Week 26

Weekly Greetings!

It looks like we are going to get some warmer weather this week, so the students can finally get outside for recess again. Two weeks of minus 40 below zero has been enough! With the cold and all the extra activities last week, I think everyone was ready for the weekend when it arrived.

We started last week with our 100th Day celebration. Before I go any further, I want to apologize for not making my request for a snack item that day very clear in my letter. I had been to Fairbanks all weekend, and wrote my parent letter rather late on Sunday night. I had explained to the students what I was thinking, but we ended up with a few people sending in large bags with 100 snack items for each of the18 students in class. Anyway, it was a surprise and we were snack rich through the rest of the week. We are even covered for Valentine's Day this Wednesday. I will send home a class name list with my parent letter if students want to bring Valentine cards to share on Wednesday. We will have a few special activities to end our day, and cards are always fun to share. I have a couple extra boxes of cards if any students need to use them.

Now, for a few pictures from last week. For the 100 minutes of fun I promised the class, we started with a hunt for 100 chocolate "Hugs" and then did some estimates on their weight in comparison with Peanut M&Ms. Then we moved onto some cooperative learning and instant challenge activities.
The final challenge was to build a tower out of toilet paper rolls and defend it from getting knocked down with large paper wads.
Later that same day, it was the kick off event for the Idita-read incentive program mentioned in a previous letter home. Jeff Wells came to the school and shared with the class about how he got interested in running the Iditarod through reading. He put on a really nice presentation about the race, and then all the elementary students made a craft. 
 
 
 In the hallway by the fifth grade classroom, there is a lovely board to track each of the elementary classes as they read to the finish line. By Friday, our class had already read enough to move our sled dog 100 miles. We have been tied with the second and fifth grades.

In Science we continued to look at the Solar System, and made a simple mobile to help remember the order of the planets.

In addition to our study in Science, we will be focused on Alaska Studies for a number of weeks. This Tuesday the class will be able to enjoy art with Ms. Shauna Lee, in addition three of our top spellers will participate in the Spelling Bee on Thursday at 10am in the Library. One other competition that some of the students want to compete in is the Geography Bee. I will be sending home some study links if your child wants to participate. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

I hope you have an awesome week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown
 



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