Kansas Day Celebration 2008
February 13, 2008
The students at Marais des Cygnes Valley Elementary celebrated Kansas Day 2008 during the afternoon of Tuesday, January 29, by rotating through seven different activities. The students were divided into multiage groups, with the older students helping younger students with activities.
Mrs. Woods directed the students in making
sunflowers out of corn and sunflower seeds. The students used
yellow corn for the petals and sunflower seeds glued to the center
of the sunflowers. The students enjoyed trail mix while sharing
Kansas trivia or playing Kansas Bingo.
Mrs. Butts and Mrs. Carson taught the students how to square dance.
Each student was partnered up and taught the steps and then square
danced to music. Among some of the steps they learned were do si
do and bow to your partner.
Mrs. Warner shared the history of cornbread after the students
helped Mrs. Lichtenauer and Mrs. Taylor mix up cornbread to bake in
muffin tins. The students ate butter on the warm muffins while
listening to information about cornbread. Ann Becker brought
a one-legged stool and an old glass butter churn which she used to
demonstrate butter making. She talked about the steps it took
to make butter, starting with milking the cow using a one-legged
stool to sit on while milking the cow. Then she whipped up the
cream and saved some of the whipped cream before churning the
remaining cream into butter. Students had already tasted the fresh
churned butter on the cornbread, but Mrs. Becker had whipped cream
for the students to sample.
Mrs. Reed had prairie dog races for the students. The teachers had
the students color prairie dogs earlier. They formed the colored
prairie dog paper into a shape, placed two marbles in the prairie
dog and taped it closed. The students in the group took turns
racing their tumbling prairie dogs down a slight ramp.
Using some of the information they gained from the afternoon
activities, Mrs. Lingenfelter shared a Kansas PowerPoint with the
students before the students played Kansas Jeopardy.
