Monday, January 28th, was the 100th day of school for second graders at Santaquin Elementary!  "It's the 100th day of school today ... let's start the day with a grin.  For tomorrow will be 101 .. so let the celebrations begin!"  There were all kinds of fun activities to celebrate having spent 100 exciting days learning, i.e., 100 piece puzzles, triple-digit math problems, games with the hundred board, read 100 books, write 100 words, etc.  We also had some very special visitors in our classrooms ... Mr. and Mrs. Harry and Henrietta Undreth, to name just a few!

Mrs. Pando's sixth-grade class watch as the movement of hot water and cold water are demonstrated.  The hot water is less dense and will actually "float" on the colder water.  In the pictures, the hot water is colored red.  The colder water, colored blue, stays to the bottom.  

The students have been learning the 3 types of heat transfer energy:  conduction, convection, and radiation.

Each student at Santaquin Elementary has been working very hard on their reading to collect reading tickets for our January 'It Pays to Read' Assembly.  Mr. Argyle shook things up a bit this month with a 'Minute to Win It' theme for our celebration.  Students were given one minute to shoot baskets, jump rope, knock down bowling pins, score a hockey goal, etc.  Lucky winners won cash for every station they completed within the minute time frame!  Tons of students won books and prizes, some with $ money $ inside.  Two grand prize winners left with their very own BIKE!  It definitely pays to READ at Santaquin!

Santaquin Sentinel, January 2013

What  better way is there  to have fun inside (when it's too cold to play outside) than to have Relay races in the gym? 

Santaquin Elementary second-grade students met in the school's gym for their morning recess and had a great time while they got the wiggles out.  Student Photographers Joseph Jacklin and Elli Crook captured the fun for us to share.

Every equinox and solstice sixth-grade students line up to have their pictures taken.  We do this so that the students can compare the length of the shadows as the earth's tilt changes with the seasons.  In the winter the days are short and the shadows are long.  This is because the sun is low in the sky.  At the equinoxes in September and March the shadows are the same length!!  And if we were in school during the summer, we'd take a picture and see that the shadows are very small because the sun is high in the sky. 

Miss Camper's second-grade students came to Mrs. Greer's class for a fun Christmas Storytime treat.  Mrs. Greer has been collecting stuffed characters from children's stories and at Christmas the students are allowed to read with the characters.  The second-grade students listened to stories read by their sixth-grade "buddies".  It was fun for the students to have a toy in their hands that matched the character in their books.  We hope to make this a Christmas tradition!!

One of the favorite activities of the season was decorating top hats!!  Students spent time on the Tuesday before moving from activity to activity.  First, they went ice-skating in the gym, then they made snowmen hats, and ended the afternoon with a soldier from World War I  (well portrayed ).

We have many fun traditions at Santaquin at Christmas time, and this is probably our favorite!

All three grade 6 classes had a chance to do some observations with the district "Seasons" kit.  The students measured energy hitting different parts of the globes.  The globes were positioned on the desks to represent the relationship of the earth to the sun in all four seasons.  Mrs. Rawle measured and placed each station the same distance from the lamps representing the sun, so that the students would get an accurate reading.

Students used a heat sensitive pad with a probe to measure the amount of heat hitting the sensor. They then observed the light/energy on a sensor representing Utah in the Northern Hemisphere and Argentina in the Southern Hemisphere.

During the last hours of school for the 2012 year, all of the Kindergarten students at Santaquin Elementary joined together to treat parents, families, friends, and teachers to a wonderful holiday program.  The students were cheered on as they sang their favorite holiday songs and sported their homemade holiday hats.  Merry Christmas from Kindergarten!