Soles4Souls

Cannon Elementary School is conducting a SHOE DRIVE. We are collecting shoes to be donated to the Soles4Souls charity.  New, gently or well-worn shoes will be collected from 11/26/12 - 12/19/12 by all students as a school-wide community service project.

To learn more about Soles4Souls watch...Soles4Souls

or visit the Soles4Souls website at... http://www.soles4souls.org/

First Grade Shoe Collection Day 1

The Importance of Reading at home

This visual represents the researched connection between 'eyes on text reading' and academic success. It is vital that scholars read at home every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

STEM Family Night

Last night was STEM family night at Cannon.  Scholars brought their families to show them what STEM is all about!  Families had great fun visiting the Sound Lab, the new Media Center, and the Engineering/Robotics Lab.  In our classroom, scholars shared their learning and participated in a design challenge with their families.

The Challenge: Use 30 marshmallows and 30 toothpicks to build a freestanding tower inside a 5x5 square.  The time limit was ten minutes.

 Check out these engineers!

The Naked Turkey Project

After reading the book, A Plump And Perky Turkey, by Teresa Bateman, scholars were challenged to disguise a turkey so that it could survive the Thanksgiving holiday without being eaten. They did an amazing job...so creative and clever!

This turkey, by Abby, claims to be a cat and goes on to say that we do not eat cats because they are cute, furry and playful. :)

This turkey, by Major, claims to be a chef and goes on to explain that he will be preparing Thanksgiving dinner. He will not BE Thanksgiving dinner. :)

Cannon STEM Night...THIS Thursday!

Design Challenge: Building a House

After reading The Three Little Pigs; an Architectural Tale, scholars were asked to design and build a house that would be big enough to hold a pig (a toy pig) and withstand wind (a blow dryer). The materials included wooden blocks, straws, craft sticks and play dough/clay.

Mr. Elmore, a local builder, visited with scholars to share how builders plan, design, and build homes.

Scholars had lots of questions.

Scholars 'played' with materials prior to planning and ordering materials.

Thinking about the properties of each of the materials...

Scholars planned their house design using a 'blueprint'.

Working together on blueprints

Building; first attempts.

Testing to see if the pig will fit

The improvement stage

Scholars rebuild their houses based on what they learned from first attempts.

Testing the houses

Testing the houses with fingers crossed!!

It was voting day at Cannon Elementary!

Cannon scholars celebrated their patriotism today. We had a mock election where each student voted for the candidate of their choice.

Leslie is a proud Cannon Voter!

The Cannon Library served as our polling place.

Scholars completed a voter registration card and presented it to vote.

Voting Booth

Andrew Casts his vote with the help of a 5th grade volunteer!

Adamaris casts her vote!

Jaxon places his ballot in the ballot box.

Mufaddal receives his 'I Voted' sticker.

Jair and Mateo proudly sport their 'I Voted' stickers.

Macie and Gracie proudly sport their 'I Voted' Stickers.

Building Mathematical Concepts with the iPad

I've been concerned that because we've been using the iPads so much in Math class that perhaps scholars were not getting enough concrete experiences on which to build conceptual knowledge. In first grade, the idea of 'math facts' is new to scholars. I certainly want my scholars to become fluent and flexible with math facts but also know that that fluency and flexibility comes with lots and lots of work with manipulatives.
So, today, we used the iPad app, MathBug to generate a variety of math facts to practice but scholars used math cubes to solve the problems.  The kids were totally engaged. Mixing the old with the new seemed to be a hit!