Where in the World is Mrs. McKee's classroom?

Last week we learned about where we are from: our planet, our continent, our country, our state, and our city.  Our students were so impressive and did great on our projects through out the week and our end-of-week test. 

We began our study with a "Where We're From" booklet.  I encouraged all of the students to learn their addresses this week, so we included it in our reference books.

Great job, guys!!
This week, we also began our surprise calendar for December.  Students can earn the surprise bags for that day if they have extra-great behavior for that day!  We have also started a tally mark system for KIND and UNKIND remarks and actions.  Students earn a penny in their bank for each kind remark, and a penny is paid for an unkind remark.

Who will get the surprise bags this week?!

We also had two great surprises Friday:
(1) We got to make some ornaments.

Trip was definitely clowning around while making his orange and blue ornament!

(2) One of Santa's elves, Sampson, came to visit!

 

It was a great first week back from break! 

--Mrs. McKee

We Gave Thanks!

I hope everyone had a great break this week!  I know it was much needed for everyone (including the teachers :) ).  We had a BIG week two weeks ago!  Monday, CBS news came to give me the Golden Apple Award!  It was such a huge surprise, and I am so blessed to have such great students to teach. 
All of our students were so well behaved and polite!

On Tuesday, we made some turkey treats for our Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, we sampled them just to make sure they tasted OK!

On Wednesday, we finished our study boards we have been working on this semester with Mr. Carter.  They will go home this week!
Thursday was a big day, we braved the cold and sold our pickles.  Hopefully, we will be switching to hot cocoa soon :). 

We also had our Prattville Pals Thanksgiving lunch.  It was such a fun day with delicious food thanks to our pals!

We finished out the week with an Iron Bowl party!  We made predictions about what the results of the game would be and also had some great tail gate snacks.

Please visit the LESSONS page to see a preview of this weeks materials as well as a spelling test.  Have a restful last night off!

Veteran's Day and Patriotism

Last Monday, we did not have class.  We explained to the class that we had the day off to show respect for our veterans, the people who have defended our country.  Our students were so impressive with their knowledge of the great United States! 

We learned interesting facts about the United States flag, how to sing our national anthem, how to salute the flag, and how to say the pledge appropriately.  Our students came up with all of these ideas for patriotism!!

 



We also put together a care package to send to a veteran to show our thanks for all he and his family have sacrificed.

 

We also had an interesting idea for our Halloween directions.  I explained to our class that we can EAT pumpkins.  We decided to make some cinnamon sugar pumpkin seeds. The students worked hard scooping seeds! 

 

Thanks, guys for doing the heavy lifting!  Trip and Byron did the oven work for us. 

 





We certainly had a fun-filled week.  We are looking forward to our study this week: Thanksgiving history.  We have a Thanksgiving lunch planned with our pals on Thursday.  We also will be having an Iron Bowl Party on Friday afternoon.  Please wear your team's colors (even if it isn't Alabama or Auburn!)  We will be making predictions and studying probability during the party. 

I hope everyone has a great start to their week!!

Mrs. McKee

Keeping Clean and Halloween

We had a big, fun week in the vocational training class this week.  We kicked off our study of personal hygiene.  On Monday,  a Mary Kay representative, Katie, came and demonstrated appropriate facial and skin care.  She also showed our students different products for different types of skin.

Everyone did such a great job, and we loved meeting Katie!

Not only did we learn about cleaning our skin, we also learned the importance of washing our clothing.  We watched a video on how long, what temperature, and frequency of washing certain items-- allow your student to try to do their own laundry at home!

We also discussed cleaning injuries.  We will be continuing this study this week.  We will be doing a hand washing activity as well as discuss washing our hair and wearing deodorant.  

We also celebrated Halloween this week, and had our FIRST Prattville Pals event (blame them for the TONS of candy!!).  We went trick-or-treating around PHS and the ACTC.  A big thank you to all of the PALS and teachers who participated to make the event a great success!

