The Lily Pad: Saying Goodbye to First Semester

Friday was the end of first semester. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the school year flies. While excited about how much we have accomplished as a community in such a short time, it is also a time of sadness. We bid adieu to Ms. Wimmler and Ms. Johnson, our wonderful student teachers from the UW.

Ms. Wimmler, You Ribbit!

Ms. Wimmler and Ms. Johnson

Cheers to our student teachers

We are so thankful for Ms. Wimmler's and Ms. Johnson's time, dedication, talents and creativity that they graciously shared with the students in the Lily Pad and the entire 3rd grade. Look for Ms. Johnson at the Willy Street Coop (she is finishing up her master's program to become a cross-categorical teacher) and Ms. Wimmler in the Sub Pool as she looks for a full-time job as a teacher.

This is a good time for me to put in a plug for volunteers. I will not have a full-time student teacher in the Spring semester, nor will Mrs. Zwart. If you would like to volunteer and have some time this next semester, please let me know. Thanks!

You Ribbit Awards
For the last few months, students have been nominating each other for "You Ribbit" awards. This idea came about after one of our morning class meetings. We had just returned from a Marquette Community gathering where, among other things, students can nominate staff for a "You Rock" award. These awards are presented by the student to the staff member during these gatherings. Our community really liked this idea and wanted to come up with a Lily Pad version of these awards for our own community. After much discussion and brainstorming we decided on holding weekly You Ribbit ceremonies for members in our community. Students and staff can nominate each other for this award. A ballot is completed along with the reason why this person should receive the award. We then acknowledge our recipients with a frog and a round of applause and a little rubber frog.

The Scratch Test

These past few weeks students have been examining several minerals, observing and recording their properties in their science journals.

Some of the properties they initially observed were:

Color
Cleavage or Fracture
Amount of Transparency
Luster
Odor
Shape
Size

Students then learned further about a special property of minerals, hardness. Hardness is one of the better properties of minerals to use for identifying a mineral. Hardness is a measure of the mineral’s resistance to scratching. Students conducted scratch testes on four minerals. and ranked them in order of hardness.

Students then learned about the Mohs scale of Hardness. The Mohs scale is a set of 10 minerals whose hardness is known. The softest mineral, talc, has a Mohs scale rating of one. Diamond is the hardest mineral and has a rating of ten. Softer minerals can be scratched by harder minerals because the forces that hold the crystals together are weaker and can be broken by the harder mineral.

Creating Our Own Comics

Students have been working diligently on creating their own comics with the Super Hero or Super Villain they designed. On Thursday we will hold a gallery walk for our comic designs.