Virginia Festival of the Book!

We always enjoy celebrating the Virginia Festival of the Book and taking advantage of the great authors who are in town. 

On Friday March 20th all of our 3^rd and 4^th grade students thoroughly enjoyed a memorable presentation by Newbery Award winning author Kate DiCamillo.  In addition, 45 copies of Flora and Ulysses, her 2014 Newbery Award title, were donated to our school.  Other favorite titles by DiCamillo include the Newbery Award winners Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Desperaux, the Mercy Watson series, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Bink and Gollie, The Tiger Rising and The Magician’s Elephant.

Recently, Steven Weinberg, author and illustrator of Rex Finds an Egg! Egg! Egg! delighted our 2^nd graders, sharing the start of his writing career in kindergarten, answering all of our questions and emphasizing the importance of reading lots of books and writing lots of stories.  He left us with lots of writing ideas and pictures of dinosaurs.

Dr. Robert Gest, a Cultural Community Ambassador to Baker-Butler

Last week, Mrs. Roesch’s fifth grade class had a visit from their Cultural Community Ambassador, Dr. Robert Gest, a retired Air Force Colonel.   

Dr. Gest is a local resident of Charlottesville who visits their classroom each month to share African-American literature in the form of picture books with the students. 

Additionally, he offers his personal insights into growing up in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

    Students enjoy the read-aloud, especially when it is peppered with Dr. Gest’s real-life experiences as a child growing up during the Civil Rights movement. Check out this story about Dr. Gest's visits at Baker-Butler!

Our second grade Chinese festival!

Last week the second graders at Baker-Butler Elementary were finally able to celebrate the Chinese New Year on Friday with a festival of Chinese foods and culture. Students were joined by parents for a delicious Chinese luncheon catered by Oriental Express.   The owners of the restaurant, who are parents of a former Baker-Butler student, also provided traditional new year’s banners for the doors of each second grade classroom.  The banners were hand lettered especially for the classes by a family member in China

  

After the luncheon students moved through different hands-on stations focused on Chinese culture. They painted bamboo scrolls, made tangram puzzle designs, practiced Tai Chi, performed ribbon dances to traditional Chinese music, and recreated the life cycle of the silkworm in a chopstick relay race.

 

The festival and luncheon were the culminating activities for the second grade study of ancient China.  Throughout the study, students created beautiful silk paintings with natural dyes, used the computer program Comic Life to share their knowledge about pandas and Chinese inventions, researched and created panda dioramas, wrote dragon Haiku poems, and practiced writing Chinese characters with brushes and ink. 

3rd grade Toga Day!

Recently our third graders enjoyed celebrating the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome by participating in Toga Day.

 

Students came to school dressed in togas and participated in several different activities.

Some of the special activities included dining on Mediterranean food, learning about Roman numerals, making mosaic picture frames, constructing an aqueduct, and participating in a mini Olympics. 

 

Everyone had fun during this day of hands on learning!

 

Thanks to our local 7-Eleven!

Our Baker-Butler Physical Education team applied for an "A-Game" matching grant in November.  The potential for our award was $711.00 for our program, offered to us from our Forest Lakes 7-11 neighbor and the corporate offices of 7-Eleven.

We are excited to announce that we recently found out that we received this grant for our school. Our friends, Tom and Lisa, from 7-Eleven presented the PE team our check on February 25, 2015.

This award will support new nutrition education initiatives, and enhance our training equipment for students physical fitness.   We are also excited to begin a community partnership with the 7-Eleven team by sharing our progress and school events.
  

We are very excited to have additional funds to purchase equipment for our students.  We hope that everyone will support our community 7-Eleven by buying gas, Slurpees, snacks, and more!

"A-Game" is on- thank you, 7-Eleven!

2nd graders walk like an Egyptian...

Do you know how to "Walk like an Egyptian"? All of our 2nd graders do now thanks to a great new book club that just started!

 
On Friday, February 27^th, the 105 second-graders at Baker-Butler Elementary began a special book club!   Students and their families are invited to spend time each weekend reading the book Secrets According to Humphrey, by Betty G. Birney, and completing a weekly secret mission!  

 

The book tells the story of a class pet, Humphrey the hamster.  Humphrey works to solve a mystery while learning about Ancient Egypt along with the class.  

Students received a copy of the book, which is theirs to keep!  

The cost of the books, and reading incentives, were funded by a grant from the Walmart Foundation.

 
 

















On Friday every student was presented his/her own copy of the book, and they learned how to dance "Walk like an Egyptian" by The Bangles during the ceremony. 

 
Our teachers got into the act, too, as they wore Egyptian headdresses and taught the students secret Egyptian hand signals. 

  

We are really excited about this new 2nd grade book club. Thanks again to our great teachers for creating this idea and for writing the grant as well as our local Wal-Mart for their financial support to make it possible!