NEVER FINISHED LEARNING (N.F.L.) CHALLENGE CLUB

Do you want to be part of the fun? Miss Powell's NFL Club is looking for new recruits! The NFL is a club for students who are never finished learning (NFL). NFL members go above and beyond the normal classroom expectations and challenge themselves to do more than what they "have" to do.

Here's how to get started:

1. Choose any question from the five categories on the challenge list: Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Science or Humanities.
   
   

2. Research your topic using reference books or the internet.
   
   

3. STUDY, STUDY, STUDY so you become an expert on your subject.
   
   

4. When you are ready, let me know and I will ask you some questions about your topic.

The "Hall of Fame" will be posted in our classroom and on the awards page of this web site as soon as someone earns enough points. Once you're in the Hall of Fame, you're in for life since you are a lifetime learner! You can track your progress on your own N.F.L. tracking sheet.

It's your decision if you would like to be part of the NFL Club. You can be a player and earn points or be a cheerleader and support your friends. The NFL is a club for students who are never finished learning. It's your call... are you up for the challenge?

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PICTURE PLACE

If you want to see pictures of some of the fun activities that we do in our classroom, visit our "Picture Place" page. Photos and slide shows are added throughout the year so check back again! You can see 2007-2008's pictures by clicking here.

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INTERNET PROJECTS

JenuineTech.com (formally known as TechnoSpud.com) is an incredible website developed by a teacher named Jennifer Wagner. It is one way I bring technology into our classroom. JenuineTech sponsors several online projects each year. We complete the activities in our classroom and submit our results online. Classes around the world participate in the activities, then compare and average their results. Whether it is stacking Oreos, rolling eggs, or sorting Lucky Charms cereal, the activities are fun and students are learning!

In 2008-2009 we plan to participate in these JenuineTech activities:

A Room With a View (August 2008-July 2009)

The main idea of this project is to capture a monthly picture from a classroom window (or in our case, a special outdoor spot) throughout the year and observe how things change over time. You can view our "Room With A View" throughout the year.

Tenth Annual O.R.E.O. Project (September 2008)

With some yummy Oreo Cookies, we will use a variety of math concepts as we measure and record data!

Pumpkin Seed Count (October 2008)

How many seeds will this year's pumpkin have? Does a bigger pumpkin yield more seeds?

Gingerbread Man Project (November 2008)

Can you follow the scavenger hunt clues around the school campus to find the Gingerbread Man?

Holiday Card Exchange (November-December 2008)

Let's see how creative we can be with our class card this year!

St. Patrick's Day Project (March 2009)

Lucky lepruchauns and pots of gold... this will be a fun math activity!

Oh, The Places You Will Go (April 2009)

We'll end the year with an awesome Dr. Seuss project!

These are the JenuineTech activities we participated in last year:

Salute to Seuss

In the fall, all nineteen students in our class worked together to write and illustrate an ABC book for our "Salute to Seuss". Check out our powerpoint presentation of "Interesting Ideas...i...i...i".

That's The Way The Cookie Tumbles!!

In October 2007, we had lots of fun participating in the 9th O.R.E.O. (Our Really Exciting Online) Challenge. Working in groups, students stacked Oreo cookies to learn about measurement, graphing, and averaging (and those are just some of the concepts this great project covered!). Check out our pictures and stories about the O.R.E.O. Challenge of 2007!

Pumpkin Seed Count

On Halloween, our class used a pumpkin to make predictions. We estimated the weight of our pumpkin, the number of ribs (vertical lines) on our pumpkin, the circumference around our pumpkin, and the number of seeds inside our pumpkin. We also made a hypothesis (an educated guess- our best guess) about if we thought the pumpkin would sink or float when we put it in a bucket of water.

We verified our predictions by counting, weighing, measuring, and observing. Some of our data really surprised us! Our final results were shared with 183 other classes that did the same project through the JenuineTech web site. This was a great activity that reinforced math and science concepts.

Holiday Card Exchange

In November and January, we made cards to send to classrooms around the country. This project reinforces geography skills, writing skills, and classroom awareness. Take a look at our "Holiday Card Exchange" page, as well as our "From Me To You" Valentine Card Exchange page. They both have lots of pictures!

St. Patrick's Day Project

We counted the marshmallow shapes in a box of Lucky Charms cereal to see which shape occurs the most. Each student predicted, sorted, counted, tallied, graphed, and ate their way through this fun project. The final class count was submitted to JenuineTech.com.

The Great Egg Roll 2008

We used four plastic eggs to learn about measurement and distance. Each of the eggs had a different item inside weighing it down. Students took turns rolling (bowling) the eggs to see how far they would roll. This was a fun way to use our math and science skills. Read our stories about The Great Egg Roll of 2008!

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B.E.S.T. BOOKS

It's fun to read award winning books. Unfortunately, not all deserving books have been given an award. So, I invented the "B.E.S.T. Book Awards". B.E.S.T. stands for "Brilliant Example of the Six Traits" and refers to the six writing traits we use when writing stories.

Throughout the year, students are encouraged to read and nominate books in each of the six categories: Ideas, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Voice, Organization, and Conventions. The class votes on the winning books. My hope is that students will improve their writing skills as they look for traits in published works. You can view the B.E.S.T. Book winners on our awards page.

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MYSTERY READERS

We would like to invite you to be a "Mystery Reader” in our class . We love having our family and friends visit us. If you would like to be a Mystery Reader, please sign up for a day and time to come to our class.

Please share one of your favorite stories with us. You can bring your own book or choose from Miss Powell's special collection. For more information, please see the letter that was sent home. We look forward to your visit!

See if you can figure out who has been a mystery reader this year. Read the clues and take a guess! You can check to see if you were correct by slowly rolling your mouse over the question mark.

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