This school year has passed very quickly.  The children have grown a great deal during the school year, both academically and physically.  We have enjoyed working with each of them.  Some children will be returning to our class in the fall and we will be happy to see them again in August.  There will be a time when they may visit the room before classes resume on August 27th.  Some children will be moving on to other schools and we wish them well.  We hope that we have made a difference in their learning and lives.

Thank you for the generous gift cards.  We appreciate them very much.  We hope to see everyone at the picnic.  We hope everyone has a great summer.

Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Sutton and Mrs. Sheldon

We learned about farm animals last week.  It was fun watching our ducklings too.  They grow so fast.  They went to a new home on Friday.  This week we are learning about flowers.

Our spring concert is next Wednesday, May 16th at 2:30.  We hope you can all come and see the children sing. 

Our last day of school is May 24th with the picnic that evening.

The children are very excited this morning.  We have an egg with a beak starting to poke its way out.  We can also hear peeping coming from the eggs.

We are learning a little about Australia this week.  We talked about the coral reef and the different sea animals that live there.  Today we did a little about kangaroos and koalas.  Both are marsupials.  See if your child remembers what this means,

Just a reminder--there is no school on Friday.

The children are enjoying our bird unit. Miss Gaddis has covered robins, ostriches, hummingbirds, bald eagles, ducks, owls and flamingos. She set up a computer in the room on Friday so the children could watch the eagles on the webcam. They watched the eagles feed fish to the baby eaglets. We will be having a crow visit the room on Friday.

We expect our duck eggs to hatch next week. We are on the lookout for a large box to put the ducklings in. If you find one, let us know.

Next week will be the last week for Miss Gaddis. She is graduating from Simpson College this month. We have enjoyed having her in class with us.

We finished our unit on community helpers last week. The fire department had to leave for a call during their visit so we did not get to see the fire equipment on the truck. The police officer showed the children some of his equipment, even a real bullet and handcuffs. The children were able to sit in his car and some even turned on his lights.



This week we are learning about birds. The children have learned about the hummingbird and the ostrich. We will be learning about many other birds through next week.

We are learning about community helpers this week. Yesterday, the paramedics visited our class. They brought Pete, their remote control EMS vehicle for children. The children were able to walk through the ambulance and watch Graham, our volunteer patient, get loaded on the gurney and into the ambulance. Today a police officer will be visiting at the end of the day. Tomorrow the fire department will visit.

Next week, Miss Gaddis will start a unit on birds. We have six duck eggs in our incubator. They should hatch sometime the last week in April.

We also have a need for more bird seed for the feeders. We have a finch feeder and a regular feeder. Both kinds of bird seed would be appreciated.

We will be dyeing eggs on Friday. Be sure to send 4 hard-boiled eggs to school with your child.

We have enjoyed warm weather lately. Sometimes it is still cool when the children go outside at lunch. Be sure to send some kind of jacket in case they need one.

The children are happy to be back at school and in a routine. They are also excited about the nice weather. This week we are learning about African animals. We found out that gorillas make many different sounds to show their mood. The silverback is the leader and protects the group. Today we learned that a group of lions is called a pride. Lions spend most of their time sleeping and only hunt every three to four days.

Next week we will learn about community helpers.

The children enjoyed learning about dinosaurs last week. This week, Mrs. Sutton is doing a gardening unit. The children have planted spearmint and marigolds. We will be watching them grow.

Miss Gaddis started student teaching in our class on Monday. She is from Simpson College and will be with us until April 27th.

We are enjoying the nice spring weather. Please dress your child appropriately to go outside.

We look forward to sharing your child's progress at conferences in the next few days. We have a lot of busy workers.

This week we are studying dinosaurs. The children really enjoy this unit. We will be learning about a few dinosaurs and have some fun puzzles and work. Monday we saw some real fossils.

We will have a new student teacher start in our class on Monday. Her name is Miss Gaddis and she is from Simpson College. She will be with us until April 27th.

It was fun to see everyone at the Peace Festival. We enjoyed the children's songs and the good food.

This week we are learning about presidents. Mrs. Sheldon told the children about Abraham Lincoln and we will learn about George Washington too. Next week we will learn about dinosaurs.

We look forward to discussing your child's progress with you at conferences in the next two weeks.

We are having a very busy and exciting week. Valentines Day and the Peace Festival have all the children very excited so the noise level has been high. The times for our class to come to the peace festival is 6-7p.m. We hope to see you there.

Thank you to all the parents who have signed up for conferences. If you haven't yet, please stop by our room. The signups are posted outside the door.

Remember that there is no school on Friday.

The children have enjoyed learning about woodland animals. We have talked about raccoons, opossums, deer, foxes, skunks, coyotes and beavers. Maybe your child can share something they have learned with you.

Mrs. Sutton started a unit on time today by talking about the months of the year and how many days are in each month and in a year.

Our continent for the peace festival is Asia. The food signup is outside the door. The time for our class to come is 6-7.

We have been lucky with the nice weather. The children have enjoyed time to play outside. Last week we finished up our China unit with the tiger and cobra. This week we are learning about animals that live in the woods here in Iowa. Mrs. Sheldon talked about fox, deer and will also cover skunk and raccoon. We will also talk a little about the groundhog tomorrow.

I am sending notes home today about our 100 day celebration on Friday, February 10th.

Your child will need to bring 19 valentines to school for the other children. They do not have to have them addressed to the children but please have your child sign their name. It is good practice and then the other children can see who the valentine is from.

Our continent for the Peace Festival is Asia. More information will come from the office.

We are learning about snow this week. The weather even cooperated and gave us some snow to go along with our lesson. Yesterday, we filled a glass with snow and watched it melt. We saw that the water was not clean and did not fill up the glass like the snow did. We will find out why snow can be good for people and plants.

Thank you for sending your children dressed for the weather. Now we just need a little warmer temperatures so we can play outside in the snow.

The children have been busy working in our room. They enjoyed learning about penguins and Antarctica last week. They learned that penguins only live in the Southern hemisphere and would never meet a polar bear. We also talked about the father penguin keeping the egg on his feet to keep it warm. The largest penguin, the emperor, is about 4 feet tall and the smallest, the fairy or blue penguin, is about 1 foot tall. There are 17 kinds of penguins.

This week we are learning about landforms. So far this week we have covered lake/island, gulf/peninsula and bay/cape.

We have had unusually warm weather this year. Weather reports indicate that we will be returning to more normal temperatures. Please remember to dress your child appropriately for the weather. If there is snow, remember to send snowpants and boots. If we go outside in the snow, your child will need shoes to wear in the room because the boots will get wet. Thank you for your help.

We hope everyone had a nice holiday break. Thank you to everyone for the generous gift cards we received. The books of the children's pictures were wonderful to look at. We appreciate your thoughtfulness.

The children came in yesterday excited to see each other. They are ready to be back in a routine. We will be learning about Antartica and penguins this week and landforms next week.