Healthy Snack Video:

Here's some ideas for making healthy snacks at home with your kids!

- Apples
- Nuts (Almonds)
- Bananas
- Cheese
- Hard Boiled Eggs

Cut these up together and use yogurt, peanut butter or even hummus to dip these healthy snacks in! YUM!

The "Mighty Mile" Walking Club

In an effort to stay healthy and active, we started out our day by going straight to the track every morning.  Students received a sticker each time they completed a lap, and a hawaiian lei each time they completed a mile.  Words cannot describe how awesome it was to see our students excitement for fitness!  We were able to see them completely transform from barely making a lap in the beginning, to completing miles by the end of the 6 weeks!  They were unstoppable!!

Another component to our  "Mighty Mile" was math and graphing.  We kept a graph each day of our laps so that we could track our progress over the 6 weeks and figure out our total miles.  We also thought it would be interesting to see how many miles we could walk all together for the 6 weeks and .........

DRUM ROLL PLEASE...........

with 26 students.... 5 teachers.... and 6 weeks...

our class total for miles walked/ran came to:

334  3/4 Miles!

Think of it this way:  We could have walked to Chicago and back again!

Simply amazing!!!!

Way to go troops!  We're pretty sure that we've found some future track stars amongst the bunch!!  

*Remember to do something active for your body everyday to keep it happy and healthy!!  You all rock!

FIELD TRIP: Marne Coopersville Railway

Chooo Choooooooooo....

Check out this train!  It was much older than all of us and has been used in quite a few movies!

We all had a great time riding the train and visiting the Coopersville Farm Museum.

Do you remember how the Conductor, Engineer, and Brakeman worked together to reconnect the engine to our train so that we can return to the station?  

Could they do their job if they didn't work together?  What job would you like to be responsible for?

FIELD TRIP: CritterBarn

We had so much fun visiting the Critter Barn! Ms. Mary showed us all kinds of different animals including a horse named Henry, a donkey named Harry and two steers (boy cows) named Bo and Luke. We also got to watch a goat being milked, hold bunnies and kittens, pet a sheep, and watch sheep run from the barn to the pasture. It was a very exciting day!

Do you remember what happened when Ms. Mary tried to show us Harry? Who interrupted?

Ms. Mary tells Henry who's boss!We got to see how chicken farms get eggs from chickens -- it's all automatic (no people have to touch anything)! Ms. Mary told us the chickens are very happy.

We LOVED holding all the animals!
What do you remember about the sheep?
Here come the sheep!! Why do they need to be let out from the barn?

Thank you, Ms.Mary, for taking time to show us your wonderful farm! We really learned a lot!

Healthy Eating - Banana Pops

Seeing that we received a banana from our trip to Top Distributing, we decided to make a healthy snack with it!

Ingredients needed:
-Yougart
-Bananas
-Sprinkles
-Popsicle Sticks
-Wax Paper

These are super easy and super delicious! Simply cut a banana in half and stick it onto a popsicle stick. Dip each half into some yougart and finish off with some sprinkes. Freeze for 2+ hours and enjoy!

YUM! We loved them! Try them at home!

FIELD TRIP: Top Distributing

We really enjoyed our walk to visit Mr. Kuipers (a.k.a. the 'Banana Man') at Top Distributing. Yes, you read that correctly - we walked there! We've become really great walkers over the past few weeks, and seeing that Top Distributing is in our community, we decided to walk there together instead of taking a bus!


Top Distributing is a banana distributor. That means they buy bananas from different countries in Central America and bring them to grocery stores so that we can buy them. Bananas are not grown in America, which means that they all need to be shipped from far away countries which do grow them. Mr. Kuipers shared with us all kinds of cool facts about bananas and showed us different kinds of bananas that we never knew existed!

DID YOU KNOW...
...that bananas are America's number one fruit?
...Americans consume over 25 pounds of bananas per person per year?


Here's a truck load of bananas that came in while we were visiting and needed to be unloaded:


What is the first thing that needs to be done once the bananas arrive?
Watch the video to find out:




After they arrive, they get placed into storage rooms to ripen. We were able to experience what it would be like to be a banana. Watch our adventure into a storage room with LOTS of bananas! We didn't last very long due to the smell!

Do you remember the name of the gas that bananas release as they ripen (ripen means to change color from green to yellow)? Listen closely and you'll hear Abby tell you in the video!


