Sunday, June 1, 2014

We hope to see you at the end of the year ceremonies this week! 
K-5 ceremonies will be held in the cafeteria.
Pre-K ceremonies will be held in Pre-K classrooms/library
 
End of Year Ceremonies
6/2 - Kindergarten - 8:30
6/2 - 1st Grade - 9:30  
6/3 - 2nd Grade - 8:30 
6/3 - 3rd Grade - 9:30 
6/3 -  Pre-K AM - 9:30
6/3 -  Pre-K PM - 1:30  
6/4 - 4th Grade - 1:45 
6/5 - 5th Grade* - 8:30
*5th graders will be recognized with a special end of year lunch celebration on 6/5
*Please join us at school for our "Annual Clap-Out" to say goodbye and good luck to our 5th graders @ 2:45 on 6/5 (Bring tissues!!)

Hello Cannon Parents!
It’s hard to believe that our school year will be ending soon!  It has been a terrific year of learning at Cannon and we want to make sure our students have the opportunity to continue to engage in great learning experiences throughout the summer.
We have designed a Summer Learning Calendar for our K-4 Cannon students that will provide them with information about how to participate in fun summer reading challenges, math practice, engineering and design challenges, and even brain-based physical fitness activities!  This calendar will also include FUN events that are going on right here in the Grapevine community throughout the summer that your family can participate in for FREE!! 
Although it will be possible for all K-4 Cannon students to participate in our fun Summer Learning Calendaractivities, we are encouraging our students to complete the activities in a “digital way if possible.  As a result, we would like to allow all Cannon students that are planning to return to Cannon next year to keep their school-issued device throughout the summer. 
ALL PARENTS MUST DO THE FOLLOWING SO THAT YOUR CHILD CAN KEEP THEIR iPAD THIS SUMMER:
  • Click on this link to let us know whether or not you give permission for your child to keep their iPad throughout the summer. 
 
  • All students who receive permission to keep their iPads during the summer will have the Summer Learning Calendar and any related apps downloaded on their iPad next week. Parent Information will also be sent home, so that you know how to help your child throughout the summer.
  • All students who do NOT receive permission to keep their iPad during the summer will receive a paper copy of the Summer Learning Calendar to bring home to share with parents next week and their iPad will be collected next week to be safely stored for the summer.
We hope that you will allow your child to keep their iPad for the summer and take advantage of our Summer Learning Calendar Fun!! All students that participate and complete summer challenge requirements will be eligible for fun prizes and recognition when they return to school next year.  Help us keep YOUR  child engaged in learning…..in a FUN way, all summer long!​

Friday, May 30, 2014

Hello Cannon Parents!
It’s hard to believe that our school year will be ending soon!  It has been a terrific year of learning at Cannon and we want to make sure our students have the opportunity to continue to engage in great learning experiences throughout the summer.
We have designed a Summer Learning Calendar for our K-4 Cannon students that will provide them with information about how to participate in fun summer reading challenges, math practice, engineering and design challenges, and even brain-based physical fitness activities!  This calendar will also include FUN events that are going on right here in the Grapevine community throughout the summer that your family can participate in for FREE!! 
Although it will be possible for all K-4 Cannon students to participate in our fun Summer Learning Calendar activities, we are encouraging our students to complete the activities in a “digital way if possible.  As a result, we would like to allow all Cannon students that are planning to return to Cannon next year to keep their school-issued device throughout the summer. 
ALL PARENTS MUST DO THE FOLLOWING SO THAT YOUR CHILD CAN KEEP THEIR iPAD THIS SUMMER:
  • Click on this link to let us know whether or not you give permission for your child to keep their iPad throughout the summer. 
 
  • All students who receive permission to keep their iPads during the summer will have the Summer Learning Calendar and any related apps downloaded on their iPad next week. Parent Information will also be sent home, so that you know how to help your child throughout the summer.
 
  • All students who do NOT receive permission to keep their iPad during the summer will receive a paper copy of the Summer Learning Calendar to bring home to share with parents next week and their iPad will be collected next week to be safely stored for the summer.
We hope that you will allow your child to keep their iPad for the summer and take advantage of our Summer Learning Calendar Fun!! All students that participate and complete summer challenge requirements will be eligible for fun prizes and recognition when they return to school next year.  Help us keep YOUR  child engaged in learning…..in a FUN way, all summer long!

Thursday, May 29, 2014




We are exploring a new STEM project this week.  We are working on a Hands-On Standards STEM in Action lesson called Muddy Mats.  In this project a boy named Liam wants to engineer a mat so his wet dog can come in the house and not make a mess on the carpet.  Today we read the story and discussed the problem and some solutions they use at their homes for this problem. We discussed how this type of engineering is material engineering. We reviewed how we have already done a materials engineering unit and discussed our schema on what helped us solve that project.  Then we started our first lesson to build our knowledge on how waters properties will be important in this build.  

Friday, May 16, 2014





Working with our 5th grade buddies to finish our greenhouse challenge.



Today in social studies we looked at specialized jobs in a factory.  We had a class challenge to to see if specialized jobs make a factory faster at producing goods.  We had one student work as an individual and the rest worked using specialized jobs.  We were producing flowers.  We found that specialized jobs did make a difference. The factory made 15 and the individual only made 3.  

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Today in science we continued our study of the parts of the plant.  Today we looked at the leaves.  We discussed photosynthesis.  We talked about how plants require light as a form of energy to develop and grow.  The way this energy transfer happens is by using chlorophyll.  Chlorophyll is the green pigment in plants that is used to trap energy fro the sun.  Each green part of a plant has chlorophyll.  Chlorophyll helps plants absorb light and convert it into sugar through photosynthesis.  We rubbed leaves and witnessed the chlorophyll.  Then we made leaf rubbings and discussed the different types of leaves.  We labeled and classified the leaves.



