Category Archives: Elementary

First grade applied for and was awarded a $100 grant through the Nebraska Farm Bureau Foundation to study where our food comes from and where it is produced in Nebraska. Our first lesson this week was about milk. We learned about a dairy farm and milking machines in Diller, Nebraska. Locally we also were fortunate to have community member Megan Reimann send us a video about how to care for and milk a dairy cow! She also sent us fresh cows milk. It was very interesting to see the difference between fresh milk and store bought!

We also used some of our grant money to buy the ingredients to make homemade ice cream in a bag! Our main reading story this week was “From Cows to You.” We are able to tie in our Agriculture in the Classroom activities to include reading and social studies content as well!

Our curriculum has 10 different food items raised and produced in Nebraska so be looking for more updates!

4th graders started the quarter by traveling the Oregon Trail through Nebraska. We started at the Little Blue River where we ate Skeeter cakes (cornmeal pancakes with mosquitos in them, really it was flax seed). Next we traveled to Ft. Kearney where we accidentally pulled water hemlock (poison) and ate it killing 3 wagon members. Windlass Hill and Ash Hallow were very beautiful and had refreshing water but some of our wagons got stumped (rolled down the hill and crashed). One family even had a new baby here, which they named Ash. At Jailhouse and Courthouse Rock we saw rattlesnakes and tried hardtack. Our next stop was Chimney Rock were we learned to make a toy named a “humdinger”. Our last stop is Scott’s Bluff. Hopefully, we can finish through Nebraska without digging any more graves!

Fourth graders attended the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies presentation on bird banding. While we were there we saw the nets the birds fly into, banding of the birds, weighing of the birds, and we got to hold a felt bird that was a model of a real bird. Students also got to use binoculars and bird books to identify birds and play a bird survival game. We found out that only around 30% of birds that migrate make it to their destination.

Fifth graders participated in an egg drop challenge to help them learn about the practices of science and how to think like a scientist. After asking questions, they had 30 minutes to design and build a model with the available materials that would protect an egg in a drop. We tested the models and, afterwards, analyzed the data to think about how they would revise their initial models to make them better.