Egypt Day

The Downstairs children spent Wednesday morning learning about Egypt as well as creating a diorama complete with pyramids and camels.  Christy's parents recently returned from a trip to Egypt and brought back some souviners for the classroom.  The children were able to see a Galabeya (traditional clothing for men) postcards and pictures of Christy's parents riding camels.  They were also able to practice writing their names in hieroglyphics with the help of stencils.  The morning was complete with dancing to "Walk like an Egyptian."

Let it snow!

It is finally starting to feel like winter!

After we got all bundled up in our hats, mittens, snowpants, jackets, boots and scarves we ventured out to our transformed playground.  

The new blanket of snow made our playground look so peaceful, even the deer wanted to play there...but not for long!

 

Perry gives our snowman a little taste...

 

Isn't he handsome?  

Sledding!

 

 Morgan and her mini snowman :)

 

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a pterodactyl . . . It's a Sandhill Crane!

Montana Animal Spotting! 

Quick everyone look!

A flock of sandhill cranes flew above our school today.

We could here them calling to us, so we called back to them with our best sandhill crane voices.

And guess what, they came back and circled our school so we could watch them longer!

making art for a good cause

Reach Out and Care

 
Over the past month the children have been working with ROC (Reach Out and Care) Wheels.  ROC Wheels is a non-profit organization whose mission is to build, deliver and fit children in need with state of the art wheelchairs.  ROC Wheels works on a global level and they have recently donated wheel chairs to Haiti, Mexico, Jamaica, Honduras, Uganda and Russia to name a few.

I (Megan :)) first worked with ROC Wheels in 2009 at Belgrade Middle School.  I was amazed at the level of compassion that this program instilled in the students there.  I knew our loving Sourdough kids would be perfect for this project.

When Lee Hanson first visited our school she brought with her a lot of interesting artifacts from ROC Wheel's trip to Africa.  While the children were interested in learning about the continent and people, the most important lesson from Lee was that they could help people in need. The children watched a video of children their own age being fitted with wheel chairs for the first time.  These images really inspired the children to help!

How we are helping?

The Sourdough Kids are making clay necklaces, start to finish.  They first created beads with Lee and myself out of Terra Cotta clay, which were fired by Lee.  A few weeks later, Lee returned and helped the children glaze their beads.  The final step is stringing the glazed and fired beads to create beautiful necklaces!

How can you help?

Collectively, the children will be selling their necklaces for a donation at school.  Each necklace was a group effort and any number of children could have helped create the necklace you might purchase.  Along with the beautiful momento, 100% of your donation will go directly to the ROC Wheels Foundation, and in turn will provide wheel chairs to children in need.