Dear Moms and Dads,

"What kind of creature has eyes that take up nearly half its head? What animal uses its tail as a brake, rudder, stabilizer, and mate attracter? And who has the warmest, lightest-weight body covering of all? Birds! We had a wonderful Four Winds Lesson on Wednesday with Ms. Ransom, Mrs. Aiken, and Mrs. Magill. Our topic was about beaks, feet, and feathers. The children looked at feathers with a magnifying glass to identify the quill shaft), barbs the parallel strands that attach on either side of the shaft and create the feather’s flat surface or vane) and barbules which run along the barbs and connect them together with tiny hooks on one side and bumps on the other. In addition, we saw a slide show of many different kinds of birds with different types of beaks. Some beaks are cupped like a spoon, some are long and narrow for sucking up things, and others are short and wide for crushing seeds. The most favorite activity of all was pretending we were birds with a given beak such as an eye dropper, wide spoon, tweezers). We had to use these beaks only to pick up different types of food to feed our baby.

Here are some photos I thought you might enjoy from our Four Winds lesson. Make sure to scroll past the photos for more news!

  Looking at a red tailed hawk wing.

  Watching a puppet show about birds.

Yesterday we had a school assembly. Mrs. Allison led the assembly and we talked about the Red Clover Books. Some of us shared our new hairstyle pictures that we made after we read a book called, "Mama, I’ll Give You The World". This story is about a little girl who plans a very special party for her mother. The little girl’s mother works in a beauty shop. So, we decided we would pretend to visit the beauty shop and change our hairstyles. You’ll see our new styles on the wall in the hallway when you come to parent/teacher conferences next week.

We have worked on two constructed responses in the past week. We wrote one after we read a Red Clover Book called Mammoths on the Move and Mamma, I’ll Give You The World. I wrote the introduction to each constructed response and asked a question. The children’s task was to form a topic sentence from the question to put in the top bun of their "hamburger paragraph". For example, the question from Mamma, I’ll Give You the World, was: "How did Luisa give the world to her mother?" A topic sentence to begin the constructed response paragraph could have been: "Luisa gave her mother the world in many ways." After writing the topic sentence, the children had to fill in the middle of the hamburger the body of the paragraph) with details to show how Luisa gave the world to her mother. At the end of the hamburger paragraph on the bottom bun, the children wrote a personal comment such as: "I give my mother the world when I make my bed and give her hugs."

We are getting ready to start Literature Circles in my classroom. I have adapted this program from author Harvey Daniels. This entails children being able to form small book groups based upon interest rather than ability. Children will meet each day with their book/literature circle group and read several pages from the book. Children may partner read or read to each other. Upon reading the pages for the day, each child in the book group has a job such as discussion director asks questions about the reading passage), connector thinks of some way the content of the reading is connected to their life/world, word wizard (chooses at least two words that are unknown or that make them think of something else) , reteller (summarizes what happened in the reading), and artist (draws a picture of something that took place in the reading). Right now I am reading one book aloud to everyone each day and we are becoming familiar with each of the job sheets. In a few weeks, we’ll form the book groups. Keep an eye open for some of the Literature Circle job sheets to arrive home. We worked on the discussion director on Wednesday and will work on the connector job today.

We are just beginning our study of force and motion in science. The children watched a Magic School Bus video about how force and friction are part of playing baseball. We’ll be working on more hands on experiments next week with ramps to explore force and motion.

Here are some questions to ask your child this week:

What did you use for a beak in Four Winds?

What food were you able to pick up with your beak?

What is a constructed response?

What does a discussion director and reteller do?

What is a force? (a push or a pull)

What is friction? (something that slows or stops movement)

Dates to Remember:

March 17^th: Report cards/narratives sent home with your child

March 20 and 21^st: Parent/Teacher Conferences. Please call Mrs. Kathan to schedule an appointment with me.

March 20 and 21^st: Silent Auction bidding for the playground fundraiser during parent/teacher conferences

March 22^nd: PTN Full Moon Frolic at the Town Hall and silent auction bidding to raise funds for our playground

March 26^th: Early Release Day

March 27^th: Library make up day

March 28^th: PTN popcorn sale at snack time

I think that is it for this week. I may not send home a newsletter next week because I’ll be meeting with you for a conference. I am looking forward to sharing your child’s work with you.

Kathi