Upcoming Valentine's Day

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We will celebrate Valentine’s Day on Tuesday, February 14th. As a common tradition, many students enjoy passing out valentine grams to their classmates (but it is most certainly not mandatory to pass out anything).

  • Students will pass out valentines on Wednesday, February 14th.

  • As of January 24th, we have 28 children (12 girls, 16 boys) in our class. Please do not fill in names in the "To:" field. ONLY fill in the "From:" field on each note with your child’s name.

  • Do NOT send candy/food grams.

  • Alternatives may include non-edible items such as stickers, pencils, erasers, temporary tattoos, simple handwritten notes, plain valentine cards, stamps, glow sticks, rings, mini puzzles, books, bookmarks, etc.

  • Here are a few sample items that make great valentine grams!

  • Lastly, I recently heard of a sweet idea that parents can choose to do. Write your child a surprise love note for him/her to find and read in their snack or lunch bags!

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me! Thank you in advance for your partnership!

 

Hershey's Kiss Taste Test

As part of our Writers Workshop unit about opinion writing, students participated in a taste test of three different Hershey Kiss chocolates. Thank you, Kwok Family, for donating the bags of kisses.

The students tried the Special Dark kiss, the Cookies and Cream kiss, and the Chocolate-dipped Strawberry kiss. We had so much fun using our five senses to write adjectives about each one. Our favorite, of course, was the sense of taste when we finally got to try each one!

Ask your child which one was their favorite!

Studying Painted Lady Butterflies

Our caterpillars are here! As part of our Science unit, the class is so excited to study live caterpillars that will eventually turn into Painted Lady Butterflies! We have over 40 caterpillars, and we are taking observation notes in our Butterfly Life Cycle journals. The caterpillars were tiny on the first day. Less than half the tip of a push pin!

As part of our science essential standards, students are expected to understand the life cycles of living things.

We can’t wait to see how much our caterpillars change in the next few weeks!

Take a look at some of the videos from 2020 of the caterpillars’ transformations!

Dental Hygiene Month

February is Dental Hygiene month! Dr. Shung of Simply Orthodontics and the Tooth Fairy would like to share a video to teach us about proper oral hygiene! Be sure to brush AND floss at least twice a day!

Living Museum Poster Samples

The students received their Living Museum Biography posters on Friday, February 7th. The posters are due Monday, February 24th. Students should have all areas completed and the poster should be fully colored and outlined. Here are some great examples from previous years. Students may choose to use their neatest handwriting to complete the poster, or as seen below, students may choose to type their responses and neatly cut and paste their responses. They may also print pictures rather than draw if they'd like.

 

Global Day of Play

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers

The Global Day of Play is coming on Wednesday, February 5th (though every day should have some time specifically dedicated to play!).

This is a specific day that educators all around dedicate to allowing the children to just do what children are supposed to be doing— PLAYING! All too often, kids are expected to work, work, work, but it is very important, developmentally, that your child has time to PLAY!

In the classroom, we will be playing. All. Day. Long. Yep. You read that right. Your child will get to play all day at school. While to some, it may seem like a waste of time at school— playing is actually incredibly important for children’s development! It teaches the children turn taking, fairness, friendly competition, cooperation, self-control, language skills, patience, sharing, communication, creativity, strategy, organization, and so many other skills that most adults don’t even realize!

To get this day going, we will need various games sent in to school for the children to share- age-appropriate board games, blocks, Legos, dolls, dress up items, etc. The only exception is no electronics, no screens, no toys with batteries. The goal is to spark imagination, cooperation and creative play. Some examples are below.

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Lunar New Year

We have so many wonderful cultures represented in our classroom. We learned about the Lunar New Year and how many asian cultures celebrate the new year in special ways.

In class, we painted beautiful ming vases and cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms symbolize spring and new life.

Living Museum: Prep Guides

Students began working on their Living Museum prep guides in class today. Completed Prep Guides are due Friday, February 7th. The document is saved onto their Google Drives (a blank template can be copied from Mrs. Dyer's Google Drive).  A sample of a completed prep guide with sentence starters that can be used to help the students get started can also be found online. There are 10 interview questions and each question should have a 3–4 sentence response with full details. Truly, the more details, the better. Here is an example:

Sample Question: "When and where were you born? When did you die?

Sample response with full details: "I was born on a chilly Feb. 6 morning in 1872 in the town of Birmingham, Alabama. I've been told I was quite the small infant. Sadly, my mother passed away soon after my birth, and I lived with my father and two older siblings, Michael and Sarah. We lived in Birmingham until I was about nine years old. After a long and happy life, I died of a heart attack on Oct. 14, 1958. I was 86 years old at the time of my death."


Sample response with not enough details (too brief and leaves questions): "I was born on Feb. 6, 1872. I died on Oct. 14, 1958.

Snowman Art

To celebrate the last bit of winter, the kids created these adorable aerial view snowmen using chalk pastels. Most people visualize snowman figures head on from the ground so that you can see the top, middle, and bottom layers of snow balls stacked on top of one another. Most people don't visualize snowmen from up above using a "bird's eye view." These art projects turned out so great! A few of the students even chose to have their snowmen looking straight up at the sky!

Crossing Guard Appreciation Day!

February 3rd is Crossing Guard Appreciation Day! If your family typically crosses the street in the mornings or afternoons before/after school, please be sure to say an extra special thank you to Ms. Rosie, Ms. Judy, and Ms. Thelma— our three crossing guards.

Each of them are dutifully at their stations every day rain or shine, heat or wind, to help make sure our students and families can cross the streets safely.