This week everyone chose an animal to learn about. We will be visiting the computer lab to create All About slide shows/ reports for these animals in the coming weeks. Everyone will be asked to write a sentence telling what their animals look like, what they eat, where they live, and one interesting fact. In addition everyone will make a paper mache model of their animals. We will probably begin this part of the project next week. It might be a little messy-- if you'd like, you could send in a smock (large t-shirt) for your child to use while we are working on this. I'd also happily take any newspaper you might have sitting around!

We began looking at 3-D shapes this week. Students had an opportunity to think of examples of some of these shapes in the world. A disco ball, the Earth, and balls are all spheres. Culverts and water bottles are cylinders. The book shelves in our classroom are examples of triangular prisms.

Next Friday, April 8th, we will be showing a short movie at assembly of some of the activities we have done with Mrs. Hale's class around the Pennies for Peace project. Mr. Hubbard will attempt to lift the bin of pennies. If it is too heavy for him Mrs. Korb will be shaving a W into his head. It should be exciting!

This week Alison Champlin worked with everyone during work stations on telling time. The main focus was telling time to the hour, but children also worked on telling time to the half hour. With the prevalence of digital clocks is not as easy to get regular practice telling time with analog clocks, but if you happen to have one encourage your child to try to tell the time.

We continued to work with 2-D shapes this week. Some of our shape creations are on display on one of the bulletin boards across from the gym. Next week we will look at 3-D shapes.

During reading everyone has been working on piecing together scrambled sentences. I have been randomly presenting the individual words from a sentence one at a time. After the children have read each word they manipulate them to make a logical sentence.

We have continued to read a lot of non-fiction books, recording facts as a group after the readings. I have asked everyone to be considering an animal that they would be interested in learning about for a short individual report.

After the glorious weather yesterday, this morning we made list of signs of spring, and noted that according to the calendar it officially begins on Sunday!

We are revisiting living versus nonliving things in science. We briefly talked about these in the fall when we had our caterpillars, but will be having a more in depth exploration this spring. Today we revisited the five needs of living things- water, food, air, light, and space- and then did an experiment around how birds meet their needs for food. Everyone had a dish with various foods, and four different beaks to use to move their food to their nests. The beaks were a clothespin, a toothpick, a spoon, and tweezers. Ask your child which beak he or she would want to have. Everyone did a great job of conducting the experiment thoughtfully and carefully recording the best beak for each food type.

Our science experiment today involved cleaning pennies. First we made predictions about the best way to clean them water, soapy water, or lemon juice. Then we used some of our dirtiest pennies to test this. Ask your child which worked best. Our results were varied and we talked about the importance of always reporting what you actually observe, not what you expect or what another group observes. We also weighed the pennies our class has collected so far-- 7 pounds! At assembly this morning Mr. Hubbard challenged the school to collect enough pennies so he can't lift the bin by Connie's desk. If we meet this challenge he will have a W shaved into his head. Keep sending them in!

During Writers Workshop this week we have been focusing on non-fiction and working on All About posters. Children have chosen a topic they know a lot about and have been recording facts and creating illustrations to accompany these. Eventually these will be mounted on posters for display. We have experts on a variety of topics including chicks, New York City, the ocean, and backagons. Did you know that only the medium size backagons have levers that transform them!

Thank you for all of the pennies. Tomorrow we will be doing some fun math and science activities with these before we add them to tub by Connie's desk. Feel free to send more if you have them.

We have been spending a lot of time talking about spring and the signs we should be seeing soon, although right now it seems as if winter will be around for a while. Our calendar has a pattern of spring birds and I assured the class that Canada geese and red-wing blackbirds definitely return in March!

Today we went to the computer lab and everyone had an opportunity to explore a program called Shapes. The children used pattern block shapes to make pictures. Ask your child what he or she created.

Conference times were sent home with each child today. They are scheduled for next Thursday, March 17th. Please let me know if your time does not work for you and we can try to make alternative arrangements.

We have a growing collection of pennies in the classroom and there is a collection bucket by Connie's desk as well. Please keep sending them in.

We have started a new geometry unit in math called Make a Shape, Build a Block. This unit focuses on two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes. Students will create, identify, describe, and compare shapes. They will explore the relationship between 2-D and 3-D shapes as well.

Today the Pennies for Peace project was formally introduced to the whole school during morning assembly. We met with Mrs. Hale's class and worked on squares for a culture quilt. Each child's square depicts a favorite food, a favorite activity, favorite clothes, and a family tradition. The students did a wonderful job thinking of meaningful things to represent on these. In the coming weeks we will talk about the culture in Korphe, Pakistan and compare it to our own culture. Please feel free to send in pennies any time. There are now collection jars in every classroom.

I hope you all had a chance to enjoy some of your child's vacation week. It is hard to believe it is March already and the second trimester is nearly complete. Report cards will be going home on Monday, March 14th, with conferences on Thursday evening March 17th, and Friday the 18th. I believe you have already received notification of your conference time. If not, you will soon. Please let me know as soon if possible if the designated time doesn't work for you and we can try to reschedule at a different time.