Hungry Minds Pasta Dinner... A HUGE Success!!!!

A BIG thank you to all of the fifth grade teachers, students, parents, and principal Cathy Hamilton for an outstanding Hungry Minds Pasta Dinner. We will know by early next week how much money was raised for the selected charities (Heifer International, World Food Programme, International Children's Relief, and the Haiti Children's Home). Enjoy the slideshow from the event.

Fifth Graders Helping Those in Need

The fifth grade students at Lincoln are very busy preparing for their annual Hungry Minds Pasta dinner on Thursday night.  Each year the fifth grade students participate in a service learning project that involves those in need.  Students are involved in the process from start to finish...from making signs to announce the event to serving the pasta on the evening of the dinner.  This year the student's decided to contribute the proceeds of the dinner to Heifer International, World Food Programme, Haiti Children's Home, and International Children's Relief. 

Grade 3 Architecture Adventure Program at Lincoln 2010

Architecture Adventure taps into Oak Park's wealth of architecture and professionals in the field to inspire student learning. District 97 students in art classes and a summer camp learn about architecture, work with visiting architects, design and build projects, and take field trips to Oak Park and Chicago sites of interest.

Launched by the Oak Park Education Foundation in the fall of 2006, Architecture Adventure brings the experience, expertise and passion of professional architects, engineers and designers into the classroom. The program takes place in K-8th grade core curriculum and art classrooms.

Architecture Adventure:

* engages children in skillful decision-making
* teaches students about built environments throughout the world
* inspires students with visits to significant architectural sites

This is the second year of the program at Lincoln with architect Mark Klancic. The focus of the program at Lincoln is using Google Sketch Up to learn design elements while creating an original home design. A slideshow of the first day is below:


Check out the student products from last year designed in Google Sketch Up.

Photos from Fall Architectural tour of Oak Park.

Check out photos from last year's program.

What do kids need to learn today?

A very inspiring video of what teachers need to be learning today...the kids are ready to take off and learn!

Student Collaboration on M&M Math...Halloween 2010

Students from the Glass Class at Harrison Elementary School in Warsaw, Indiana and students from Lincoln School in Oak Park collaborated on an M&M Math Project today focusing on graphing, fractions, decimals, percents, mean, median, and mode.

International Peace Day and Pinwheels for Peace

Last month the students from Lincoln School in Oak Park celebrated International Peace Day and the Pinwheels for Peace Program.  Both programs celebrate PEACE around the globe and inspire children to create peace in their classrooms, schools, neighborhoods, communities, and the WORLD. At Lincoln we celebrated by creating pinwheels with messages of peace for our friends throughout the world.  Students gathered on the playground to share a peace "filled" celebration with one another. There were an estimated 3.5 million pinwheels spinning around the world this day! Check out the photos from our celebration below:


Lincoln students also participated with students from around the globe in celebrating this important day.  Students had a Skype conversation about PEACE with students from Warsaw, Indiana (the Glass Class from Harrison Elementary School).  Students shared their pinwheels and messages of PEACE with one another.  Check out the photos from our Skype conversation:




Lincoln students also participated with students from Israel in the Globaldreamers PEACE Project.  This global collaborative project was created by teacher Marsha Goren and connects students from all over the world to create peace.
Shalom from Ein Ganim School, Israel

More information about Marsha's Project:

The Consulate General of Israel in Montreal is running a program called "A piece for peace."

 We will be visiting Jewish and non-Jewish schools throughout the city and presenting Gilad Shalit's book "When the Shark and the Fish first met." Then, people who have been afflicted by war and who now dream of peace, will lead the discussion on peace and achieving it. Afterwards, we ask the students who have heard Shalit's story to contribute a piece (of art, literature, poetry, creativity...) to peace. Finally, we will publish their contributions in a beautiful hard cover book.

The KenKen Craze at Lincoln School

The latest craze to hit most schools around the country are those little rubber bands that when not stretched form some sort of animal or object.  While I have seen many Silly Bands on the wrists of Lincoln students these days, I have also seen the kids go absolutely CRAZY over a new type of math puzzle that I introduced to them last week.  These puzzles, called KenKen, are Sudoku Puzzles with a twist- as one of my students recently said, they are Soduko Puzzles on vitamins!  Indeed they are, KenKen is the latest CRAZE at Lincoln, far more popular than Silly Bands will ever be!  Students at Lincoln are excited about math and trying to solve the increasing complex KenKen puzzles.

Read about KenKen creator Tetsuya Miyamoto!

After introducing KenKen to my students, I noticed something strange happening.  Students started showing up early for math class and asking for more and more KenKen puzzles to solve.  I showed all of my students the KenKen.com website and the 4x4 to 9x9 KenKen puzzles online.  They went CRAZY and ask to spend time every math class working on the puzzles.  A student last week asked if we could create our own KenKen puzzles for other students to solve- and of course, I said YES! I searched the internet and found Mr. L's math page in which he had his class create KenKen puzzles for other students to solve [KenKen Construction – Building Puzzles in the Classroom].  He has some nice resources on his page for solving 3x3 puzzles and 4x4 puzzles. Some other cool stuff on Mr. L's blog- Games and Puzzles that Reach the Kids and Teach the Standards.  Have fun and get your students involved in the KenKen craze!
Mr. K