Team Pay Day is Growing Wisconsin Fast Plants

Our Wisconsin Fast Plants are growing wild in Room 107! The students are logging the growth in a journal on a daily basis. Along with illustrations, the students are measuring the plants and comparing the variables that were tested. Keep checking the blog for an update!

Unfortunately we had a setback with the seeds in Room 109. But with a day of replanting, we're looking forward to growth in the near future.

After replanting the seeds in our quadrants, Room 109 is off and running with healthy plants. The students learned about the importance of thinning their plants to provide room for the plants' roots to grow. We are looking forward to seeing flowers so that we can pollinate.

GO PENS!

Bring Your Child to Work Day was an exciting day for Team Pay Day. Students wrote poems that were inspired by the Pittsburgh Penguins and Mr. Zimmerman’s beard. Students wrote many different types of poems from haikus to free verse. They created 3-D “poetic penguins” to display their poetry. We even had some visitors who got to make a penguin to take home with them. Mr. Abbondanza’s daughters, Mr. Zimmerman’s son, and Mrs. Reda’s son all got the opportunity to create a penguin. These penguins will be hanging around to support the Pens in the playoffs.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Willa was so excited to take care of our penguin on May 4. She took great care of him, and she named her new friend Finnegan.

Camden did an excellent job taking care of our Penguin on April 30. He creatively named him Camden Jr.

It was Tyler's day to adopt our penguin friend on April 28, 2010. He named him Iceberg and did a great job taking care of him.

MacKenzie was excited to adopt the penguin on April 26, after the Pens great victory on Saturday night!

Rylie had a great time taking care of our penguin friend on Thursday, April 22.




Students on Team Pay Day continue to support Mr. Zimmerman and the Mario Lemieux Foundation. Courtney and Aaron both adopted our penguin for the day on April 20, 2010. Students are excited about the game tonight and they even got to watch a live webcast of Mr. Bluemling raffling off some fun Penguin gear.

Adopt a Penguin

Jesse took care of our penguin friend today. He is hoping the Pens take the series tonight when they defeat the Canadians. Go PENS!

It was Casey's turn to spend the day with our Penguin friend. She took it to art class where the lesson was "chilling." She named it Iceberg and knows that it will bring the Penguins good luck tonight!

On Monday, May 3 Danielle Zdrale made a new friend at NSIS. She named it Crosby-Malkin-Cooke. Our "cool" friend learned how to recycle paper during the cartooning exploratory. Going "GREEN" is important to penguins too!

Kayla Hinkle was the keeper of the penguin on April 29,2010. She gave it a tour of the school and made sure it was given the Top Ten Ways to Beat Montreal! The penguin is still holding on to the name Fleury.

It was Natalie's day to take care of the "COOL" penguin. She liked carrying it around and sharing it with her friends. She was a wonderful caregiver and named it William Fleury.

It was Vincent Lavorgna's day to care for our penguin friend. He named it "Richard William" and took great care of it thoughout the day on April 23, 2010. We're raising tons of money for The Mario Lemieux Foundation, and we wish the Pens GOOD LUCK on Saturday.

Lexey Finney got to adopt our team penguin on April 21, 2010. It was a super present for her as is was her birthday. Happy birthday Lexey! Keep earning those dollars for the Mario Lexieux Foundation.

Mr. Zimmerman is participating in the Pittsburgh Penguin's Beard-a-thon. It helps to raise money for the Mario Lemieux Foundation. Aideen O'Donoghue adopted our penguin for the day on April 19, 2010. We look forward to circulating this "COOL" animal around our team throughout the playoff season.

"TEACH ME" HOW TO BE PHYSICALLY FIT!

The students on Team Pay Day enjoyed being the teacher for a day when they prepared a lesson plan to promote physical fitness. The students worked in groups to create a lesson that involved a warm-up, physical activities, and a cool-down. The students loved playing the role of the teacher and had their classmates actively involved in lessons to promote physical fitness. Some of the awesome lessons included basketball skills, soccer skills, jumping rope, stretches, running, and yoga. One of the favorite activities was the Buzzer Beater Contest where students role played making the final shot at the end of an exciting basketball game. The students learned the importance of planning a good lesson, being prepared, and having fun while they were working on being healthier.

At the conclusion of the lesson, the students were asked to evaluate their performance and identify what they did well in the lesson and how they could improve it if they were to teach it again. Many of the students rated their lesson a perfect 10. The lessons were well done, and I think we have a few future teachers on our team!

Will their colonies survive?

In social studies, students have been learning about the colony of Jamestown. Students learned that the original colonists that settled in Jamestown had a difficult time sustaining the colony. Almost half of the settlers died due to poor choices in settlement location, management of resources, and quarrels with Powhatan Indians. In groups, students were given the task of establishing an online colony in the New World. They made decisions as a group for their colony about where the location of the colony should be, how they would get food, and how they would protect themselves from attackers. Students even had the opportunity to ask fellow colonists and Native Americans for advice. They quickly learned that some advice is better than others. Students then wrote a summary about the decisions they made for their colony and the consequences, good or bad. Finally, the groups created a map to represent their colony and their choices. Students were excited to see how one decision could impact their colony in many ways. For example, building a fort provided a good defense for their colony but it created a poor health situation for their colonists. To see if you can make better decisions than the colonists of Jamestown, visit:

www.historyglobe.com/jamestown

Will your colony survive?