Wetland Project wristbands are here and will be for sale during recess at school. Students are also welcome to bring a few home with them to sell for those interested in helping.
I have always wanted to do something with Quincy's wetland ponds. I
read a book this summer called "Place Based Education" which was about
getting kids involved in real world projects that directly improve their
local community. I thought our school was the perfect place to start.
With help from our Service Learning Coordinator, and many others we
have a pretty cool project planned this year. Our quick plan is as
follows:
1. This fall dig and put down stone for a short wetland
walk trail. The kids call it Q.N.I.T. which is short for Quincy Nature
Interpretive Trail. (They have fallen in love with the name so I'm
doubtful that I can convince them to call it something else. ;-)
2. Over the winter we are planning to design the
information signs along the trail, incorporating ecosystems, wetlands,
and various other applicable information from our fifth grade
curriculum. We would like to have some prototype ideas to get quotes
from local printing companies and have them printed and installed in the
spring.
3. (Big Dream) The building trades students at the
high school would like to help us build a small outdoor classroom with a
water testing deck. This is a big wish at this point, but I am
hopeful. They will build it in May, and it would complete the project
for this year. I would like to have a ribbon cutting ceremony on the
last week of school and have the kids officially hand the outdoor
classroom and trail over to the Quincy Community.
IF ANYONE CAN LOAN US YOUR WHEEL BARREL, A SHOVEL, AND STONE
RAKE, PLEASE BRING IT TO SCHOOL. WE WOULD LIKE TO SPREAD SOME STONE
THIS FRIDAY NEAR THE END OF THE DAY.
Our Native American studies culminated this week with our field trip to the Outdoor Discovery Center, and our Native American Museum Day. The ODC does a fantastic job engaging the students with the experience of Native American life. We got to try and start a fire with just two sticks, we built native three pole houses, and got to throw primitive Atlatl. It was a fantastic learning experience, and big day of fun.
Our Native American Museum Day was another celebration of learning. The kids presented their differentiated projects to several other classes, we even had a visit by Mrs. Kontowicz and Ms. Miller! We finished up the day by making dreamcatchers from willow branches just like the Native American's here in Michigan would have done. Thank you so much to all the parents that donated food items, artifacts, and helping their students dress up for the day.
Here is a quick video from last week Friday. The kids had a great time trying to complete the 5th grade readiness assessment! Make sure you ask them about it! We also had a little fun at the end of the day with a watermelon eating contest between the classes. I hope everyone is settling into the school year.
Parent Meeting September 20th 5:30pm
There will be a parent meeting to discuss some specific 5th grade events; such as the bike trip, field trips, and camp.
Welcome back everyone!I was so excited to see all of you on the first Open House night!Hopefully, all of you received your books.The hardcovers will not be here for a few weeks.Trust me I am as upset as you about it!But, they will be here.It was amazing to see the kids again and I was very excited to get this long awaited project back in their hands.The originals are still hanging in the room and will be on display for the first few weeks of school.We have had a great first week, and we are definitely back in the groove!
I am very excited to work with your kids again this year!We will have a similar format to last year, although there be some new additions to our reading program.There are quite a number of fantastic novels that are part of the 5th grade library.Throughout the year students will be choosing a book and doing a project to showcase their learning.
As a fifth grade team we will schedule a Parent Meeting very soon.Please stay tuned!
If you haven’t given me your preferred email address please send it to me via email @ bbraymer@zps.org, or write it down on the newsletter and return. I will be sending more Math Tips of the Day and important information.
As always, I encourage you to fill your email address in the subscription box on this blog to receive the updates as soon as I publish them. This year the blog and Newsletter will look the same.
What a great weekend camping trip with the Sturgeon Guard crew! Several families and teachers made the trek up north to a small town of Onoway Michigan, near Cheybogan to participate in the famous Sturgeon Guard of the Black River. We had fun bonding, and creating unforgettable memories from this amazing experience. We had our first up close and personal encounter with wild adult sturgeon! We met professional scientists, professors, and they gave us a quick tour of the local hatchery! It was a weekend I will never forget, that's for sure! Thank you again to all the families that came and all the good times! With out you these types of experiences couldn't take place. I hope you enjoy your summer and I can't wait to see everyone again in the fall!
We had a rough start to our famous Ludington State Park trip this year. It was pouring rain when we started out on the charter buses. Did that deter us? Of course not, this is fourth grade at Quincy! We are up to the challenge, and plus the weather was supposed to clear up. It was another great trip, and we had an amazing opportunity this year. We got to see a real live hognosed snake, which is very rare to find out in the wild. In fact, our ranger Allen said that he has been leading tours in the dunes for 19 years, and this was only the second time he had seen one with a school group! The kids always get excited to search for Petoskey Stones in a special area where at least 1 or 2 students find one every year. It was a great day for all, and my favorite part is always the lighthouse climb, and looking out over the vast Lake Michigan and all the beauty of the unique freshwater Great Lakes Dunes. A few people always over come their fear of heights and walk out on the little lighthouse railing. Adventures in education!
The lighthouse project has been part of our electricity and magnetism unit for many years. Students choose a Great Lakes Lighthouse to research and build while learning about electricity and magnetism. They worked on a Profiler Project for our differentiated choices at home and then constructed their lighthouses here at school. They are then tasked with wiring a simple circuit to making their lighthouse come to life. Last Friday we put together our Great Lakes Lighthouse Museum and had some visitors from third grade, and the other fourth grade classes to see what a great job we had done!
Hello everyone, excuse for being a bit brief with this post, but I still have a pin in my finger from surgery two weeks ago, and that makes typing a bit of a challenge. I wanted to invite you to view my profile on Educreations website; you should be able to view all of the lessons for our math units. As the students prepare for the test tomorrow it may be helpful to review some of these lessons a few times. Good luck tomorrow students!
The students once again did an amazing job with this readers' theatre! After spending several weeks reading, writing, and working on differentiated profiler projects about slavery and the Underground Railroad in the United States, the students practiced and performed a readers' theatre on Harriet Tubman for their fourth grade peers. It was another great museum day in our room as the students adorned our classroom with their murals, maps, and various other projects they chose to do. As the other fourth grade classrooms entered they were immersed in visual images about slavery and the Underground Railroad. The students love this type of sharing, and we are looking forward to our next museum day here in Mr. Braymer's classroom!
It has become an important part of our studies here at Quincy Elementary, and this year our group took this story into their own hands. It was a daunting task to pull off this short play in just two days. From learning about the story, writing the script, designing the props, and bringing in costumes, all the students pitched in to pull this off.
We had some help from an activity gleaned from an amazing Odyssey teacher named Linda Hamilton of Richmond Schools, who put together quite a performance of this story. Next year we hope to build on what we learned from this years group and help bring this story alive for more than just a classroom. Thanks again to my phenomenal group of fourth grades for making this story their own in just two days. The memory of the Christmas Tree Ship lives on!
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