Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Weekly Update 11/18/11 by Max, Eddie, Mick, and Lucas


The Sigma kids are hungry!  Lucas, Max, Mick, Eddie and their brain food.  
They are storing energy for the tough questions ahead of them.
Gobble!  Gobble!  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!




In drama we were mirroring each other's motions.  
One person starts and the other person follows, and then we switch being leaders.  
We were inspired by the "I Love Lucy" episode with guest star Harpo Marx.


In Chinese we practiced speaking through partner dialogues.  We practiced asking and telling basics like our names, where we live, how old we are, and what our phone numbers are.
Andrew and Morgan

David P. and Kyle


Sammi and Mili


For Science in the Anywhere Andrew presented about rocket-powered cars that go 1,000 miles per hour.  Then he built a Diet Coke car powered by Mentos and Diet Coke.  
We all went outside to watch his car go!








We all got thank-you cards from our Futabakai partners. 
 CiCi and Lucas got cool pop-up cards!


Anna ordered her own Sigma t-shirt from zazzle.com.  
All of the money we raise will go toward our community projects.


In social studies we used different colored yarn to make a visual of the Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia, and Sumer.   We then added labels for all of the important geographic features of the area.
Kyle and Morgan
David P. and Max
Lauren and Anna

On Friday we had our Sigma Spelling Bee.  
Our finalists below were Mick, Stephen, David P., and Elton.



 Stephen and Elton were our winners and will represent us at the all-school bee on Dec. 13.
Congratulations and good luck!
 Elton and Stephen shaking hands.  Good sportsmanship!
 More good sportsmanship from our runners-up, Mick and David.

On Friday we had special guests, Jim and Bob, AKA Lauren and Anna.  
They gave special awards to each student on Sigma to celebrate what we're known for!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Weekly Update 11/10/11 by Kevin, CiCi, Lucas, Jasmine, Gina


These are our AWESOME weekly bloggers!!!!!
Cici, Lucas, Jasmine, Gina, & Kevin

Here we are with our Futabakai Japanese School friends as we started our exchange day at Thomas on Tuesday.   In December, we will visit our new friends at their school.  After we gave them a tour of our school, we used googledocs to make Venn diagrams of our names and things we have in common.  We also used google translator to ask and answer questions in English and Japanese.  Below are pictures of us working together on our laptops.  


                                           Andrew, Samson, and their Futabakai partner.
                                                        Mili and her Futabakai partner.
    One table in Mr.Aho's room filled with Thomas and Futabakai students.
                                               Eddie, Josh, and their Futabakai partner
                                    Max, Matthew, and their Futabakai partner doing their project.
                                              Regina, David, and Nonoka translating on an iPad.

James, Anna, and their partner.
Katherine and her partners.
Lauren and David with their partner.

Kyle and his partners.
Kate and Morgan translating with their partner.
David P., Shane, and partner.
Sammi and Jake having fun with their partner.
Hannah, Elton, and their partner.

Stephen, Mick, and their partner.





Here's Katherine's finished Venn diagram.





During lunch in the Commons, we enjoyed comparing the foods we brought from home
and getting to know each other better.





Next, we went to the art room and painted our clay medallions that we made for ourselves and our Futabakai partners.  After we decorated our medallions, we got to choose stations such as origami, watercolors, and scratch art.










Here's a regular and a crazy picture of us with our finished medallions!








Our last activity was PE.  We went to the small gym with Ms. Renno and rotated through different stations:  scooter races, juggling, volleyball, and knockout. 

                                           
                                       
                                          


Thanks to Mr. Juskiewicz, Mr. Damico, and Ms. Renno 
for helping us plan all of these fun activities!


We had a GREAT day and can't wait to see our Futabakai friends again in December!!!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Sigma Says Hello To The Futabakai Japanese School

Weekly Update 11/4/11: Kyle, Elton, Anna, Lauren


Boo! Happy Halloween from this week's bloggers!
Anna, Kyle, Elton, Lauren


Happy Halloween from period 7/8 with Kevin, aka the Headless Horseman.



Here are some of the Chinese lanterns we made in art.  We used watercolors to paint our Chinese names, a one-point perspective painting of the first letter of our names, 
our Chinese animal birth symbol, 
and a painting to represent our passions.

In Chinese class we Skyped with a student in China.  
Kate and Kyle asked her questions.




Our Sigma Team banner came in! 
Here are our designers with Mrs. Bingaman.

Lauren and Katherine are chatting with Bob, the online librarian looking for popular books for 4th & 5th graders for their Community Project. (ahml.info)


For their community project, Max and Samson are looking for healthy lunch menus online.



We came up with our own Drama warm-up!

In creative arts we got go on the stage for drama.

Here we are playing an acting game with Ms. Fergus.


Lucas, CiCi, and Lauren explaining the Day of the Dead in Spanish class.


Scented marker experiment in science.


In social studies, we "jigsawed" our research about Otzi, the Ice Man.  
Here are presentations by two of our groups.




By James, Mick, and Shane


By Anna, Lauren, and Lucas