Purcell Intermediate School

Mrs. Jones’ 5th Grade Science classes have been busy harvesting radishes from our garden! We’ve also enjoyed time outside with the Walking Classroom... combining movement, discussion, and learning in the fresh air. 🎧☀️

As we begin wrapping up another amazing school year in PE and TEAMS, our students are finishing up their Fitness Testing while still having lots of fun learning new games and activities! One of the new games we played today was bocce ball. Students worked in teams to roll the ball toward a hula hoop and land it inside while taking turns relay-style. After the first round, they quickly learned that bocce takes a gentle touch and a little strategy! Tomorrow we are excited for our annual fruit and vegetable tasting 🍒🍇🍓🍉🍊🥕🥒🍆! Coach Franco taught students about the five food groups and had them create their own MyPlate 🍽️in TEAMS to help reinforce healthy eating habits. We are so proud of all the hard work, teamwork, and growth our students have shown this year!

🐉 Purcell Rotary Club honored our District and Site Teachers of the Year during their luncheon today.

We are grateful for the opportunity to celebrate these outstanding educators who go above and beyond for our students every single day. Their dedication, passion, and commitment truly make a difference in our schools and community.

A special thank you to Purcell Rotary and President, Melissa Pruitt for recognizing our teachers and for their generous gift. Partnerships like this strengthen our schools and remind us how fortunate we are to be part of such a supportive community.

Congratulations again to our Teachers of the Year and all of our staff during this Teacher Appreciation week—we are proud of you! 🐉

#OnceADragonAlwaysADragon #PurcellPride

🔥 FACTS ON FIRE 🔥 These 4th graders are on 🔥! They have officially mastered their multiplication and division facts, and we couldn't be more proud of their hard work, determination, and perseverance. 💪🏼📚 They've put in the practice, pushed through challenges, and now they're shining bright as part of our Facts on Fire crew! Way to go mathematicians-Keep that fire burning! #FactsOnFire #4thGrade #MathMasters

Buy one get one free book fair starts tomorrow! You can set up your child's e-wallet @ https://www.scholastic.com/bf/purcellelementaryschool1. We will be open Monday through Friday. Monday through Thursday will be during school hours, Friday until noon and Tuesday night we will stay open till 5:30 pm. Everything is buy one get one free of equal or lesser value. There will be no coins given back as change, the change goes to give back to our students and school.

Meet our very own Purcell Intermediate authors!! Miss Windham's third grade class wrote a book called "A Night Elsewhere" and we couldn't be more proud of their writing success! 📚✨

Important announcement: The Book Fair is going COIN-FREE! This year, our Book Fair will be coin-free due to the national penny shortage. That means students will round purchases up to the nearest dollar — and every rounded-up dollar goes straight into our Share the Fair Fund to help provide books for students in need and new books for our library. ❤️📖 💳 Ways to Pay: ✔ Cash (and we will take coins just not give coins back) ✔ Scholastic eWallet (strongly recommended) ✔ Credit/Debit Card BOGO starts Monday! https://www.scholastic.com/bf/purcellelementaryschool1

Summer safety is key to enjoying the warm weather! ☀️ Protect yourself from the sun with sunscreen, hats, and sunglasses. Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water, especially during outdoor fun. Always supervise kids when swimming and follow water safety guidelines. Have a fun and safe summer! #SummerSafety

Buy one get one free book fair is coming next week! This is a great time to get some books for summer or buy one for yourself and give one to your teacher for teacher appreciation. We will be open Monday through Thursday during school hours and Friday till noon.

Do you know what Miss Windham's favorite time of the year is? Earth day!! 🌎💚 Her third grade students learned all about the importance of recycling, reusing, and reducing! They used their own recycled water bottles to create a water filter and experimented which absorbing items would turn muddy water into clear drinking water.💧If you wanted to test out your own, tissues and napkins worked the best in their experiment! Miss Windham's class also learned about various forms of pollution and how many things contribute to an unhealthy planet. ⛽️ They made a paper mache of a clean earth, as well as an illustrated poster to show the difference between what an earth that is thriving and an earth that is dying looks like. Very artistic and engaging!! 🌏🌳

Coach Knowles recently attended her end-of-year Healthy Schools Oklahoma training, where she gained valuable ideas to enhance student experiences in physical education. During a Field Day session led by Meme Ratliff, she learned effective strategies for planning, organizing, and structuring stations to ensure a fun and successful event for all students. In the second half of the day, Coach Knowles worked with UTSA instructors who introduced tennis fundamentals and shared progressive teaching techniques designed to make the sport engaging and accessible for every student. We are grateful to Healthy Schools Oklahoma for providing such impactful professional development opportunities that continue to strengthen our programs and create positive experiences for our students!

