Last month 4th graders had the opportunity to go to the Natural History Museum at Thanksgiving Point. Students were able to check out lots of dionosaur bones and interesting displays. They even had a chance to do some digging of their own!

This week, film crews were at Cherry Creek to shoot scenes for a new TV series, Yellowstone. The series is written and executive produced by Oscar-nominated Taylor Sheridan, and will star Kevin Costner. Costner wasn't involved in the scenes being filmed at our school, but it was exciting to see the North gym and one of our empty classrooms get set up as a film set. The show follows the experiences of John Dutton (Costner) who owns the largest ranch in the United States, and the legal, political, and cultural struggles that come along with living on America's frontier.

Last year, Noah Jones came to school with some marbles. I proceeded to tell him all of my memories of playing marbles as a kid. His grandpa had given him some cool marbles, so I told him I'd bring some marbles and play him a game or two. It all snowballed from there. More kids brought marbles to play with. Now there are quite a few of my students who play marbles every day at recess. I love playing marbles with my students. It gets them excited about having fun and playing with students they might not normally play with. It's a timeless game spanning the ages.

Fifth graders have been learning about Native Americans in class and got to enjoy a special presentation from Mrs. Beyal last week. We learned that there is a lot of Native American influence in Utah and our American History. A lot of our food, vocabulary, herbs, and games have Native American roots. The students also learned about diversity and race, and how one color of skin is no better than another.

Can you guess which of the following things were influenced by Native Americans?

A. The Constitution of the United States

B. Lacrosse and Hockey

The first graders kicked off the first week of school by earning "Magic Beads" for making good choices, following rules, being kind, etc. Each bead they earned was threaded onto a pipe cleaner that was taped to their desk. On Friday we turned those pipe cleaners with beads into bracelets and talked about what it was that we thought made them so magical! Some of their ideas were: they glow in the dark, they change color with hot/cold water, and they can do things you tell them to do! We tried all of their suggestions, but nothing worked....until we walked outside!