Week 23

Welcome back everyone! We hope that everyone had a nice, relaxing vacation! From what teachers have heard here at school, Mrs. P.'s students had a lot of fun over break and from the looks of it, many of them were busy practicing their sight words! Mrs. P. was pleasantly surprised by how much progress students had made with their sight words by practicing on their own time, and continues to encourage ALL of her students to do this as much as possible at home. Keep up the great work kids!

Our week back marked the start of several new things! As we march into March, we are moving on from February's country and sport (Australia and swimming) to this month's concentration: the United States of America and basketball! Yes, this month we will be learning about our very own homeland, about what makes our country special and great and different from other places in the world. And as March Madness gets under way in the middle of the month, teachers could think of no better sport to learn about than basketball in  March! We wrapped up last month's lessons on Australia by preparing one of the Aussies favorite snacks in SPOT group, Nutella, granola and berry parfaits. Yum!

Having completed our dance and circles units in physical education and health, students began learning about volleyball and nutrition this week. For volleyball, students were each given a balloon to work with to practice throwing and setting, working together to learn the skills they'll need to play a real volleyball game. In nutrition, students were shown various snack choices to decipher which were "green light" snacks and which were "red light" snacks. Apples, granola bars, water and vegetables beat chips, cookies, soda pop and candy in a landslide, and students are encouraged to carry these lessons straight into their lunch boxes. Mrs. P. would love to see her classroom Olympians eat like the champions they are!

This month's new Olympic sight words are: United States, basketball, court, dribble and shoot.

This week we wished a happy birthday to both one of Mrs. P.'s students, and everyone's favorite doctor, Dr. Seusse! Mrs. P.'s class celebrated Dr. Seusse's birthday by reading one of his books each day this week, ending with "Bartholomew and the Ooblek" on Friday when we made our very own, green, gunky oolblek! Using water, cornstarch, some green food coloring and teamwork, students had a blast making their own Seussical creation. Was our ooblek a solid or a liquid? It was a little bit of both, and a whole lot of fun!

See you next week everyone! Have a great weekend and remember to practice your sight words at home!