October Newsletter

Collaboration Friday: We are Makers! Save the Carrots!

Collaboration Friday groups had to solve a huge problem!  Jasper rabbit keeps eating all the carrots in our garden.  How can we keep the rabbit out? How can we keep the rabbit from eating all of the carrots? After reading Creepy Carrots, students devised defense plans utilizing the materials they were given, for our garden owner to implement. Check out some of their awesome solutions.

Their solutions included: an electric fence, spy cameras, paper-wad shooters, traps, and more. Below one of our students explains her creation to keep the rabbits out of the garden.  

Students also worked with many different materials to build their prototypes.  They combined tape, popsicle sticks, straws, foil, beads, and more to design their solutions.  They discovered that combining different materials helped to create the needed materials for protection. The student below explains why he combined materials below.

Growth Mindset

I am so exited that Castleberry ISD is focusing on Growth Mindset!

In teaching our students about growth mindset and learning, we read the book Awesome Dawson by Chris Gall.  In this sci-fi - adventure - fun story, Dawson creates a robot to complete his chores for him so that he can focus on being an inventor.  As you can imagine, the robot malfunctions and wreaks havoc all over town.  It takes quick thinking, failing, and trying over and over again - to finally shut the robot down!

Following this heroic tale of problem solving, we discussed things we CAN DO at school.  It may take WORK, it may take FAILURE, it may HURT, and it will definitely take GRIT - What can we do in school this year?  Check out a few of the CE Kindergarten students answers. 

#CE4th: How to Find a Good Fit Book

Want to know how to find a good fit book?  CE's AWESOME 4th Graders are here to help you out!