Friday is Hat Day! Wear your favorite hat and bring a $1 to support Dragons in need. 🐲❤️🧢👒🪖⛑🎩
Hat Days are a fun way to celebrate and wear a hat to school, as well as give back to our friends in need. Be creative or just have fun wearing your favorite hat while helping us support our school community! The money from hat day will go to support students who might need a coat, backpack, and other items that support our students and classrooms. Thank you for your support!
A lot of math exploration is happening in our third grade hall!! ✖️➗➕➖ In Mrs. Davis' class, they played a fun game of "Roll & Round" with a partner! After rolling a die, they put their rounding skills to the test by solving a problem within the column they rolled on. 🎲 Miss Windham's students tested their knowledge of regrouping in addition equations with a fun game of "Roll & Regroup." Each student was partnered up, given three dice, and tasked with one goal: create a greater sum than their partner. They used their knowledge of place value, regrouping, and problem solving to win the challenge! ✨
🏐🎉 This week in PE we started playing Newcomb — a super fun, modified version of volleyball! 🙌 In this game, you can throw, catch, bump, AND set the ball! 🔥
We also added some brain power 🧠 with our new vocab words: anticipate 👀 and rotation 🔄. Our Dragons are learning to move their feet 👣, call the ball 💬, and use their spatial awareness to keep the game going strong! 💪
They’re having an absolute BLAST while building skills and teamwork! 🐉🏐Future volleyball stars in the making! ✨🏆
🩺✨ Our annual Health Fair was a big success today! 🎉 Students rotated through stations with the amazing OCCC nursing students and learned all about: 🪖 Wearing a helmet 🦷 Brushing & flossing teeth 😴 Getting enough sleep 💬 Saying NO to bullying 🧼 Stopping the spread of germs 🥦 Building a healthy plate 🚭 Tobacco prevention 🧴 Personal hygiene 🏃 Staying active A huge THANK YOU to the OCCC nursing students for teaching our Dragons healthy habits that will last a lifetime! 🐉❤️💪
📚🇺🇸 Today in U.S. History: The Starving Time Simulation! 🏰🍴
Today, our 5th grade students in Mrs. Arnold’s U.S. History class traveled back in time to Jamestown, Winter of 1609–1610, to experience what life might have been like during the Starving Time.
The settlers were trapped inside the fort due to a harsh drought, the sudden arrival of 400 new settlers who brought no food or supplies, and a siege by the Powhatan Indians—who were understandably angry after settlers had stolen from them.
With food running dangerously low, settlers resorted to eating whatever they could find. To simulate this, students bravely tasted some of the “foods” settlers may have eaten:
🐴 Horse = Spam
🐍 Snake = Vienna sausages
🐱 Cat = Canned chicken
🐀 Rat = Corned beef hash
🌱 Roots = Turnips
👞 Shoe leather = Black licorice
It was an unforgettable (and hilarious!) hands-on learning experience. I am SO proud of all the students for their curiosity, courage, and willingness to try new things—even the black licorice! 😂🙌
We had so much fun learning about this important part of early American history!
#Jamestown #StarvingTime #HandsOnHistory #USHistoryClass #ProudTeacher
✨ Science in action! ✨
Mrs. Piazza's students explored science stations, learning all about matter—what it is and how it can be measured. They even got hands-on practice using a balance scale to compare different objects! 🧪⚖️
⏰ Time’s ticking! Basketball sign-ups are OPEN but the deadline is racing toward us—October 3rd! Don’t miss your shot! 🏀
Have you ever made ice cream before? Miss Windham's class has! 🍨✨After reading "A Sundae with Everything on It," her students summarized the story using the SWBST strategy-- Somebody Wanted But So Then. With inspiration from the quantum physicist mother in the story, her class turned into scientists with ice cream creations of their own! Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry... they can make it!🍫🍦🍓
📚✨ Students in Mrs. Ambrose's third grade class practiced their vocabulary words with a fun game of Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up! 🎶 While music played, they walked around with their hands up. When the music stopped, they found a partner. One student read a definition, and the other had to guess the vocabulary word. Then they switched roles before the music started again to find a new partner! 🙌👏
Lots of learning, movement, and smiles today!