Calling all Artists!

Please create a 2D image of your school mascot as a superhero!
(Must be in color, and no larger than 11 x 18)

One lucky artist’s work from each school in GCISD will be chosen for a top-secret project.

Please turn these into your art teacher or front office by June 4th with your contact info on the back.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First and Last Name:___________________________
Grade:_________________________________________
School:________________________________________

Phone Number:________________________________

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

This weeks engineering challenge goes with our science projects about plants.  We are learning all about the needs of a plant in science.  So our engineering challenge is a Milk Carton Greenhouse.  They must construct a working greenhouse using an empty milk carton, straws, a large Ziploc bag, soil, seeds, scissors, and tape.  They will build a working green house from the materials provided and observe the growth of their plants over time.


Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Mrs. Highfill, the art teacher, is teaching some really exciting art classes this summer for the GCISD Summer Enrichment. Go to www.gcisd-k12.org to sign up. The classes are ABC Drawing, Amazing Animation, Dynamic 3D Drawing and Digital Photography!

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Family STEM Night
Thursday, May 8th
Please make plans to join our Cannon engineers for an evening of "STEMtastic" activities!
5:30-  "A Farmer's Life"  Choir Concert in the cafeteria
6:00-7:00   Visit STEM activities throughout the school.
We look forward to seeing you!

Tomorrow is field day also.  Our class needs to wear any color of blue shirts.  We are really excited about both events.  

Friday, May 2, 2014

Today for STEM we looked at the structures of 4 flowers. We discussed where the pollen would be located and what special properties their hand pollinator would have to posses to get the job of pollination done. The four flowers we were looking at are the Poppy
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the Dutchman's Pipe
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Jack in the Pulpit
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Bucket Orchid
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Then I showed them the models we would use to emulate the flowers for our hand pollinators. For the poppy we will use an open dish. For the Dutchman's Pipe we will use a test tube. For
Jack in the Pulpit we will use a test tube with an index card bent over the top. Lastly for the Bucket Orchid we are using PVC pipe. The students were put into pairs and given a model of a flower. They brainstormed designs and decided on a final design they are wanting to test tomorrow.
external image wordmover-3.jpg

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Thursday, May 1, 2014


For STEM today we tested materials to see if they would be useful in our hand pollinator project. We first decided how we were going to test the materials so that they would be fair tests and the results from our tests would be accurate. We decided on a light dip and then 3 taps for dropping. We used baking soda to emulate the pollen in flowers. They concluded that the pipe cleaner and the pom pom were the most successful materials for picking up and dropping off the pollen. They even discovered the pipe cleaner when rolled like a coiled snake would pick up even more pollen. They said it was because the surface area was larger.




Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Here is a poster the scholars created to show off their learning about 3 dimensional shapes.

Today we continued our study of 3 dimensional shapes.  Today we looked at edges and vertices.  We build our shapes using straws and connectors.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

We are working on building 3 dimensional shapes today.  Yesterday we looked at wooden blocks of the shapes and traced all of their faces.  Today we used the information we learned yesterday about the shape and number of faces to build 3 dimensional shapes. 

Friday, April 25, 2014

This weeks engineering challenge was building a spider web.  We studied how for spiders this is a behavioral adaptation which is instinctual.  The scholars have been working all week and today they had some help and advice from their 5th grade buddies. 


Thursday, April 24, 2014

Today in math we were working on our 2 dimensional shapes.  We created Shape Monsters using a glyph.  They had to use certain shapes depending on information about themselves.  Then they got to be creative with the decoration.  They then wrote about their Shape Monsters practicing the names of the 2 dimensional shapes. 

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Today in math we were learning about 2 dimensional shapes.  They were given shapes and labels and they had to work together to complete a tree map of the 2 dimensional shapes.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

We had a wonderful time at our field trip today for Earth Day.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Mariana Becomes a Butterfly

This week we started our next STEM unit. This unit is titled Mariana Becomes a Butterfly and is about agricultural engineering. This unit is about a girl who lives in the Dominican Republic. She has a plant that a friend brought to her from Hawaii. The plant won't grow berries like it did when she first got it. She goes to her aunt for help because her aunt is an agricultural engineer. They discover that the plant is not getting pollinated because the insect that pollinated the plant is not in the Dominican Republic. So Mariana creates and redesigns a hand pollinator so she can pollinate the plant. She is successful and her plant has berries again.
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On the first day we spent some time reviewing the different types of engineers we had learned about this year. Then we discussed and came up with a definition of an agricultural engineer.
Then we spent some time learning about the climate of the Dominican Republic using the following link. video We read the story together as a class and discussed what happened. Then we made diagrams of the parts of a flower and their jobs.
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Friday, April 18, 2014

Today was test day for our bird beak engineering challenge.  We tested using rice, beans, and pasta.  One group designed such an amazing beak it won in each type of food.  Congratulations to Jack, Sofia, Landon, and Ryan for designing the beak. 


Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Here are some images of our first builds for the bird beak building challenge.



Tuesday, April 15, 2014

This weeks engineering building challenge is about bird beaks.  This fits with our study of animal adaptations.  The challenge is using the materials provided, can you build a bird beak that can pick up the most food in one try?  They can not touch the food in any way their their hands. 


Monday, April 14, 2014

We are in the middle of our animal study.  The scholars all picked animals and have researched their animals.  They have built habitats and are working on writing facts for their Thinglink presentations.  Today we are working on food chains.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Wow all of our Three Little Pig Houses were successful.  They really are becoming strong engineers.  Here are all of the houses.