The First Quarter Might Be Coming To A Close, But We've Only Just Begun...

Hello families! We can't believe we are already nearing the end of the first quarter. Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us. We enjoy facilitating their learning everyday! Their curiosity and love of knowledge really inspires and amazes us. We are honored to be on this journey with them.

Over the past week we have continued to use the scientific method and inquiry method to explore the world around us. We've been learning about the three states of matter: liquids, solids, gases. Matter is everything! Please enjoy pictures of our science experiment on gases. Within a bottle, we mixed vinegar and baking soda to create carbon dioxide. The gas inflated a balloon that was fastened to the mouth of the bottle. You can see the excitement and wonder on their faces. Science is so much fun!

We also performed our Reader's Theater skits on community helpers in the multipurpose room for all of the K-2 classrooms. Wow, are we creative! Our skits originated in small groups, where the plots were thought up, planned, recorded, and rehearsed. The students were the writers, producers and actors - they even created their own props. They enjoyed being able to read off their scripts and were really able to take ownership of their performances since they created the dialogue.

In math, we continued to build number sense. Practice using the words "more than" and "less than" at home. You can also discuss "in all" and "total" using everyday items. We have been deconstructing numbers (exploring different ways to make numbers), drawing pictures and using the number line to help us add and subtract. This is a great way to develop those strong foundational math skills. 

We are becoming pros at word study. We begin every week with a blind sort that allows us to use our critical thinking skills to figure out the spelling patterns. As you've seen with the homework, some of the patterns are quite tricky. Thank you for reinforcing these skills at home. Our goal is for our students to be able to apply the spelling patterns to their everyday reading and writing, as in the guided reading group photo below.

We are excited for our first, and upcoming, DaVinci night on October 2nd. The students have been hard at work choosing work to display in their portfolios, and have even been creating a paper mache tree to align with our, The Giving Tree project during Friday project days. Thank you to all of the parents who have volunteered their time and/or materials to assist the students. It is so fun to see the life-sized tree come together. Yay, we are almost ready for paint!

Also, don't forget to bring your postcard/stamp collection with you to DaVinci night. We will share our projects with the class. We can't wait to see what great learning has been taking place in our communites. We know our students have had a fabulous time learning about their communities with you, their greatest teachers. It is amazing how much we can learn right in our backyard.

Cheers!
The Green Team
(Ms. Morgan, Mrs. Emmel & Mrs. Browning)