🏐 Our Dragons are rocking the volleyball unit in PE! They’ve mastered the serve ✅ and are now learning how to bump and set 🙌.
We played the Helpful Net activity from OPEN, where teammates volleyed the ball back and forth over a jumprope “net.” The rope holders moved and adjusted to make sure everyone found success—talk about Cooperation in action! 🤝✨
We’re also starting to learn Newcomb, a fun lead-up game to volleyball. Along the way, we’ve been talking about our vocabulary words: Cooperation (working together) and Challenge (pushing ourselves to improve). 💪🔥
These Dragons are learning skills, teamwork, AND life lessons on the court! 🐉❤️
Book Fair is coming!! October 6 till October 9, we will be open during parent conferences as well!
❤️🐉 Our Purcell Intermediate Student Council showed their DRAGON PRIDE all week long! 🎉🙌 They marched with smiles in the Homecoming Parade on Friday, September 19 🎊🚶♂️🚶♀️ and have been leading the way each day—running our morning assemblies 🎤, making announcements 📢, and raising and lowering our flag 🇺🇸✨.
We are SO proud of their leadership, dedication, and commitment to our school and community! 💪🐉🔥 #DragonPride #StudentLeaders
We wrapped up our 4-Square unit with an optional tournament to put our skills to the test! 🎉 Students from each class were recognized, and winners were crowned King of the Court 👑. Players also voted for a Sportsmanship MVP in each class! 🏆
Our Sportsmanship MVPs were recognized for showing:
⭐ Cheering on others
⭐ Playing fair
⭐ Respecting the rules
⭐ Encouraging teammates and classmates
⭐ Keeping a positive attitude
Over the past few weeks, we’ve worked hard not only on 4-Square skills, but also on being great players who show integrity, friendship, and optimism both on and off the court. 💪❤️
Way to go, Dragons! 🐲🙌
Our third graders finished their NWEA MAP tests today and even with a little rain this morning, it won't stop them from blowing off some post-testing energy! 🐉⚡️
From books to building! 📚➡️🛠️ After checking out their library books, students in Mrs. Ambrose's third grade class explored STEM bins and even made their own bookmarks!
Twinning for the win! 🐉💚 Our third grade students showed off their Dragon Pride during Homecoming Week by dressing alike with a friend!
📚✨ Mrs. Gee’s 5th grade Language Arts students have been busy stretching their sentences! Instead of writing plain sentences, they’re learning to spice them up with adjectives and adverbs:
➡️ “The fluffy brown dog ran quickly down the street!” 🐶💨
➡️ “The gooey cheesy pizza disappeared hungrily in seconds!” 🍕😋
➡️ “The fiery red dragon roared loudly across the sky!” 🐉🔥
These sentence-stretching superstars are making their writing more vivid, creative, and fun! 🌟✏️
Look at our third graders thriving in both reading and math! Mrs. Davis' class was spotted in the library, reading and enjoying their books with one another. 📚They also engaged in place value games that improved their understanding of numbers in the thousandths place, comparing five-digit numbers, and forming new numbers based on value relationships. We love seeing their motivation to grow! So smart!! ✨
🏐🔥 Today in PE we had SO much fun! We kicked things off with Switch on the 4-Square courts ➡️⬅️⬆️⬇️🤩.
Then we started our volleyball unit 🎉🙌 learning the proper technique for the underhand serve 💪👏. Everyone worked hard and crushed it 💯!
We’re already pumped for next class because we’ll be playing BATTLESHIP 🚢🎯💥🏐 using the skills we learned today! 🎉
📚🇺🇸 US History in Mrs. Arnold’s 5th Grade!
Our students have been diving into early America by learning about the Powhatan people of Virginia. Today, we took history hands-on and practiced making cordage, just like the Powhatan people did long ago!
Learning history isn’t just about reading—it’s about experiencing how people lived and connecting to their world.
#USHistory #HandsOnLearning #5thGrade #Powhatan #Dragons
