NEWSLETTER 3-4-16

Hi! What a busy week! We have been doing a lot of sky watching at various times during the day! We looked for patterns. We noticed how the sun moves across the sky from East to West each day (thanks to the Earth orbiting around it). We observed the moon going through different phases and learned that when it is waxing and waning it is really not changing shape. It is just reflecting a different amount of light from the sun. We looked at daylight hours for the same day each month over a year. We saw how summer days have more daylight hours allowing the sun to give us more light and warmer weather. The winter days had less daylight hours making it darker and colder. We will continue with our space theme through March. We will begin “traveling” to each of the planets next week.

READING AND LANGUAGE ARTS

Robert Munsch wrote back to us! We were so excited to get our questions answered. He even wrote a new story with some of our classmates’ names in it! A copy was sent home Thursday with each child.

In honor of Leap Day, we wrote letters to ourselves! We will put them into a time capsule, along with the rest of the school, to open on our next Leap Day!

We read the book, PAPA, PLEASE GET ME THE MOON by Eric Carle. We created a scene from the book and wrote about what we would do with the moon if we could play with it.

We are having fun reading Dr. Seuss books. We will have a special week dedicated to Dr. Seuss next week. We will be having dress up days and special activities with Pre-K, Kindergarten and Second.

MATH

We just finished chapter six. We started the assessment today and will finish it on Monday. We learned a new game. All you need is pennies, dimes, one dollar and dice to play. All money goes in the bank. Each player takes turn rolling the dice. Take the amount of the roll. Keep the pennies and dimes in a ten frame shape so it’s easier to tell when to make an exchange. The first player that gets to $1.00 wins. You can make this game harder by playing it backwards if you want a challenge :)!

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• Kim Dagher, of Savour Chocolatier in Veazie, came in and read us CHOCOLATINA. It was part of our school-wide celebration of World Wide Read Aloud Day. She gave us the book and even made us some chocolate! It was delicious. It was fun to hear about how she makes all of the chocolates and confections that she makes!

• Fire Fighter Pete came in on Thursday to teach us about what is and what isn’t a 9-1-1 emergency. He also had a special phone that let the kids make an actual 9-1-1 call. Each student was given an emergency situation to call and talk to the dispatcher about. The kids did a great job and learned a lot. If your child doesn’t know his/her address and phone number, this would be a great time to practice it!

• We had fun crashing asteroids into the moon to make craters (various size round objects into flour). The kids were quite the scientists as they used various heights, weights and speeds to see which would make the best crater.

• Next week’s dress up days:
• Monday - Wear Green for Green Eggs and Ham
• Tuesday - Mismatched, crazy socks for Fox in Socks
• Wednesday - Dress in your favorite outfit - Oh, The Places You’ll Go (school pics)
• Thursday - Wear a hat for Cat in The Hat
• Friday - Wear Pajamas and bring a stuffy for The Sleep Book

Keep watching the night sky each night. It helps make what we are learning about more real. Try looking at the moon with binoculars or with a telescope.