100th Day Celebration!

Our study of penguins is slowly coming to an end.  We have been creating penguin problems, sorting penguins and working hard to create life sized penguins.  Miss Claire has been busy helping everyone stuff , staple and paint their penguins. This unit has been a wonderful learning experience for everyone.  It has been a lot of work, but well worth it!  After vacation we will be moving on to another unit of study.

Yesterday we attended the Kindergarten concert dress rehearsal and returned to the Book Fair to purchase books.  Everyone did a fantastic job choosing their books and making their own purchases.

Today was our 100th day of school!  We did lots of 100th day activities and enjoyed our 100th day team snack.  We also had a visit from "Zero the Hero" this afternoon.  He read a book and practiced different counting strategies with us.

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Tomorrow we look forward to our "Penguin Parade" with our life sized penguins and our Publishing Party at 2:00 PM.  We will also be making our Valentine holders and taking our "On Demand Task" in writing.    Tomorrow is also Red Barn pick-up for those families who placed an order.

Finally, a quick reminder that we will be snowshoeing again on Friday afternoon.  If your child didn't snowshoe last week, he/she will be going this week.  Please make sure he/she comes to school with snow gear so he/she can be a part of this activity.

Lunar New Year and Snowshoeing!

We had a very busy Friday today!  Jordan's mom came in and shared with us about the Lunar New Year.  We learned a lot about Korean celebrations.  In Korea they have 11 days of fireworks and everyone wears red for good luck during this time.  They often get new clothes to wear.  Boys wear pink and girls wear blue!  Cathy brought in examples of "Hanbok" which is traditional Korean clothing.  We learned how to say "Saehae bok manhi badeu seyo" which means "Have a lot of luck in the new year"!  We enjoyed fortune cookies and clementines and spent our choice time today doing Lunar New Year activities.  Many thanks to Cathy for teaching us about the Lunar New Year!
We also had a visit from Gracie's mom today for Gracie's birthday.  She shared about Gracie as a baby and brought us a birthday treat of cupcakes and Rice Krispie treats.  In addition to that, Claudia's family sent in cucumbers and grapes for our Friday healthy snack.  Many thanks to Gracie and Claudia's families for providing these delicious snacks for our team today!
Wednesday will be our 100th day of school!  We are sending home sashes with each child for them to decorate with 100 things and bring back to school to wear on the 100th day.  In addition to that we are asking each child to bring in 100 of some kind of snack so we can make a big "mixed" snack to share as a team on the 100th day.  We are also expecting a visit from "Zero the Hero", who appears to be a little shorter this year than he has been in the past!
We had a fantastic day of snowshoeing, and aerobics and yoga today.  Many thanks to Zynnia, Cathy, Holly, Kristen, and Amelia for helping out with these activities!  Next week we will swap, so if your child didn't snowshoe this week, he/she will have the opportunity to do so next Friday.

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Finally, I would like to share about how much fun I had looking at homework this week.  I am so amazed by the creativity and clever ideas all my students have.  Looking over homework is actually something I look forward to every Friday!  It is often another window into who my students are.  The comics,mini- books, poems and other ways they showed their learning this week were terrific!  Thank you for supporting this at home!  

***Evan has lost his snow pants and they are nowhere to be found!  Could everyone please check at home to make sure they didn't come home to your house.  They are black bib snowpants. Thank you!

Chinese New Year, Snowshoeing and a Publishing Party!

 Science Experiment- "How many drops of water will fit on a penny?"

Tomorrow Cathy Townsend will be joining us in the morning to help us celebrate the Chinese New Year.  She will be sharing a book, a snack and an activity with the Adventurers Team.  We look forward to having her join us.  Be sure to ask your child what he/she learned about the Chinese New Year tomorrow after school.
We will also be snowshoeing tomorrow afternoon.  Please make sure your child comes to school tomorrow with all the appropriate clothing and winter boots so he/she can take part in this activity. Half of the team will be snowshoeing while the other half participates in an indoor exercise activity.  Next Friday we will swap groups for these activities.
We are finally finishing up our penguin reports and are very excited to have a "Publishing Party" to share them with our families.  Our Publishing Party is planned for Thursday, December 10th at 2:00 PM.  Each student will be sharing their own report about a particular kind of penguin.  Please consider joining us for our party!  Every student has worked so hard and has done such an amazing job on these reports, they are very excited to share them! 
Just a reminder that the SCS Book Fair is this coming week.  We will be previewing books on Monday and returning to the book fair on Tuesday to purchase items.  Your child should come home with a wish list on Monday for you to look over with them and make decisions about purchasing.  Please let me know if this is a financial hardship for you family.  The school has vouchers that can be used for the purchase of books for those families in need.

 Please be sure to check the Upcoming Events part of the blog.  There are MANY events happening during the month of February!

Pictures of Jack's science table about the history of planes: