Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! The post below is for families who may need assistance especially while your little ones are out of school for the holidays.

FoodFinderGA is a free smartphone app developed by a Georgia public school graduate. It is available on the Apple App Store or Google Play right now (search: foodfinderga). The app creates a 100% anonymous, direct connection between students who need food with their closest free food provider. Both the FoodFinderGA app and the website - www.foodfinderga.org - are year-round resources, but data shows a dramatic increase in use when school is out of session, and the need for food is greatest.

Hello Parents! Have you ever wondered if the investment in those flashcards is worth it? Yes flashcards are effective so pack them for the car trip to Grandma's.  Read the article below to find out why flashcards are so effective.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Ms. McPherson

The Top 3 Reasons Why Flashcards Are So Effective

1. Flashcards engage “active recall”

When you look at the front side of a flashcard and think of the answer, you are engaging a mental faculty known as active recall. In other words, you are attempting to remember the concept from scratch rather than simply staring at the passage in your textbook or recognizing it on a multiple choice quiz. Active recall has been proven to create stronger neuron connections for that memory trace. And because flashcards can so easily facilitate repetition , they are the best way to create multiple memory-enhancing recall events.

2. Flashcards utilize your metacognitive faculties

When you reveal the answer side of a flashcard to assess your correctness, you are essentially asking yourself “How did my answer compare to this correct answer?” and “How well did I know (or not know) it?” This act of self-reflection is known as metacognition. Research shows that applying metacognition tends to ingrain memories deeper into your knowledge.

3. Flashcards allow for confidence-based repetition

Because flashcards exist loosely, rather than tied to a book or document, you are able to separate them into piles based on whether (or how often) you need to study them again. This practice of confidence-based repetition is proven by decades of research to be the most scientifically optimized way to improve memory performance.

Of course, where possible, you should always try to learn new concepts using project-based learning, or by asking your own questions. But when it comes to studying or reviewing concepts in the most effective way possible, nothing comes close to flashcards.

Election Day

On Monday we read Duck for President and held our own class election complete with a polling booth.  The students voted to decide if Duck or Farmer Brown should run the farm.  Duck won by a landslide!  

Just a reminder there is no school for students Tuesday November 8 because of Election Day.  

Here are a few pictures of our activity:

Candy Corn STEM

On Monday we had a fun team building STEM activity where students had to work together, develop a plan, test their ideas, and execute the plan to build the tallest tower and longest train.  The students learned how to share ideas and and use everyone's input to develop a plan.  It was so much fun to see the teams working so well together!

~Mrs. Braxton

~Bat Day~

Last Friday we wrapped up our week of informational writing on bats with a BAT Day!  We transformed our room into a bat cave and did our work with flashlights while listening to bat sounds.  The students did so well researching and using their own words to write information about bats.  Next up.....SPIDERS! :)

Here are a few pictures from our day!
~Mrs. Braxton