Upcoming events!!

Monday, December 5th and Tuesday, December 6th - Fifth grade bake sale fundraiser
All items will be 50 cents or $1. Please send money with your child(ren) if you would like for them to be able to purchase something.

Tuesday, December 6th - PreK-3rd Christmas Concert at 7:00


**Reminder:  Please send your students to school with a winter coat, hat, glove, and or scarf for outdoor recess. We will have outdoor recess unless the temperature is 15 degrees F or below or if the wind chill is 0.

**PTO fundraiser announcement**

Good news! The JHES PTO roll fundraiser did even better than expected. With all of your support, a whopping 1400 dozen rolls were sold. Pick up will be at JHES 3:30-5:30 by student seller last name according to the following schedule: A-C tomorrow, D-J Wednesdayy, K-R Fridayy and S-Z on November 21st.  Rolls will come frozen so it is suggested to bring a cooler.

Halloween Party

The fourth grade Halloween Party will be on Monday, October 31st. Students will bring their costumes to school and we will begin dressing for the parade at around 2:15. The parade will begin at 2:30 and the party will follow. A list of parents who volunteered to help out with the part follows:

drinks - Talon
tableware - Jace
snacks - Jennifer
games - Emirson

Thank You!

Red Ribbon Week Oct. 24-28th

Monday - Wear RED
Tuesday - Wear boots
Wednesday - Wear a hat
Thursday - Wear your favorite team apparel
Friday - Weary your COBRA gear.

BookIt!

I am sending home the Book It calendar for October. I have set the reading goal for this month at 310 min. If students read just 10 min. a day they will meet their goals! Please fill in how many min. your student reads per day. On the first of November please sign and return the calendar to school. Your student(s) will receive a Book It coupon for a free personal pan pizza. Thank you for helping your student(s) be successful readers!!

Topeka Water Festival Fun!!

On Thursday, September 19^th the Fourth Graders attended the Topeka Water Festival. The festival is an exciting water education program which focuses on water related topics including the water cycle, water history, chemistry, pollution, water economics, consumption, water rights, water conservation, and water stewardship. These topics are explored in engaging, hands-on and creative ways to promote critical thinking, problem solving, and responsible decision making in water related issue.

At our first station students how we get Kansas River water clean enough to use, clean enough to put back into the river, and all the steps in between. Using a model of a town and water pipes students had the opportunity to fix broken pipes and while doing so, got a little wet.  Our second station was called H₂O Olympics. Here, students learned about water molecules, adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension. They experimented to find out how many drops of water would fit on the head of a penny and tried to float paper clips on the top of the water.  Next, we visited with the Natural Resources Conservation Service.  At this station we talked about the amount of water people consume in a day and how people in the “olden days” had to fetch their water. Two teams took turns pailing water to collect what they needed for daily use.  At our fourth station students learned about common water. What happens when you share water and someone contaminates it? Then everyone’s water in contaminated. We learned that it is very important to be mindful of our water sources.  At the next station, students pretended to be a drop of water on the incredible journey of the water cycle. At the end of the activity students had made a bracelet to wear with beads representing different parts of the water cycle. With Douglas County Conservation District, we learned about adaptations of fish. Students drew cards to create and draw their own fish! Today, students were even able to play in the mud! At the River Mud station students modeled a river valley and talked about how people who live downstream can be affected by what people do to the water upstream.  Garbage was the topic of discussion at our 8^th station From Garbage to Groundwater. Students were taught how garbage disposal can impact the quality of our groundwater. With the Kansas Geographic Alliance, students took off their shoes to walk all over a giant map of the state of Kansas. Students used red and blue chips to locate rivers and lakes. Then we used orange cones to locate big cities. We learned that big cities are located by water sources. We also learned that the Eastern part of Kansas has more water resources that the Western part. Our final station was with the Franklin County Conservation District where we used blue plastic cups to represent a pond or lake and chips to represent pollution. We learned many different things that can cause water to become polluted.

It was an enjoyable day full of fun activities and learning. We will be remembering all the valuable information we learned at the Topeka Water Festival. We will continue our water investigations during Science.

Havensville Living History Day

On April 1^st the fourth grade class attended a field trip to Havensville Living History Days. Students participated in many hands on activities and watched presentations to experience Kansas history and live life the way our ancestors did in pioneering days.

Classroom presentations we attended were The Square Dance and Mountain Music. Outdoor presentations we participated in were “PLAY BALL!” 19th Century Style – we enjoyed learning about and playing a game of cricket, Candle making, Fort Riley Honor Guard where they showed us the types of things the army would have used during the Civil War, and Standing Bear Inter-tribal Brotherhood where we listened to Native American drums and songs. Indoor activities and booths were soap making, pottery, buffalo-monarch of the plains, doll making, washing laundry, old time toys, loom weaving, and rope making. While attending all our activities we looked for and found the Kansas state symbols.

Some of their favorite activities were:

Michael – My favorite part was seeing the tools they used to use back then because it was very interesting.

Riley – I liked that we got to play cricket and make candles because it was really fun to see how it was done.

Fred – The mountain man was neat when he shot the musket and the animal skins were neat too. It was interesting to see that you can make things to survive.

It was a little windy, but we really enjoyed our day stepping back into the past and experiencing Kansas history first-hand.