Judges in the Classroom

We had a special visitor to our classroom on September 27th. Judge Katherine Garza, a Magistrate with the Lake Superior Court, Juvenile Division, came to out classroom to talk about her job as a judge. This was part of the program called Judges in the Classroom. In addition, she gave a great lesson to the class on the three branches of government and discussed the Constitution and its importance for us today. Judge Katie took the time to answer many of our questions and even shared what a typical day looks like when she is at work. We really enjoyed hearing Judge Katie speak and we thank her for taking the time to visit us!

Judge Katherine Garza discusses her job as a judge in juvenile court:

Judge Katie teaches us about the three branches of government:

Thank you again to Judge Katie for coming to Harding! We hope you'll visit again!

Our "Human Body Man"

We've just wrapped up a science unit on the Systems of the Human Body. This is a unit I have done for several years but I have been adding and revamping a few things in it the past couple of years.

This year, I found a cute little activity that we used as a culmination to the unit. Each student had the opportunity to put together a little paper man (think back to paper dolls!). This little man has 8 layers--the ody front, skeletal system, respiratory system, digestive system, circulatory system, nervous system, skin and body back (I wish they had included muscles and excretory). The activity is actually called a "foldable" but the cutting and putting together like an accordion would have been a little too much for my 4th graders. Instead, we colored and cut each layer out completely. Then we "layered" the layers and stapled together. Voila! It was a great way to reiterate the information we already learned and see how they all fit together. They turned out really cute! The link to the activity can be found here: Human Body Systems.

Here are the photos of our project-----

My example for the students:

The "unlayered" layers:

The students' final men:

Aren't they super cute?? I'll be keeping them in our unit from now on!