This morning kindergarteners got a jump on sprucing up the school grounds by helping Joe move a very large load of sand into the two sand boxes.  They were such enthusiastic helpers that many chose to continue the job during choice time!  It feels a bit like we've been to the beach (I have lots of sand in my hair) but it is very satisfying to have full sand boxes again.

We have finally completed our animal research books including beautiful covers.  This has been a long process involving lots of hard work and perseverance.  Next week we will begin shoe-box projects to go with these, and we are planning to share the books with our third and fourth grade learning partners before they come home.

Moving sand, bucket by bucket!

I'm sure you will all hear about our morning of boat building in the forest.  As we were eating snack Angie told us a tale about a raft-building chicken while she demonstrated some boat building techniques.  Then everyone had time to gather materials in nature to make their own boats.  When everyone was done we said goodbye to the forest and headed down to a sandy beach on the edge of the river.  Angie launched the boats one at a time while we cheered from the shore.  All of the boats were a great success, whether they traveled a few feet or are still on their journey.  We even caught a glimpse of three boats passing under the bridge on our way back which was thrilling!

This week during writing we have been creating poems by drawing an object and writing words to describe it around the edge of the picture. We have also been enthusiastically observing tadpoles and documenting their changes in our science notebooks.

Hopefully you heard a bit about your child's experience with our arts residency this week.  I spent each day with 5 children from our class, some first and second graders, and artist Eleanor D'aponte.  Our focus was creating plaster tiles to be incorporated into the outdoor space.  We began by selecting interesting natural materials that we pressed into clay to make designs.   The next day we poured plaster into the molds.  Once the tiles were dry children found a place for their tiles in the outdoor space.  While I didn't get to spend time with other groups, it sounded like all of the children had a great experience.

Next week is bike/walk/bus to school week.  Your child is bringing home a pledge sheet for this today, along with some incentive prizes.

Sketching natural materials before using them to make designs in our tiles.

This morning we were very fortunate to have Larry Clarfeld visit us from North Branch Nature Center. He brought some very interesting guests!

We had a fantastic morning during ECO yesterday.  After snack around the fire and a brief story about chickadees, children became chickadees.  They worked in groups of three to build nests and gather food.  Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera, but  some fabulous, creative, and imaginative nests were created from a two floor nest to a nest hotel.  On our way out we went slowly and observed the many emerging buds, taking a picture in our minds so we could document what we saw when we returned.  Everyone was completely engaged the whole time we were in the forest, partly because everyone was warm and dry.  Thank you for helping with this- it makes a huge difference!

During writing we have been working on creating informational books about our nature name animals. We began the process several weeks ago by brainstorming a list of questions people may ask about our animals and using these to determine the information we would include.  We narrowed our questions to what does your animal look like, what does it eat, where does it live, and how does it move.  We are also including one interesting fact unique to each animal.

Next week the entire school will be participating in a weeklong artist residency focused on creating an outdoor community space at the school.  Children will have the opportunity to engage in a variety of activities from landscape design to building with rocks as work on this new space gets underway.  Be sure to ask your child about his or her experience with this next week.

This morning Mrs. Gale's class joined us while her room was being used for pre-school screening.  We spent the first part of the morning talking about birds (I have seen many robins already despite the snow!) Children worked in pairs testing a variety of bird "beaks" on different foods to see which beak worked best.  Ask your children what kind of beak they would want if they were a bird.   After snack  and a little dancing, we created our own colorful birds for the classroom tree.

On Wednesday, April 16th we will be traveling to the Flynn Theater in Burlington to see Seussical the Musical, based on the stories of Dr. Seuss.  Our show is at 10:00 so we will leave school around 8:45 and be back for lunch.  While the PTA generously funds most of the cost, each child is asked to contribute $3.00.  You can give the money to me or directly to Kathi.

Testing bird beaks.

Birds in the tree.

I hope everyone had a wonderful vacation.  We have had a fantastic and productive first couple of days back.  After 11 days all of the children looked a bit older!

Yesterday during ECO we worked in stations creating a puppet theater,  making puppets for our nature name animals, creating a scene with tracks for each animal, and narrating a brief story to go with the scene.  We had a great time watching several children's  shadow puppet stories and everyone will have a chance to share theirs in the coming days.

Parent conferences will be held in two weeks, on March 20th and 21st.   The online scheduler is open now and you can schedule a conference at any time by visiting the school web site (www.waitsfieldschool.org) and clicking on the online scheduler link on the right hand side under quick-links.  I look forward to meeting with all or you and talking about your child's progress.