Healthy Active Living for Families
To lead a healthy active life, families can strive to reach these goals:

Healthy nutrition starts as early as infancy with breastfeeding. Once your baby begins eating solid foods, introduce nutritious foods 5 fruits and vegetables a day, 2 hours or less of screen time (TV, computer, video games) per day, 1 hour of physical activity a day, and 0 limit sugar-sweetened drinks.be role models themselves by making healthy eating and daily physical activity the norm for their family. create a home where healthy choices are available and encouraged. make it fun - find ways to engage your children such as: playing a game of tag, cooking healthy meals together, creating a rainbow shopping list to find colorful fruits and vegetables, go on a walking scavenger hunt through the neighborhood, or grow a family garden.Eating breakfast every day; Eating low-fat dairy products like yogurt, milk, and cheese; Regularly eating meals together as a family; Limiting fast food, take out food, and eating out at restaurants; Preparing foods at home as a family; Eating a diet rich in calcium; and Eating a high fiber diet.

Clover Kids

Clover Kids had a great time making crafts---they will meet again 

March 8^th

Steph Erpelding |  Sac County Youth Coordinator
Iowa State University Extension
 



Crafts at Clover Kids




Who wants to play the shoe game?



Dining with Dads

The children in Schaller-Crestland TK would like to invite their

fathers/father-figures to help us celebrate “Dining with Dads”.  We have made arrangements with the cooks to have our special guests join us for breakfast or snack on Tuesday, March 8^th.  After dining, we will do an art/literacy activity together and visit the Star Lab with Sac County Naturalist Rene Stroud.  TK parents should watch saddlebags for more details.

Schaller-Crestland TK students celebrated 100 days of school with many activities.  We decorated 100 day visors and made a 100 snack from a stick pretzel and 2 circle crackers.  We predicted the water that would be left when 100 ice cubes melted.  We also predicted how many times we could write our name in 100 seconds.  We were tired when we did 100 exercises!  Now we have less than 80 days of school before kindergarten.

 

TK has been busy with the Motor Lab this month!  We have enjoyed doing "Pencil Rolls" on the mat, makingd "Jumping Rainbows" on the white board, doing the "Shape Find" in the pool, crossing our mid-lines with "Beanbags and Balls", and defining our hand-eye coordiation with the "Ball Tap".  We will continue to get stronger as we change our motor lab centers soon!

Mrs. J. Mentzer’s fourth grade class welcomes student teacher Samuel Brummer.  He is a student at BVU and will graduate in May. 

Fourth grade has been very busy this second semester studying the solar system, including the phases of the moon.  Did you know the moon completes eight phases every month? 

We are starting to learn about state and local governments.  Our government is divided into three branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial.  These three branches of government work together to make laws and govern our great country.

OPERA Iowa Presents:

Mozart’s The Magic Flute

Holstein-Clausen Performing Arts Center

7:00PM

Free Admission

The Galva, Holstein, Schaller, Nemaha, and Early communities (as well as all others that wish to come) will have the great opportunity to see Des Moines Metro Opera’s educational touring troupe perform a 2-hour version of the famous opera, The Magic Flute (in English). All members of the community are encouraged to come and bring as many people as they like to join us for this wonderful performance.

Fox’s Sid the Serpent Who Wanted to Sing

Friday, March 25^th

The elementary students in both Galva-Holstein and Schaller-Crestland districts will have the chance to see one of Iowa’s premier arts organizations when Des Moines Metro Opera’s educational troupe arrives on March 25^th. OPERA Iowa will present Fox’s Sid the Serpent Who Wanted to Sing (in English) at the Clausen Performing Arts Center at 1:45PM.

In addition to the performance, the 3^rd, 4^th, & 5^th grade students will participate in exciting workshops that entertain while they educate and make opera more understandable to students. Let’s Make an Opera (5^th Grade) will allow students to explore the ways in which composers use their music to tell a story and will experience how all of the elements of music and theatre work together to create the stage performance. Decide, Design, Direct! (4^th Grade) will look at the elements of an opera and student designers will create the “look” of their own production. Lastly, Singers and Vocal Styles (3^rd Grade) will help students learn to hear and describe the difference between their favorite kinds of music. All workshops are designed to meet some of the National Standards for Arts Education.

