Students creating paper circuits!

Fourth grade students in Ms. Wright’s class learned about circuits this week.  Mrs. Harman led them through a training session using copper tape, LED stickers and button batteries. The stickers lit up when the circuits were correctly completed and all students were able to create a working circuit. 

These students will become the mentors to second grade classes when the younger students create illuminated illustrations to go along with the original fairy tales they will write next month.

The materials for the training session and the ‘brilliant’ fairy tales are being funded by a K-12 Education Partnership grant from the Dominion Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Dominion Resources.  More information on paper circuits and materials can be found at http://chibitronics.com/

A guest blog post from our friends in Ms. Fagan's classroom

Today's blog post has been written by the students in Ms. Fagan's 3rd grade classroom. Enjoy reading about this topic in their words. 

Buddy Bench

We see them everyday. Friends who do not have anyone to play with outside on the playground wander around for the entire recess time. Alone.

It's not fun being alone. We have all experienced this at least once.

We wanted to make a difference in our school to make sure that friends are not lonely any day- especially with friends who are new to Baker-Butler.

At first, we thought about adopting an endangered animal species to help the environment, but we decided to take care of our school first. We thought of things that we could do to improve our beautiful school. Here is a list of things that we brainstormed:

•    Bird feeders

•    Buddy Bench

•    More milkweed and bushes for monarch butterflies

•    More equipment for PE

•    More books for the library

We picked the Buddy Bench because it is perfect for our growing school. We decided that a bench made from stone would last longer with the snowy and wet climate of Charlottesville.

Here is a picture of our Buddy Bench:

Here's how a Buddy Bench works:

•    Don't have a friend? Sit on the bench.

•    If you see someone on the bench, invite them to your game.

•    New friends are everywhere!

How are we raising the money to buy our Buddy Bench?

Keep on the lookout for our posters which advertise our tasty treats as we cook on Fridays. Price of treats depends on the size of the treat and cost of ingredients.

Check back for more posts as we cook on Fridays!

Exciting day in 2nd grade with HistoryConnects!

This morning our Baker-Butler Second graders participated in a special program called HistoryConnects Digital Classroom.  The second grade classrooms connected to the Virginia Historical Society, located in Richmond, VA, to learn more about Pocahontas and the Powhatan Indians. 

They were connected by video conference with the presenter as well as several other classrooms.
 

Our presenter, Mandy Tompkins, shared information and artifacts with the students. 

 

 Students were also able to ask and answer questions through this digital classroom experience.

Many thanks to the Charles Fund, Inc. for providing a generous grant to fund this wonderful learning experience for the students in ACPS and CCPS.

 

Quotes from students:

Today we had a teacher from Richmond, VA.  She showed us about the Eastern Woodlands.  She connected to two classrooms at our school. I learned that Pocahontas had a son named Thomas.  The Powhatans hunted deer and if the women were married they had bangs.

By Jillian

I learned that the men of the Powhatan tribe would fish at night.  They would build a fire in clay on the canoe and the light would attract the fish.

By Jenna

We saw pictures by John White.  In one picture, the man’s hair was in a mohawk.  We learned that they cut their hair with shells and rocks so the bow string would not get caught in their hair.

By Anaiyah

Mandy was the teacher.  We connected two classes to the museum in Richmond.  They had cool artifacts. The Powhatan Indians made arrows and spears.

By Carter