Students in Mrs. Neff’s class have been practicing social skills through cooperative learning. They share materials and make team choices using kind words and shared ideas.

In this picture, black and white penguins, blue fairy penguins and crested penguins emerged as teams followed specific step by step directions on how to draw a penguin. Teams used one sheet of paper per group and made a team decision when drawing the background or environment they would use for their picture.

Mr. Palmer came to the first grade pod to award all the students that have read 100 books. Keep up the great reading!

Mrs. Curtin's 1st grade class is working on their defined stem unit. We are learning about Penguins. The children worked in groups using their iPads to research, write and draw about different types of penguins.

The second grade “Into Math” and "iReady" pilot classes combined their social studies landforms unit and math geometry unit to show the correlation between natural environmental landforms and 2D/3D geometrical shapes. To close the unit, Second grade Skyped a Mathematician in Trieste, Italy. We learned about dimensionality and how to discover geometrical shapes within the environment. Students will conclude the unit with a STEAM project designing their own landforms with the use of only food shaped like geometrical shapes.

Third grade continues to learn new strategies and ways to solve multiplication facts. Students are working hard to implement different multiplication properties and apply them to expressions and equations. We even have snowmen visitors in our pod practicing their multiplication facts!

In addition, our third grade geologists continue to study rocks and minerals. Recently, we did a vinegar test to see which rocks contain the mineral, calcite. Did you know that calcite reacts to vinegar by showing tiny bubbles? For some of our rocks, the vinegar test did not provide enough evidence, so further testing was needed. Third grade geologists then performed an evaporation test to see if there was any calcite left once the liquid evaporated.

Phew! Third graders have been busy busy!

4th Grade has been closely studying the rotation of the sun. They have been tracing shadows throughout the day to see where the sun is located and where the shadow will be. They are also learning how they can tell time based on the length of the shadows.

Next the 4th graders will be observing the moon phases.

Congratulations to all of our talented artists. Great Job!!

3rd grade is starting their zentangles!

4th grade is adding the mouth to their animal portrait.

3 students are picked from the Pick-A-Chip Board each Friday.

Students names and numbers are announced during Morning Announcements on Friday.

Winning students meet a SWPBS representative and get to choose a prize from the Pick-A-Chip Prize box.

Giant Food Store on Street Road provided Tawanka with FREE pomegranates Friday January 24th! Giant and Mr. Wright work together to give Tawanka students an opportunity to taste test fresh produce once per month. Giant provides the fresh, clean, prepared produce at NO COST to Tawanka! Mr. Wright distributes the fresh produce to the homeroom teachers for the children to eat for a snack. Over the past 2 school years, the children tasted pomegranates, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, snap peas, blood oranges and bell peppers. The children are very willing to taste the fresh produce. Parents, take your children to Giant and purchase some nutritious produce. While you are there, please take a moment to thank the employees at the customer service desk. Giant has been extremely generous.

Everyone enjoyed themselves at the paint night and they were so proud of their art! The event was so popular PTO added a second night! What a great way for our school community to come together and have some fun. Thank you to Miss Houser for her expert directions on how to paint Yoda. The kids did a great job!