Irving Elementary
March Wrap-Up 2024
First Grade News: Exploring Wild Animals
Irving First Graders are excited to start Project Based Learning (PBL) this Spring! PBL helps students gain knowledge, deeper understanding, and success skills as they explore a meaningful question.
Our First Graders are exploring, “How do animal habitats help wild animals survive?” Students explored what it means to be camouflaged by creating a moth and hiding it around the classroom to see if it could be spotted. Students also brainstormed the difference between domestic animals and wild animals. Each student picked a wild animal that they were interested in learning more about.
As the First Graders research their animals in library and computer lab, they will complete an “Animal Report” booklet and diorama. Each student will design a presentation on their wild animals by sharing their findings from their “Animal Report” and diorama.
To finalize the PBL project, First Graders are excited to go to the zoo in May. Students will then further explore how wild animals live. They may even find their wild animal at the zoo and see how the zoo has created a unique habitat suitable for each wild animal. We are very excited about this project!
The larger group were successful with camouflaging their moth, however, all the kids thought of ways they could change their moth.
Mrs. B is so cool!
Student Award Winners
The month of March celebrated the character trait "Courage". Students were recognized by staff for demonstrating courage.
Class of the Month for 3rd-5th Demonstrating "Courage": Mrs. Jones 3rd Grade
Class of the Month for K-2 Demonstrating "Courage": Mrs. Goyer's Kindergarten
Irving April Dates
April 12 - 5th grade visit WMS
April 15-18 - Book Fair
April 18 - Kindergarten Roundup @ 5:30pm
April 19 - Explore Day & Kiss the farm animal
April 22 - PTO @ 6pm
April 23 - 5th grade - Kansas Aviation Museum
April 26 - Kinder field trip - Tanganyika
May Dates
May 1 - Principals Day
Monthly Assembly Grade 3-5th @ 8:10-8:30am
May 2 - Monthly Assembly Grade K-2 @ 8:10-8:30am
May 3 - PTO Family Movie Night -
Pancakes/Art Show @ 6pm Movie @ 7pm
May 6 - Nurses Day
May 6-10 - Teacher Appreciation Week
May 7 - Pre-K Visit 8:30am - 8:45am
May 8 - 1st & 2nd EMS Presentation @ 8:30 & 8:45am
May 13 - Exploration Place 4th grade
May 15 - Zoo -1st grade
May 16 - Ist grade Island Park AM
Students' Last Day
Mrs. Dougherty's 4th Graders pair with Miss Swanson's 2nd Grade for Outdoor Fun
Watching some of Mrs. Dougherty’s 4th grade students perform some Readers Theater for Miss Swanson’s 2nd grade class. Students then read to a buddy.
Music Programs A Success!
State Bound
Classes gathered in the hallways to cheer on Penelope Finch, Kruz Gilliland, and Danny Lampert as they competed in Topeka at state wrestling.
4th Graders Visit the Art Show
4th grade students from Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Dougherty, and Mrs. Kadau visited the Elementary Art Show at Baden Square.
Art Room News
March filled the Art room with Social Emotional and Life Cycle lessons
All grades worked on posters with social emotional themes for contests.
One theme : Embracing a Better Life and the other theme: How do you encourage, comfort,
or recognize some one who is struggling? Both themes created a lot of great discussions and
ideas how to help each other. Students illustrated a sentence telling about their illustrations.
These will be submitted to The William Newton Healthcare Foundation, Winfield Arts and
Humanities Council, and USD 465 Putting the HeART back into Healthcare coloring contest.
Winners will be announced by April 22. A reception for all the winners will be held in MAY.
Good luck to all! Irving has some amazing artists with terrific strategies to help those who
struggle!
All art classes have also been learning about Life Cycles— some classes will be doing follow-up
art projects about life-cycles. We learned about chicken embryology and hatched out chicks.
Students in Mrs. Wilson’s class were lucky enough to actually witness a chick emerge from its
shell! Art also has praying mantis eggs, an ant farm, Painted Lady Butterfly caterpillars, and
Ladybug Larvae. We plan to release them all in the butterfly garden in front of the office.
The 5 th grade will be starting to paint a 16”x20” abstract-multimedia art canvas. K-4 will start
creating “glow art,” which is a lot of fun because we work in the dark under a blacklight! Both
the 5 th grade canvases and Glow Art will be on display May 3 at Irving PTO’s Family Fun Movie
Night. Mark your calendars an plan to see a lot of great art, eat good food, and watch a great
movie with your family and friends!
GE Union Donates Funds to Outdoor Garden
The GE Union, IUE-CWA 1004 donated $250 to kickstart the Outdoor Classroom Committee's greenhouse fundraising efforts. Our total fundraising goal is $2,500. If anyone would like to donate they can contact Irving.
Hog Raffle Coming in April
The Outdoor Learning Classroom will be selling tickets for a half of hog starting in April. This fundraiser will culminate with a drawing in August for two half of a hog. Cedar Vale Locker has graciously donated processing for this fundraiser. More information will come soon on tickets and prices!