The sixth-grade class is working on their "Capstone" project as a culminating learning experience at Sharon Elementary School. Students chose either STEM or cooking as a focus. Students who chose STEM are working work with Ms. Hop and STEM educators from the Montshire Museum. They are digging into applied science projects over the next couple of months. Their first experience was learning how to create circuits to build "Scribble Bots." This week they created and tested wind powered vehicles.

The cooking group is preparing to compete in the Junior Iron Chef competition in March. They are meeting weekly to practice preparing dishes that they will eventually have to cook in a competitive environment. After the Junior Iron Chef competition students will cook to showcase their skills for the staff, fellow students, and their parents.

During the Capstone process, students are reflecting on what learning means to them. Once the applied learning part of the Capstone is completed, each student will do their own independent research for a Passion Project of their choice. Their resulting project will include applying their knowledge and writing a paper describing their learning experience and what they will take forward with them as they leave Sharon.

You may have heard that the library experienced some damage after one of our snowstorms earlier in January. With the help of staff and students, we cleaned up, inventoried the damage items and we are up and running again.

In the meantime, students have continued learning and choosing books during Library classes. Our focus over the last month has been recommending books. This is the single best way to get students reading more books!

Fourth, fifth and sixth graders have been working on a "Book Tasting" project. Each student filled out a reading interest survey. Then they were assigned another student to shop for. They chose an appetizer, main course and dessert book for their reader. Finally they wrapped up the books like presents. This week, the sixth graders opened up their books (see pic) and sampled them. Then they chose which books they wanted to continue reading. It was a great experience! The fourth and fifth graders will be opening their packages next week.

Third graders have been working on recommending a book to younger students. They are creating bookmarks with information about why they are recommending their book.

Ms. Hop has been reading snippets of books to the first and second grade classes. Last week she read from the Mercy Watson series and students then checked out all of the Mercy Watson books!