Friday, May 19, 2017

Art Appreciation, AH Field Trip, and Junior Achievement!

Time continues to fly by as we focus our studies on poetry, the history of Arlington Heights, and place value into the thousands and ten-thousands place! Below are some photos of our learning!


As we read and write poetry, the children have been on the lookout for figurative language including similes, onomatopeia, and alliteration. We practiced writing our own similes to help us add some sparkle to our own poems!














During math, the students grew more comfortable using the calculator to add and subtract dollar and cent amounts.




The children were SO excited to create Mother's Day surprises for their moms! They made the sweetest cards and bouquets of flowers. We hope you enjoyed them!









We were excited to welcome one of our earliest Arlington Heights family members, Frederick "Pop" Muller, to our classroom! We had just learned that Pop had a soda pop factory in his basement, and provided soda to the town at socials and festivities. We were especially eager to visit his home on our field trip on Monday after he dropped by Dryden last week! Thank you to Ms. Szady for bringing Mr. Muller to our school!


The Arlington Club Beverage Company is back in service! Chloe is holding one of the soda pop bottles that Ms. Szady brought with her from the Arlington Heights Historical Museum.
We learned that Mr. Muller created some tasty flavors of carbonated beverages. The children had fun making their own- cherry, lemon-lime, and root beer!














Here are a few photos of our Dryden duck Gertrude, and her adorable ducklings in the courtyard. They were warming themselves in the sun after a quick swim in the water! We were sad to see Gertrude and her babies leave, but look forward for her to return again next year!


It was fun to watch the babies huddle together underneath their mama to get as warm as possible!
The countdown has begun! This flower (sadly) is helping us keep track of how many days we have left together. It's so hard to believe that the end is near!

Dryden has begun Friday video announcements! Our class enjoyed watching the 5th graders and Mrs. Lane share the Pledge of Allegiance, school messages and updates, and the daily tidbit on our screen!

Mrs. Zemla dropped in last Friday to teach the children about the life and artwork of Henri Matisse. The children loved using bright pieces of colored paper to create their own art work! It's amazing to see what amazing pieces they created in such a short time!












It was field trip day! We were so lucky to have a BEAUTIFUL day to be out and about in Arlington Heights, learning about our town!

Here we are, about to enter the Arlington Heights Memorial Library!
We stopped to view the amazing artwork on display from our fellow Dryden Dolphins!










Thanks to Miss Julie for a great tour and for getting us excited about the summer reading program!

We were off to have lunch at North School Park!





After a quick performance of the "I Live in Arlington Heights" song written by our very own Mr. Deptula, we were ready to head to the Arlington Heights Historical Museum!
We noticed the First Presbyterian Church- also founded by William Dunton, along the way!

Here we are heading up the steps to the Muller Home!


We learned about what life was like in a log cabin back in the early days.



Our understanding of the job of a blacksmith grew!

We imagined what it was like to learn in a one room school house!




We viewed the interesting dioramas that formed a detailed timeline of the earliest moments in our town.







The children enjoyed practicing pioneer chores!




We even simulated packing a covered wagon, with only the most important items!





And then we headed back to Dryden School. Special thank you to Mrs. Lokun, Mrs. Pawlik, Mrs. Fitzgerald, Mrs. Groh, and Mrs. Tauber for coming along on our adventure!
Back at school, we declared one of our recesses a pioneer recess! The children played leap frog, tag, and pretended that they were on a wagon train! :)




In math, we worked to find the area of our hand and footprint in square centimeters. If MORE than half of the box was covered, we counted it, and if less that half was covered, we didn't. We had to use common sense and logic to come up with the most accurate measurements!

In the LMC, the children recorded the facts they learned into an Arlington Heights Landmark slideshow. Thank you to everyone who was able to stop by their landmark (or their landmark's location) and snap a photo! It really helped bring to life the history and our awareness of our town!

The class greatly enjoyed our Junior Achievement lessons with Mr. Waitkus of Komatsu in Schaumburg. He led the children through a series of lessons building their understanding of the businesses in a community, goods & services, needs & wants, products and production, taxes, decision making, and voting. The lessons were active, engaging, and the children learned so much!





The children each received a job and learned about the skills and schooling that were necessary to be successful in that position.
They learned about quality production, and were challenged to make as many donuts of high quality as they could in 3 minutes. Mr. Waitkus then "inspected" each donut and the defective donuts were not counted. We noticed that working slowly and carefully was an important strategy of the team who made the most donuts with the least defects!








The children were then challenged to create their own innovative donut! We had donuts with more than one flavor, donuts filled with interesting fillings, and fascinating shapes and sparkles! Great thinking, class!

I bet a whole series of emoji donuts would FLY off of the shelves! What a great idea! :) 😃 😍 😎

The children were so excited to learn they would earn Junior Achievement money for making their donuts! Their faces dropped when they learned the Tax Collector (Mr. Waitkus) would soon be coming around to collect a portion of their earnings to pay for important services in the community.

The last activity the children participated in was to carefully consider which new business should come to town. They could choose between a recycling program, and art studio, or a garden. The children discussed with their small groups the pros and cons of each choice between making their selection in a class vote.


Ask your child which business won!

After all of the wonderful lessons and spending some of his busy day with us, Mr. Waitkus then gave each of the children a Komatsu pencil box with pencils and ruler. What an awesome gift! I can only imagine what innovative creations the children might design and plan with these cool new tools!



The children were so proud to earn their Junior Achievement certificates of completion!
Thank you, Mr. Waitkus, for spending time with our class today and teaching us so many important and valuable life skills!

Thank you to Mrs. Cinkler and Mrs. Zemla for dropping in to share their last art appreciation artist of the year with the class- Pablo Picasso! The students learned the history of his life and work (and his outrageously long official name) with Mrs. Cinkler, and they shared the story "When Pigasso met Mootisse" with Mrs. Zemla.


The children had another opportunity to create their own masterpieces- this time styled after the work of Pablo Picasso!


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