Walsh Middle School Band Visits COE

Chandler Oaks 3rd-5th grade students were treated to a holiday concert by Walsh Middle School.  It was exciting to see the musical adventures that lay ahead of our students. What a great way to kick off the holiday season!

Cheetah Times Newsletter

Students in Ms. Scott's TAG classes have been working on a school wide newsletter and their first issue is ready.  Students collaborated on the articles- they planned, interviewed, wrote and compiled their newsletter together using Microsoft Publisher.  They used Flipsnack, an online publishing tool,  to be green and share their newsletter online. An awesome use of communication skills!

5th Graders Become Environmental Consultants

Here are some great examples of learning about resources in the 5th grade  IB unit Sharing the Planet. Students learned about resources by exploring the central idea, “Using and conserving resources alters our relationship with communities and environments.” At the end of the unit, students were given a problematic situation they had to solve.  They became consultants for fictional communities and were asked to evaluate the use of resources in that community.  They looked for strengths and weaknesses and then developed an action plan to help the community move forward in an environmentally responsible way. These are examples of students looking at resources that are used in everyday products, researching and organizing our information in Kidspiration and Prezi, writing letters to companies to gather information on their impact and choices, and creating and action plan for a community. 

4th Grade Students Study Their Heritage

Fourth grade students recently wrapped up their Where We Are in Place and Time IB unit.  Students studied the central idea, “Sharing personal histories fosters intercultural connectedness.” by interviewing a classmate and then presenting on their similarities and differences. Students presented in a variety of ways including posters and Power Point presentations. Students learned that be learning about our own heritage as well as others' heritage, we become more open-minded.  We can find things we all have in common and celebrate our differences.

Second Grade Inspired by Sesame Street & Wil.i.am

Second Grade has been exploring what it means to be human in their Who We Are unit.  Their central idea, "Humans manifest their characteristics differently" has led to some great learning about which characteristics we share, which ones we don't, how we define success, and how our characteristics contribute to our success or failure.  They were inspired by a song that was featured on Sesame Street.  Singer Wil.i.am performed his song "What I Am" with several characters from the show. Second grade thought this was a great way to demonstrate what they've been learning, so they showed the video and sang along at our Friday Assembly last week.  Check out their performance, as well as the original video from YouTube. 
Link to lyrics

Skyping with the Author of Origami Yoda

Miss Dees, our librarian, organized an exciting lesson for 5th grade!  Students held a Skype conference with the author of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, Tom Angleberger!  Mr. Angleberger's book is on the Bluebonnet Book List this year, so the meeting was super exciting since so many students have read it!  Mr. Angleberger shared how he came up with his ideas, how he wrote the book, what projects he's working on right now, and even some of his favorite books.  Students had the chance to ask questions and they even made an origami Yoda of their own!  Students reported how awesome it was to Skype with the author of such  a popular book, and teachers reported that students immediately wanted to go to the library and read some of Mr. Angleberger's favorites.  It looks like a successful lesson!    

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Why do We Learn Spanish?

At COE, have lots of curious kids who ask great questions.  Our Wonder Box gives students a place to ask all those burning questions!  We are really lucky to have an awesome crew of 5th grade students who work on our daily broadcast. The KCOE News Special Reporters take on the task of researching and reporting on as many of those questions as they can.  Recently, they answered the question, "Why do we learn Spanish?"  Our reporters scheduled an interview with our Spanish teacher, Mrs. Imperial, to learn the answer.  Check out their video report*- not only will you learn all the reasons why we learn Spanish, but I think you'll agree that we have some great student news reporters and producers! 

*On the video, we report that we are an IB school. Chandler Oaks is a candidate school for the Primary Years Programme. This school is pursuing authorization as an IB World School. These are schools that share a common philosophy - a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that Chandler Oaks Elementary believes is important for our students.