The One Where the Stars Aligned

I currently write this with a full belly from Mother’s Day Brunch sans my mother, watching the snow melt. Yes, SNOW melt! I’ve been saying for a few weeks I knew this would happen one last time and here it is. Oh, Denver!

Some days the stars align and everything comes together for an amazing day! (thanks Teaching Gods) For Room 21 that day was yet another Wednesday! We have had some pretty exciting final Wednesdays! This Wednesday was no exception we spent our day at the Denver Zoo and building bridges! (My students think next Wednesday will be EVEN better because it is my birthday. It’s so sweet to see how excited they are for birthdays. Unfortunately, I don’t think my 24^th will quite compare to the zoo like they hope.)

           

The zoo is always a fan favorite whether you are 8 years old or (almost) 24. To start we participated in a presentation given by zoologist! Students’ learned about animal habitats all around the world and the four things every animal needs to survive: shelter, water, food, and space. Students went on a “virtual” field trip around the world. At each continent we stopped at we learned about a different animal! The zoologist also brought out each animal!

Although the animals were exciting, we could have done without the snakes! 

 

Next, we were on to the zoo.  With only an hour we had what I called an “express view of the zoo.” Luckily I have a student who loves maps who led us in the right direction and kept us on a tight schedule!

Our Animal Highlights:

Clearly the elephants were a highlight. Luckily my students are sweethearts and like the elephants just because I do ;) My trusty time keeper even gave me a few extra minutes to take it all in.

The gorillas were also an extra animated and seemed to be having a rough Wednesday. Students were in love with how much the gorillas acted like humans!

 

 

Our other favorites:  

We also continued to build our twitter presence and we tweeted a short thought from our day to @DenverZoo. They were so kind and tweeted back - showing my students the power of their words! 

After our fabulous zoo adventure we debriefed with this fun and calming Zoo Reflection Poster I bought last year on TpT. 

My current favorite calming technique (especially in May when we have many exciting factors: rain, snow, field day, the list could continue until June) is pop music on YouTube! 

Why we love it:

1.    Students stay focused

2.    We all enjoy the songs

3.    Ms. Buikema learns songs produced after 2012

4. Have you heard "Shake It Off" on the piano? It's our class fav  

5.    And, most importantly, we can all hum quietly to Jason Derulo without actually hearing the lyrics

Confession: Whenever I hear a song I’ve never heard before I always have a little Q&A with my kiddos and I feel like the mom in Mean Girls. “Ugh, you guys keep me so young!” ;)

  

These posts are getting very wordy (what a teacher complaint!) so I will share our latest STEM bridge building activity tomorrow!

A Happy Mother’s Day shout out to my very own cheerleader and rock. She supports me in every way possible in this profession and goes above and beyond for my students and me always!