Throughout Grade 3 our students have taken part in various activities for ‘Daily Talks’. These activities are designed to develop the students’ confidence in speaking English to an audience. The level of preparation and support can decrease slightly over time as the students grow in confidence; from the initial use of a writing plan through to independently talking for one minute about any topic the student wishes to discuss. Let’s take a look at the steps the students took in the development of their ‘Daily Talks’.

Our initial focus for most students was to develop their voice projection in order for them to be heard clearly by their audience. The students presented their writing plans to the class and discussed what they would be writing about in their Journal book. As the content was familiar to the students and much of it could simply be read from the plan, it provided them with an opportunity to focus on speaking loudly and clearly without having to think too much about what they would say.

Once the students had more experience with speaking in English to an audience, many of them grew in confidence and were able to use other prompts including pictures, PPT games and open-ended questions to base their speech on. During these activities, the teacher continued to demonstrate ways to use body language to help make the speeches more interesting and engaging for the audience.

Students in 4th grade are currently learning about Energy and Ecosystems. To take it a step further, students were asked to make an Ecosystem Diorama showing how an ecosystem works. Students had to design an ecosystem of their choice, include living and nonliving things in that ecosystem, and include arrows or signs to show who eats what. These ecosystems are currently being displayed in the elementary library. Well done 4th graders!

On Friday, May 14, the second graders from Wahoo Elementary traveled to Camp Carol Joy Holling near Ashland.

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During the day, they enjoyed outdoor activities such as hiking, geo-caching, a hayrack ride, and investigating water creatures. The children, teachers, and parent sponsors enjoyed a wonderful day outdoors.

Thanks to Camp Carol Joy Holling staff for the fun they provided!

The 5th graders of Wahoo Elementary are discovering that podcasting isn’t just for techno-geeks! It really is a lot easier than it looks!

Last week, each of the three fifth grade classes boarded a bus and headed to Village Pointe in Omaha for a technology field trip to the Apple Store.

While there, students had the opportunity to play with every gadget Apple has to offer,including a variety of state-of-the-art desktop and laptop computers, iPods loaded with games, and the very popular iPhones.