It is always a joy having Laura Vandaveer in our third grade hall!! She gave our students their final update on their adopted cow, Atlee. She is now 7 months, 42 inches tall, and weighs 480 pounds. 🐄 Very healthy calf! Laura also planned a fun experiment for our students' last day with her. They made butter and got to taste test it!! 🧈 The students were very excited and the butter was delicious! Thank you Laura Vandaveer for loving our third graders this year and bringing so much knowledge and fun to their classes!

For the past two weeks, we’ve been learning how to play bat-and-ball games in PE! ⚾️ Students have worked hard on throwing, catching, fielding, and hitting, while also learning how to run bases and understand the basics of wiffle ball. Even though it can be a little complicated for students who are new to the game, they did an awesome job learning, improving, and giving their best effort every day! We wrapped up the unit with two days of class vs. class wiffle ball games—always a favorite! Some highlights from this week:👏 Mackenzie Bruehl and Christopher Espiritu were voted MVPs by their peers for their sportsmanship, hustle, and focus👏 Mrs. Estrada and Mrs. Piazza for jumping in to play and cheer on their classes👏 ALL of our students for showing patience and making sure everyone had a chance to be part of the game Coach Franco and Coach Knowles had a blast and are so proud of our Dragons! Now they’ve got another fun and active game they can take with them to recess! 🐉

BOGO BOOK FAIR IS COMING SOON! The easiest way to pay is through ewallet. You can go to this link https://www.scholastic.com/bf/purcellelementaryschool1 It will say elementary school for this fair. We are getting excited for scholastic book fair!

Today's instant activity in PE was Dice Tag! 🎲 Shoutout to the crew at Woodhaven Middle School for sharing this fun idea that gets students moving and thinking! The rules are simple: when a number is called, students decide quickly—if it’s odd, the blue team flees from the gold team; if it’s even, the gold team flees from the blue team. Quick thinking and quick feet are a must! If a student gets tagged, they head outside the white line and complete 10 reps of an exercise of their choice before jumping back in. We added an extra challenge by calling out math problems (like 49 ÷ 7) instead of just numbers—keeping both bodies and brains active! Safe to say, this game was a hit! 💪

Hands-on learning in Mrs. Ambrose's third grade classroom! They created their own sundials to explore how the Earth’s rotation helps them tell time. Her students loved watching how shadows change throughout the day! ☀️⛅️ In math, they built 3D shapes using toothpicks and marshmallows to count edges, faces, and vertices. Such a fun (and tasty!) way to bring geometry to life! Learning + creativity = a great day! ✨

BOGO book fair coming May 4-May 8!

Did anyone else get hyped up for March Madness? 🏀Over the past two weeks, our third graders had a tournament of their own. Their classes read 16 total books and voted for the books they enjoyed reading the most. Today, Mrs. Swayze revealed the most loved book in the tournament, "Gaston!" If you haven't read it yet, our third graders HIGHLY recommend it! 📚✨🧡

REMINDER: TOMORROW IS $1 HAT DAY!!!!!

Our March Madness Step Challenge wrapped up last week, and we’re excited to celebrate our winners! 🏆 Congratulations to Mrs. Cochran’s 3rd grade, Mrs. Piazza’s 4th grade, and Mrs. Arnold’s 5th grade classes for stepping up and coming out on top! To celebrate, we took a fun field trip to the baseball field to watch a HOOT game ⚾️. The Purcell Fire All Sports Booster Club generously treated our students to 🍿popcorn,🍦soft-serve ice cream, and water💦 —what a special surprise! We also loved having our very own 🐉⚾️Dragon high school baseball players—Kash Knowles, Jace Klein, Cannan Haynes, Jackson Bradshaw, Preston Kane, and Cash Cook—spend time with our students and help pass out refreshments. It meant so much to our kids! ❤️ We had an amazing time and are so proud of everyone’s hard work and dedication throughout the challenge. Way to go, Dragons! 🐉👏🏃🏽🏃🏼‍♀️🥇