Weekly Newsletter

Each year, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education publishes district and school report cards. You can search at this LINK.

In order to accurately track clusters of illness that may present in our schools it is helpful to provide some information to the school nurse when your child is home sick. Relevant information includes: whether or not they have a fever, sore throat, GI symptoms, if they have been seen by a primary care provider or at an urgent care center, and if they have tested positive or negative for anything like strep throat, flu, covid, etc. If you communicate with the school that your child is sick, the absence is excused, but we need a doctor’s note to excuse absences for illnesses beyond three days. As always, please be in touch with any questions. Wishing your families a restful and healthy break. mwhitaker@mtrsd.org

This week we continued our forest animal unit. We were focused on nocturnal animals. The kids showed lots of interest in owls and bats so we took a deep dive into those two nocturnal animals. We learned that owls can not turn their eyes just their heads and that they swallow their food without chewing it. We were able to dissect some owl pellets and look at the little bones. We tried to guess what animal and what part of the animal the bone was from. We walked around the halls this week like silent owls.

We also learned about bats. The kids were wondering why bats hang upside down so we did some research to find out. There are a few reasons but the one that stuck with the kids the most is to help them stay away from predators. We played two fun bat games, one was Find Your Baby and they had to match two scents. One way bats know what baby is theirs is by their individual scent. After learning about echolocation we played the second game Bats and Mosquitoes. One kid was the bat and was blindfolded and one would be the mosquito. The mosquito would say “food” over and over and the bat would have to use their ears to listen and find their food.

We are wrapping up our Animals in Winter study. This week children are learning about animals that migrate. We talked about how migrate is a big word that means to move. The children made great guesses about why some animals need to move away from our area in the winter. They knew that monarch butterflies and hummingbirds migrate to warmer climates where they can find flowers that supply the nectar that they eat. They learned that reindeer migrate to find food and shelter. The children enjoyed learning all about how animals survive when winter comes.

The new snowfall has provided so much rich imaginary play and fun. The children have been playing a dragon game and the snow covered low branches provide hiding places that are just perfect. They have also been pretending to be penguins and slide down the “giant snow mountain”. The cooperation and pure joy has been so fun to watch!

In our social skills program, we are continuing to learn about the thinking strategies that can help us if we are experiencing an uncomfortable yellow zone feeling. The next strategy we learned about is Rock Brain: that feeling of being stuck. We learned that the antidote to rock brain is “Super Flex” thinking, where we just think of as many possible solutions as we can and not even try them or worry about if they will work. Just the act of generating many possibilities can help us get unstuck and lead to maybe trying a solution later. We role played thinking of many solutions to common problems, such as wanting to play one thing and your friend wanting to play something else.

Our last thinking strategy for handling problems is our Circle of Control. Circle of control is that some things are just not within our control, such as the weather or other people’s actions. And when problems come up that we can’t control, it is best to spend our energy figuring out how to let go or work around the problem, rather than fighting against it.

After spending a good chunk of January focused on writing story problems in math, we are now focusing on identifying if two, two-dimensional shapes are congruent or not congruent. Two shapes are congruent if they are the same shape and the same size. Below is an example of two shapes that are congruent. In science, we are learning more about our solar system. Children learned that our solar system is made up of 8 planets all with their own characteristics that make them unique. Here’s some fun facts: Jupiter has more than 50 moons that orbit around it. Neptune is a blue gas planet and it takes 150 years to go around the sun once! Imagine waiting 150 years to celebrate your birthday! Venus is the hottest planet. To wrap up our learning, first graders made solar system crowns to show off the learning of these eight planets! All of our brook trout are in the fry stage! Their yolk sac has been used up and they are now feeding, swimming and growing strong. First graders are eager to enter the classroom each morning to see the small but mighty changes that are happening! Check out a recent picture below. The month of February is a wonderful time to spread some KINDNESS! Each day leading up to February 14th we will pull a heart from a mystery bag that has a “random act of kindness” challenge written on it for our class to try. Some examples are - “let someone else go first”, “give someone a compliment” or “make a card for someone” On Friday the 14th, we will enjoy a kindness party to celebrate friendship and being fabulous first graders! Wishing you all a restful and fun February Vacation!

In math we have begun learning about techniques to learn multiplication facts. For example, the 2x facts are the same as doubling in addition, which was mastered in previous years. For the 4x facts, we double the double. That means that 6x2 = 12, so 6x4 = 24 because 12 doubled is 24. We have similar techniques for fives, eights, and tens. We will also use the 2x facts to solve the 3x facts, by just adding to the double one more of the number being multiplied.

Last week we enjoyed using some of the ingredients we harvested last fall to make wontons together to celebrate Lunar New Year. The students had a wonderful time learning about the many traditions of cultures who follow the lunar calendar, and they all asked for seconds on the wontons.

With our buddies we made paper cut-out heart decorations, which one third grader coined as “heartflakes.” After careful cutting, everyone got to use watercolors to decorate them. They came out beautifully, and we are enjoying them on our classroom window. We are looking forward to a class celebration of St..Valentine on Friday afternoon.

Have a magnificent week of vacation!

We are beginning a unit on electricity, light and heat during science. In our first lesson we will explore how the electricity we use in our homes actually comes from natural resources such as coal, sunlight, wind, and water. We will investigate the advantages and disadvantages of different energy sources, including how each source affects the environment. To extend your child’s learning, you can talk together about the different ways you use electricity in your daily life. Do you get electricity from coal? Natural gas? Solar? Wind? Water? Something else? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the energy sources your area uses? In the next lesson, we will examine how important electricity is to our lives. It’s used to power everything from toasters, elevators, and stop lights! We will investigate how electrical energy can be stored in batteries, how it flows through conductive materials, and we created our own LED flashlights! You can provide your child with even more examples of ways that electricity is used in your home:

- Take apart a few battery-powered items, such as TV remote controls, digital cameras, or wristwatches to look at the different kinds of batteries found inside.

- Ask children to search for devices plugged into electrical outlets around the house. How many things are plugged in?

In the final lesson, we will investigate how heat can be used to make things move. This simple idea led to the invention of steam engines and a revolution in human transportation! Students will create their own simple heat engines and test different heat sources.

As expected, students had a wonderful time building football launchers last week with our guests from Escuela Lomas Altas.