As you can see we sure had a great time learning about bananas!!

Thanks for taking your time and teaching us Mr. Kuipers!
Our students had so much fun that many of them want to work at Top Distributing some day!

Healthy Eating - Beans

BEFORE:

Check these beans out:
Do you notice anything different about them?
We thought it was cool that we found dark purple and yellow beans and not just green beans!
We decided to see if they tasted any differently from regular green beans. We also learned how to clean up and cook fresh beans from the garden.

We cooked them and ta-da...
What happened to the purple beans?
AFTER:
If you guessed that they turned GREEN... you were right! Mmmmmmmmmmm. They were delicious!

YMCA Nutrition in Action -- Mr. E.

Today we leared about grains with Mr. E. from the YMCA. He came to our class. He helped us eat healthy snacks. He made a snack for us. He put in cereals and goldfish, raisins, sunflowerseeds. You can make this at home. My favorite part is when Mr. E. came to our class.
- by Angel

Today Mr. E came to our class. He taught us how to make a healthy snacks that are good. We can make this at home. He came every Thursday from the YMCA. He always make us a healthy snack every Thursday. It has the grains in it. He put in three cereals, gold fish crackers, rasins and sun flower seeds. I like the part when we eat the healthy snacks. I hope he comes again, he is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!
-*BY MONICA*


Editors' note: Mr. Emerson comes from the YMCA as part of the Nutrition in Action program. He comes once a week with lessons for the kids about nutrition. He always brings a healthy snack for them to try. Ask your student about trying one of his tasty and healthy snacks at home! Ingredients for this healthy trail mix are:
-Fruity Cheerios
-Raisins
-Sunflower Seeds
-Frosted Mini-Wheats
-Whole Wheat Goldfish Crackers

Mix them all together and enjoy! It's a quick and easy (and healthy!) snack for home or school!
Give it a try!

FIELD TRIP: Calvin Nature Walk & Campus Tour

We went to Calvin College Nature Preserve. We saw turtles, frogs and Mrs. Gillbert's husband saw a deer. We saw animals with fur. We played a game called find 36 worms. We had lunch in the shadow. After lunch we went on a bridge. My mom took pictures with my friends. We saw rooms that they sleep in. My favorite was finding worms.
- By Anallely

We went to Calvin College. We learned a lot about animals. We even saw a chipmunk eating a nut. Annalli saw a frog in the pond. I saw a turtle. Mrs. Gilbert's husband saw a white tailed deer. We saw duckweed. Duckweed is green. Then we had lunch in a shady place. After that we went to Calvin College dorms. Anallely's mom's took pictures of Anallely , Lucero, and Alejandra. We saw a swimming pool and a rock climbing wall. They even had a big basketball court. My favorite thing was the rock climbing wall. I would like to go to Calvin College when I'm older.
- By Alejandra

How many worms did you find? Were they camouflaged? What animals use camouflage to protect themselves?

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Following our nature walk we were taken on a tour of Calvin College's campus to see what college life is like! We were able to see a college classroom, dining hall, bookstore, and every ones favorite the athletic facilities (with a really cool pool and rock wall!). There were quite a few students that decided that they wanted to go to Calvin College just like Mrs. Gilbert and Mrs. Miller did! They promised us that they were going to do their best in school so that they can someday!

Here's our tour of what living in a dorm room would be like:

Everyday events

We have tons of fun on our fieldtrips away from school, and we learn new things. But, we also have a lot of fun and learn a lot when we stay at school too!
We start every morning with our " Mile Club" by walking laps around the track. We learned 4 laps make a mile, and have done a lot with fractions to figure out far we've walked!

Way to go, super Mile Clubbers!We also have been practicing our math facts. One way we do this is by playing "Top It".
Do you remember how to play?

FIELD TRIP: Downtown GR Farmers Market

Our trip to the Farmers Market was a great learning experience! Not only did we get to see a wide variety of fruits and vegetables that keep our bodies healthy, we were also able to practice purchasing them.

Each group was given $10.00 to go and buy fruit to bring back for our Yogurt Parfait Party with our parents! We were able to eat some of our favorite fruits as well as try new ones!

When we arrived back at school we had to wash all the fruit and take out the seeds. Check out all these super helpers!

Check out all these super helpers!