Chinese New Year Lion Dance

Hi families! Yesterday we celebrated Chinese New Year right here at Claxton! Our celebration began with a morning filled with Chinese New Year stories and activities, and in the afternoon we went out into the hallway for the Lion Dance Parade. The celebration wrapped up with an assembly in the gymnatorium where students were able to watch another lion dance and have a question and answer session with the dance teacher. Check out our video below to see the excitement!


Chinese New Year Lion Dance from Ms. Wertheim on Vimeo.

Gung Hay Fat Choy! (Happy New Year)

Happy Birthday, Dr. King!

This week we will be doing several Martin Luther King Jr. activities. Last week I showed students a picture of MLKJ and they brainstormed their "wonderings." This week students will be doing research about his life to answer those wonderings. Jamie Allbach (the fabulous CLX media center specialist) will be coming in to co-teach with me as students use iPads and Big Universe to conduct research. Be sure to check back later this week for some of the highlights from our MLJK activities. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this powerful quote which I believe in, 100%. Character education in my classroom is just as important as intelligence education. :)

Photo Credit: Teach for America 

Happy Monday! Thanks for stopping by, 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Room 203 families. This semester is off to a great start! This week we reflected on 2013 by writing about memories, lessons learned, and favorite moments. Then we learned about S.M.A.R.T. Goals. I believe that goal-setting is very important, even at a young age. Each student set a goal for the year and wrote down the action steps they will take to reach their goal. They also drew pictures of themselves achieving their goal to help them visualize it happening.Next time you're at Claxton, take a look at our newest bulletin board: "Swing into 2014 with S.M.A.R.T. Goals." I'm very proud of all my kiddos!

Mark My Words: Step-By-Step Videos for Fundations Marking

Want extra practice marking words for Fundations? Check out the new step-by-step videos I made with Educreations. These are great to review with your child before Fundations Unit Tests.  *Shout out to Ms. Adams for showing me how to create these videos :)

Marking Closed Syllables

Marking Closed Syllable Exceptions

Marking Words With Suffixes

Marking Multisyllabic Words

Marking Vowel-Consonant-E  (v-e) Syllables

Hour of Code

Today our wonderful Instructional Technology Facilitator, Mrs. Eggett, led an amazing lesson about coding! 90% of schools do not teach Computer Science, although it is an essential skill for this Digital Native generation. Claxton has 250 students participating in the Hour of Code this week.

Students learned about how computer programming works and even had the chance to code on their own, via an incredible website: Lightbot! (Kids are welcome to play this game at home!)

This Hour of Code initiative aims to educate students about computer science and spark their interest in potential computer science careers. They loved it! Learn more about Hour of Code at http://csedweek.org :)

If your child just can't get enough of coding, here are a couple fun and educational sites to practice coding: Tynker and Code.org :)

Spreading Holiday Cheer

Today we went on our very first field trip of the year! We had the honor of delivering holiday trees--decorated by students and staff at Claxton--to the residents at Care Partners Adult Day Care. Not only did we bring the gift of the trees, but we also brought the gift of music. Students performed holiday songs that they've been practicing in music class. The residents at the center loved it! They were clapping and singing along. :) Here are a few pictures from the day! 

Around the World and Back By Lunchtime

I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty awesome that this morning my 2nd graders and I managed to fly to the other side of the world, tour another country, and make it back in time for lunch ;) Of course, none of this was possible without a little a lot of help from Google Earth!

My classroom theme this year is Ms. Wertheim's World Travelers! Part of my classroom management plan is our Superstars Suitcase. When I see the class working hard or going above and beyond, our Travel Agent for the week gets to choose an item to pack in our suitcase. When the suitcase is full, the students get to pick anywhere in the world to take a field trip via Google Earth.

Since we are sponsoring a student at Kopila Valley School in Nepal, the kiddos voted to take a trip to Nepal. It was a blast! First, we made sure we had our passports all ready to go, complete with a passport photo, of course ;) Next, students had to "buy" their plane tickets and received their Boarding Pass and Trip Itinerary. Then we boarded the plane and got ready to take off from the Asheville Airport runway. As you can see, they were super excited! This photo means the world to me. This is what teaching is all about--making lessons so magical and watching these kiddos' imaginations soar. This is the look of pure joy when we were about to take off on the runway. So much for reminding them to stay in their seats with their seat belts fastened ;)

I wanted to make our trip feel as realistic as possible. I used street view in Google Earth to make it look like we were really on the runway, and when we took off I played a YouTube video of a plane ride so the kids could see what it really looks like from the window of a plane. Hanging out in the clouds is something everyone deserves to experience :) They pretended to sleep for the remainder of our 16 hour flight across the world.

When we arrived at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, we talked about the time difference and jet lag. Most of them wrote in their journals how "tired" they felt from the long flight. They immediately noticed the difference in the terrain and the buildings in Nepal. This lead to great discussion about architecture, natural resources, and economics. 

After touring Kathmandu, it was time for us to take a long, bumpy, windy bus ride to Surkhet to visit Jarana and the other students at Kopila Valley School. We got to see pictures of the school, talk about similarities and differences, and even had the chance to "meet" a few students from Kopila.

What trip to Nepal is complete without a visit to Mt. Everest!? The kids couldn't wait to "hike" to the top. They especially loved looking at all the Google Earth pictures posted at the peak. And, in true imaginative fashion, I let them "sled" down Mt. Everest, which I must admit is pretty fun in Google Earth ;)



Throughout our trip, the kids wrote about their experience in their passports, which double as a journal. They even learned how to say a few words in Nepali, including my favorite--Namaste.

I know it's unrealistic for us to go on field trips all the time, but with Google Earth in the classroom the possibilities are truly endless. I can't wait to see where we go next! ;)

Thank you for stopping by, and Happy Thanksgiving!