We are learning about woodland animals in Iowa this week. Mrs. Sheldon brought Little Red the Fox and Sammy Skunk (puppets) to tell the children about these animals. We will talk about many other animals in the next week ending with the groundhog on Groundhog Day.

Chinese New Year is next Thursday, Feb. 3rd. If anyone in the class celebrates Chinese New Year and would like to share with the class, you are welcome to contact us.

We are learning about Antarctica and penguins. Last week we learned that Antarctica is the driest, coldest and windiest continent. We looked at pictures from a book that a woman who visited Antarctica wrote. We found out if you stand at the south pole that you will always face north no matter which way you turn.

Penguins only live in the southern hemisphere. There are many kinds of penguins--the smallest is the little blue or fairy penguin which is 1 foot tall and the largest is the emperor penguin which is 4 feet tall. We found out that penguins are good swimmers and even though they are a bird they cannot fly.

Next week, we will learn about woodland animals.

The Peace Festival will be on Thursday, February 17th.

Our class was very happy to be back at school on Monday. They missed their friends and were ready to get back into a routine. We started the week learning about snow. We will do short units this month on Antarctica, penguins and woodland animals.

One thing that you can help us reinforce is to remind your child to put their hat and mittens in his or her coat sleeve in the morning. This makes it easier when we get ready to go outside. They don't have to dig through their backpack to find things.

We would like to say thank you for the gift certificate from the class. We appreciate your thoughtfulness.