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Day 6: Green Builder Visit

2/10/2014

The fifth through eighth graders participate in a year-long project-based learning experience based on a theme. This year’s theme is about ecology and living sustainable lives.

We focused on alternative energies in the middle part of the year. Students learned about harnessing wind and solar power, hydropower, nuclear power, geothermal power, and the use of biofuels.

Jeff Auberger, of Preservation Homes in Elkhorn, visited us in January to show our students how he uses alternative energies in the construction of his homes. He brought along some alternative building materials, blueprints, and presented photos of the types of homes he builds.

At the end of his presentation, he even gave away a water-saving shower head! Blake was the lucky winner.

We want to give sincere thanks to Jeff for taking the time to talk with our students. His passion and enthusiasm for building greener homes made for a great presentation!

Food Web and Earthquakes

10/16/2013

The 5-8 students are learning about the Earth and its spheres in Day 6. They have learned that each sphere: biosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere, are all connected and depend on one another.
One example to show those connections was an activity that simulated a food web. Mr. P had cards of living things and each student received one. Students had to learn how each things was dependent on others. A looooong piece of yarn was used to connect each of the students in a large web. Then, Mr. P gave scenarios that would destroy one or more of the living things. Students let go of their yarn and we watched the web collapse. Students learned that taking a living thing out of the web, especially the bottom of the food chain, could be devastating.
The next Day 6, students did some activities with the lithosphere. They made the layers of the Earth in a sweet way: a Red Hot candy for the core squished into a marshmallow to represent the mantle followed by a dip in some chocolate for the crust. Later, they practiced how seismographs work by making their own "earthquakes". They shook the tables while their partners tried to stay on the "seismograph" paper.

Old World Wisconsin

10/16/2013

Recently, grades 3-5 enjoyed a trip to Old World Wisconsin. The students spent the day learning about the 1800's while participating in activities from that time period.

Guitar and Recorder Recitals

4/16/2013

The third graders had a small recorder recital recently. The fifth and seventh graders showed off their guitar knowledge in recitals recently as well. All performed very well!

Forensics

4/16/2013

Early in April, students in first through fifth grade do forensics presentations. This teaches them the art of presenting a subject, demonstating something or interpreting a story in front of an audience. The students work hard on this and it's always a fun competition!

Fifth Grade Happenings

3/5/2013

The fifth grade took their first skiing lessons at Grand Geneva in February. Most had never skied before so Mrs. Mott took a video of their first time down the learner hill.

Recently fifth graders did projects about the different places colonists lived during the early 1700s...they all chose to share their information about the New England, middle and southern colonies as game show or talk show formats. This made learning about our American history fun for everyone.

Amazing Race

2/1/2013

Fifth through eighth grade students at Traver School participated in an “Amazing Race”-style activity last Wednesday as part of “Day 6” activities. Instead of a race around the world, they raced around Traver School.

Students were introduced to the “Amazing Race” concept via YouTube videos and were instructed on how the Traver version would be played. Students were then put into mixed-grade level teams of three and handed their first of many envelopes they would receive during the race.

The teams ripped open their first clue and were off! Students had to answer questions about European countries, then use the clue to arrive at the correct classroom. If they found the correct classroom, the staff member in the room would give them an envelope to their next clue.

Some envelopes led to challenges of physical and mental ability, such as a game called Kub (from Sweden) or a game on the Internet that challenged knowledge about identifying European countries.

After answering all the questions and completing all the challenges, students completed the final challenge by alphabetizing all fifty European country names. And, by the way, they had to figure out that alphabetizing was what they were supposed to do with fifty slips of paper!

The winning team was Zander, Rigo, and William F. They finished in one hour, three minutes. The other teams averaged about one hour, forty minutes to complete the race. Unfortunately, three teams got stuck in challenges and didn’t finish in the time allotted.

Wondering what “Day 6” is? Day 6 is Traver’s modified six-day schedule that allows the fifth through eighth graders to meet in the morning all together. About once a month, students meet all day for more activities. Themes of Day 6 curriculum are based on global awareness and issues. The middle school team strives to bring in speakers to help students learn different perspectives as well.

Students choose sessions hosted by the middle school team on various topics on a given theme. This year’s theme is “Our World: Part II-Europe and South America”.

This is the fourth year of Day 6 activities. Past themes were: “The Earth Will Be Yours--What Will You Do With It?”, “Living in the 21st Century and Beyond”, and “Our World: Part I-Africa and Asia”.

Day of the Dead

12/3/2012

Grades 5-8 participated in learning about the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) in Spanish class. They also created some Day of the Dead crafts.

Trip to the Capitol

11/8/2012

Recently, the third, fourth, and fifth graders took a trip to visit our state's capitol in Madison. They had their picture taken with our district's State Senator Neal Kedzie.

Racine Trip

10/10/2012

The fifth through eighth grade students went on a field trip to Racine. We started our morning meeting a fisheries biologist from the Wisconsin DNR at the Root River Steelhead Facility. The biologist showed us how they artificially propagate Great Lakes Steelhead and Salmon at the Facility. From there we went to Zoo Beach to meet an environmental ecologist. The ecologist showed us how they restored the beach and how they monitor the water quality and keep it safe for us to swim. We even got to bring our E. coli test back to school to look at the results the next day!