Clover Kids

 Clover kids have created some very fun and interesting projects.  Below is the instructions sent to us by
Steph Erpelding |  Sac County Youth Coordinator
Iowa State University Extension
County Youth Coordinator

Snowflake Craft                                

What you need:

White paint

Glue

Uncooked wagon wheel macaroni

Small bowl and spoon

Wax paper

Baking sheet

Glitter

Fishing line, string or ribbon

What you do:

In a small bowl combine 1/2 cup of macaroni, 1/4 cup of white paint and 2 tablespoons of glue. Mix until the macaroni is well covered. Cut a square of wax paper and place it on a baking sheet. Arrange the macaroni into a snowflake shape on the wax paper. You can lightly sprinkle the glitter on. Let the snowflake dry overnight. Gently peel off the wax paper and tie on a string for hanging!

Dear Clover Kids Parents,

Thank You for sending your child(ren) to Clover Kids today! I enjoyed having them come! We did some very exciting activities so please ask them about their afternoon at Clover Kids by using the questions to the left of this newsletter! Each time your child(ren) come to Clover Kids they will be making a different project. Your child will be able to bring their projects to the 2011 Sac County Fair to be entered and displayed in the Clover Kids booth. Please make sure you put their projects in a safe spot so your child(ren) can participate in this exciting event!

Stay Warm!

Steph Erpelding 

Steph Erpelding

ISU, Sac County Extension Youth Coordinator

Technology at its finest...for the lower elementary kiddos!

There is so much going on with gadgets, gizmos and computers and I have been doing my best to research and get current on what we can do to get our youngsters even more excited about their learning.  If you are a parent who happens to have an iPhone, iTouch, iPad...these are a few apps I would recommend for your child.  (*some do cost but great for those with short attention spans, need repetition with their learning and more)

 

iTouch Apps for Kindergartners

-Cookie Doodle
-Word Magic
-ABC Tracer
-Letter Tracer
-Animal Memory Match
-Cute Math
-Park Math
-Build-a-Word
-Simple Paint
-Starfall ABC
-Teach Me: Kindergarten

Third Graders Get Pumped About Fitness

TO read more--click on this title at the top, next to home, to read and follow these amazing kids!

Preschoolers and Penguins

On Monday, Feb. 7th and Tuesday, Feb. 8th the preschool children at Schaller Crestland enjoy learning about penguins with Rene Stroud, Sac. Co Naturalist.  They learned about the penguin's habitat,the food they eat, how they move, and they learned about their size. 
The students enjoyed learning a new song and coloring finger puppets.

Clayton Jacobson and seth Donnelson compare their height to the height of a penguin

Braeden Grimes, Carson Wendel, and Gavin Vohs work together to make a nest for their penguin egg

Nora Pickhinke also shows us how to hold an egg on her feet

Lauren Schmitt and Mya Henningson are showing us how penguins hold their eggs on their feet

Second Graders Celebrate 100th Day of School

   On Wednesday, January 28^th we celebrated our 100^th day of school.  From the first day back in August, we have kept track of the number of days in attendance by bundling straws into groups of tens.  It was so exciting to finally reach that magic number of 100.  On that day, we took 10 bundles of 10s and grouped them together to make 100.

            Our learning activities all centered on the concept of 100.  We did several poems and songs as choral readings.  We made 100 piece collages; labeled our artwork pieces, and used them for a story starter in writing.  We enjoyed so many creative ideas.

We tested our math skills by taking a five-minute timed test over 100 addition problems.  Students used their own 100s charts to solve many math riddles and flow charts.  We discovered this chart is valuable tool and can be used in many ways.  Understanding the math concept of probability is not always easy.  To help with this lesson, we flipped a penny 100 times to see which would show up more, heads or tails.  They learned that they had a 50/50 chance of flipping heads or tails.  We also reviewed tally marks and rolled a die 100 times to see which number appeared the most.

            Science and social studies included working together to find where 100 footsteps would lead us in our building.  Then, a report, including drawing a map, was written to share the results.  We made many predictions about the concept of 100 and quickly discovered that “Sometimes 100 is a lot. Sometimes it is not.”  We had different containers filled with 100 ice cubes, and predicted their weight as they melted in different places in the room. We were all amazed that they melted at the same rate, and still weighed the same.  This gave us a good lesson in the properties of water.

Mrs. Schmidt helped us do physical challenges in p.e class to see if we could hop, jump rope, bounce a ball, and other sets of activities 100 times.  We estimated how many we could do in 100 seconds.  Then we had to check our results.  We had so many things to do; we needed more than just one day to complete them all.  Everyone decided it was a great day and a great way to celebrate 100!

By Mrs. Bisenius