January 23, 2016

Important Dates and Reminders:
Tuesday: Library
February 6: Penguin Plunge
February 17 - Delayed start
February 18 - Coffeee with Sara Rabbe in the library
Ongoing until February 19 - Big Change Round Up

Big Change Round Up
A baggie with information about the Big Change Round Up went home on Tuesday. We are collecting change for the University of Vermont Children's Hospital. Kids can bring in change and put it in one of the containers in the office. There is a container for 10 different staff members. Which ever staff member gets the most money will have to dye their hair a crazy color. And yes, I'm one of those staff members. Right now I'm in 5th place. Check out our containers in office.

Classroom News:
The kids were so flexible this week! I had a conference to go to on Wednesday and then I ended up getting sick and missing school on Thursday. I'm so proud of how the students handled two days of having a substitute! The substitute left great notes and listed all the students who were extra helpful. Thanks boys and girls for helping out!

Book Order:
I sent home a book order on Friday. You can send in an order with the order form and a check or cash. You can also order books right on line. Here is the link: January/February Book Order.



Literacy:

The children have loved learning about Martin Luther King Jr. We have read several biographies about his life. I have also shown parts of his I Have a Dream Speech. The students are amazed by the amount of people who came to hear the speech. 

We also really enjoyed listening to a song that Lin-Maneul Miranda (the writer and star of the musical Hamilton) shared about Martin Luther King Jr. I think we listened to it 4 times on Tuesday! That video is at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!




Math:

More geometry work this week! Miss Sarah (Sarah Forbes our ELL teacher) did a great game where kids had to guess the shape that was attached to their back. Their partner described the attributes of the shape to help their partner make a guess. For example, if a child had a square on her back, her partner would say, "Your shape has 4 straight sides. They are all equal. There are 4 vertices." The mathematicians had so much playing the game and developing their geometry vocabulary. On Friday, the students were partnered up and worked on sorting shapes based on their attributes. Next week, we will be sharing out this work.


Science: We continue to use the scientific method to discover more about how forces work. Some questions we investigated are: How does the height of a ramp change the motion of a ball? What happens when the ball collides with a cup? How can you change the motion of a cup using a ramp and a ball? The scientists are having so much fun, using scientific vocabulary, and coming up with good plans to investigate their hypothesis.