Students read their "Tails" book to 3 classmates and got autographs. Please ask them to read it to you several times this weekend, ensuring that they point to the words as they read them. In science, we discussed Spring weather, comparing cold and stormy weather to a lion and warm and sunny days to a lamb. For math, students assembles March calendars by putting the days of the week in correct order and numbering the calendar from 1 to 31. They marked 3 special days in March: Jaelyn's birthday on the 9th, St. Patrick's Day on the 17th, and the start of Spring Break on the 29th. Thank you all for being on time picking your child up from school today! I will not be at school on Monday because I'll be at an autism conference. Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Tuesday.

World Math Day

I'm just passing along information I received from a teacher's group:

World Math Day 2010 is coming quickly. Mark your calendars for March 3
and if you haven't already registered, you'll want to do so very soon.
Last year, almost 2 million students participated from over 204 countries
and answered 452,681,681 questions!

Who can participate? Any student aged 5 to 18!

What's it all about? Students play at home and at school against other
students all over the world in live games of mental arithmetic. Each
game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play up to 500 games,
earning points for each correct answer.

Where can I register? [See link below.] {Note: Registration is free.]
http://www.worldmat hsday.com/ 2010

Besides practicing our shared reading in sign language, we learned signs for forest animals. Mrs. Webber introduced the next three vocabulary words that go with our story, Annie and the Wild Animals: unexpected, growls, strategy. While she was teaching, I did a quick internet search of animal growls and played clips of real animals such as cheetahs and lions growling.

At journal time, students chose their own writing topic. Once they completed a sentence and a picture, they were allowed to show their page on the overhead projector for all to see. If you received the gift of some wilted flowers today, you can thank your little recycler who raided the garbage can. I had flowers left over from Valentine's Day, which I finally discarded. The students thought they were beautiful and rescued them.

Reminder: Tomorrow students get out of school at noon.

The Scholastic book order was just placed. The books should arrive in about a week. Thanks for your orders!

This week we have been reading the book, Fiesta, about a party with a pinata. We want to make a pinata of our own and talked about the types of items we would put inside it. We won't start making it until Friday, but a note will go home on Monday requesting students to bring small items for the pinata. If you're at the dollar store between now and Monday and see something appropriate, please send it to school. This morning in the gym there was a kickoff assembly for a fundraiser. Information was sent home with your child today about the butter braids that students may choose to sell. Brenda Binstock is in charge of the fundraiser and her name and phone number are at the top of the information sheet if you have any questions.

In Social Studies, I showed students the Kids Are Heroes website (see link below) and we talked about ways to be a hero that don't require a costume. We discussed the idea of having a toy exchange in which students would bring in toys they no longer play with to exchange with their classmates. If any of you would be willing to organize such a program, please let me know.

Students sorted animal pictures into two categories: tame (one of our vocabulary words) or wild.

Kindergarten superheroes...

Check out the new link below to see some real kids who are heroes.