Our grand finale to trick-or-treating tour was the band room where the percussionists played for us!

The week ended big as well with our PHS black out pep rally!  We were all decked out with our glow sticks and definitely helped pump everyone up!

Please remember you can see our lesson plans for each week by clicking on the LESSONS link on the side.  This will also have our spelling/vocabulary each week (if we will have any).  Have a great week!

--Mrs. McKee

Keeping it Clean

Last week, we finished up our study of personal hygiene.  We finished our hygiene packets (your student should have theirs if you would like to see what we learned about!)  We will have a hand washing review tomorrow. 

The students loved getting ICKY with our in-class hand washing activity.  This activity used cinnamon and oil to mimic germs.  We had one group use cold water and no soap, one group use warm water and no soap, and we had one group use warm water and soap.  We took data on which group most efficiently cleared the germs!

Here are some pictures of our germy hands.

This week, we are learning about PATRIOTISM.  We will also be learning about social issues, geometric shapes (rotating and fitting them into a space), story plots and plants.

 

We definitely have a big week ahead!  I hope everyone had a restful long weekend. :)



Playing Catch Up

It's that time of year again: fall.  This is when I start to get behind in my blogging, so please help me keep on track! We had a busy two weeks last week and this week, so be patient with me as I update you!

Last week we continued learning about appropriate restaurant behavior.  We had a short week, so we focused on different jobs in a restaurant, how to tip, and why it is important to tip our servers.  We had two very special guests for this topic-- Mr. Pugh and Mrs. Barr, David's mom and dad.  They both work in the restaurant business, and they told our students a little bit about their jobs.  The students had some GREAT questions for our guests and seemed very interested in a possible occupation in the restaurant business.

 

Earlier in the week, we also had some other VERY special guests who had a surprise for our class...

Trooper Emmanuel and the Alabama State Troopers brought their vehicles and HELICOPTER to show our class.  They talked with us about what they do in their line of work and how they use different equipment.  We had a great day visiting with the state troopers and learning all about what they do!

Last week we also celebrate our homecoming week.  Hope and Mrs. McKee were tie-dye twins!

This week...

This week we learned all about  FRIENDSHIP.  We learned about appropriate and inappropriate friendships and how to be a good friend.  We will continue to emphasize the importance of these skills throughout the year.  It is very important that our students understand that fostering healthy friendships will lead to a happier and safer environment.

On Wednesday, we spent the day touring our city and learning about the different community resources we have available to us.

We visited City Hall where we learned about what they do in the courtroom and toured the old jail.  Officer Emmanuel led the tour, and we met several members of the dispatch team.

We then walked over the Hancock Bank.  There, we learned about savings accounts and safety deposit boxes.  We also were able to close the vault door for Ms. Owens!

We then traveled to the health department where we learned about the resources they offer such as vaccinations and doctor visits.

We ended the first half of the day with a trip to Fox's Pizza Den where we were able to MAKE OUR OWN PIZZA.  The staff there was so helpful and friendly, and they loved meeting our students.  They taught us about following safety and health regulations.

D'Shawn is looking good in his hair net!

After enjoying our pizza, we headed over to Prattville Associated Grocer where we took a tour of the store, learned about occupations in the field, and then did some shopping!

Each student was given one ingredient to find.  In all, we were able to purchase enough food to make 3 recipes!

At the end of the day, we had worked hard and had a few minutes to spare, so we took some time to have a little fun!
Pratt Park here we come!

All in all, our field trip was an amazing experience.  Our students got a lot of exposure to community resources and occupational opportunities!

We are still selling pickles and crushing cans to make a little money for the classroom... I will end with some pictures of our students working hard!

This week we will be learning about personal hygiene.  We will have a Mary Kay consultant come in to demonstrate washing our face.  Please visit the lessons page Sunday for next week's lesson plan and spelling list!  Have a restful weekend!

--Mrs. McKee