*Our spring music concert will be on Thursday May 23rd.  Not sure of the time yet, but wanted to give you the date!

We had a great time at the Flynn yesterday!  The show we saw was eight short skits for different picture books, which we had been reading in class over the last couple of weeks.  As we read the books we talked about which ones were our personal favorites, telling why and giving examples from the stories to support our reasons.  Today everyone actually wrote about a favorite and supported their opinions with evidence from the story.  This skill is one that will receive more and more emphasis as children progress through the grades.  Most children picked the trickster tale Borreguita and the Coyote by Verna Aardema as their favorite because it is funny.   Some of the evidence of this included, "it is funny because Borreguita tells the coyote the moon is cheese," and "it is funny because Borreguita knocks out all of the coyote's teeth!"  Other favorites were Owen, by Kevin Henkes, and Imogene's Antlers, by David Small.

During the month of March our calendar has a bird pattern, so we have spent a little bit of time talking about birds, particularly their return for spring!  Today we went a little deeper with our bird conversation and did an exploration of bird beaks.  Children began by working with a partner looking at pictures of two birds with different kinds of beaks.  Based on their observations they guessed what each bird might eat.  Later in the day they had an opportunity to try out different kinds of beaks on different kinds of food.  For beaks they had tweezers, a toothpick, a clothespin, and a spoon.  They experimented with food that represented twigs, worms, seeds, and berries.  Their job was to decide which kind of beak worked best for each kind of food.

A pelican's beak is good for eating fish!

Reports cards were sent home today!  Please look for them in your children's backpacks.

ECO on Wednesday!  Please send your child prepared- it looks like there may be lots of new snow!
(We might just stay at school depending on how the storm plays out, but children should still be prepared to go outside.)

Flynn field trip next Tuesday.  We will be gone all morning.  Unfortunately we exactly the right number of tickets and can't take any chaperones on this trip.

I am looking forward to meeting with all of you at the end of the week for parent conferences.  If you didn't sign up for one yet I still have several slots available on Friday morning.

We have been reading and reading the last couple of months and I am amazed at the progress.  As children are moving from relying mostly on pictures and predictable patterns to actually reading words we have talked about strategies for reading the words accurately.  One strategy we have been practicing is pointing to the words as we read, making sure that what we say matches what is printed.  Another strategy we have worked on is getting our mouth ready with the beginning sound of a word.  For example, if the picture is showing a bunny, but our mouth is ready with the sound for r, we know the word must actually be rabbit.  Finally, we are continuing to work on learning sight words, which can make a huge difference in reading accuracy and fluency.

For several weeks before the vacation we worked on a project in the computer lab with our nature names.  The children all wrote, typed, and illustrated a small report on their nature name animals.  This project is nearly complete and this week we began paper mache projects to accompany to go with the reports.  A little messy, but very fun, and a great way to spend our recess time during Tuesday's rain!

I hope everyone had a wonderful vacation!  The children were certainly excited to write about the many different things they did over the week.  We had a fun ECO morning yesterday.  We began our morning in small groups looking for tracks.  Apparently there is lots of fox activity in the Wu Forest right now!  I have been working on report cards for the second trimester and these will be sent home on Monday, March 18th.  Conferences will take place on the evening of Thursday March 21st, and the morning of Friday March 22nd.  The online scheduler will open up soon so you can pick a convenient time slot.  If neither of these days works for you please let me know and we can arrange a different time.

ECO will resume on Wednesday, March 6th, which is the day we come back from break.  Weather permitting, we will go to the forest for the morning.  Please make sure your child has appropriate clothing (it seems that with winter weather most children are coming well prepared each day- thank you!)  Everyone should have snow pants, winter jacket, hat, mittens, warm boots, and warm socks as well as a snack that is easy to carry along and a water bottle.  We will also have ECO on March 20th, April 3rd, April 17th, May 1st and May 15th.  Please let me know if you would like to join us on any of these dates.

I hope everyone has a fantastic vacation, whatever you are doing.  It is so nice to have some fresh snow!

We had an exciting and energetic week with pajama day, Valentine's Day, and early release in between.  Thank you to those of you who joined us for reading on Tuesday morning.  This group loves to be read to.  On early release days, the focus of my workshop is on early literacy.  Yesterday we were given some statistics about reading success for children who are read to a lot versus those who are not read to much.  Developing a joy of reading is a critical first step and this group seems to have that joy.  The children especially loved having their stuffed animals with them all day Tuesday, or in the "stuffie village" they built in the block area for moments when it was better to not have them by their sides.  Also thank you for helping out with valentines.  It is always amazing to me how exciting it is for them to get personal valentines from each of their classmates.  

*I will remind you again (probably several times), but our next ECO session is Wednesday, March 6th, which is the day we come back from vacation.  Students should be prepared to be outside!

Listening to stories to start the day.

Constructing a "stuffie village".

Math stations with stuffed friends.

Checking out our valentines.

Next Tuesday, February 12th, the school will be celebrating I Love To Read Month.  We will begin the  day reading from 7:40-8:05ish.  Parents are welcome to join us to read a book to a small group of children.  In conjunction with this we will also have a school-wide pajama day the same day!  Children are welcome to wear the pajamas for all or part of the day.

Next Thursday is Valentine's Day.  We will be making large personal envelopes to collect valentines.  Today I am sending home a class list.  If your child brings valentines, please make sure there is one for each child in the calss.  Also, please refrain from seiding in sugary treats/ candy.  We have several children with dietary restrictions and my experiecne has been that consuming vast amounts of sugar is disruptive to the rhythm  of our day!