Flat Stanley

Students in our class took home a Flat Stanley over winter break, and have been returning him complete with some great adventures and stories. Apparently Stanley has visited lots of places recently.

First we sent him off with Mrs. Williams when she traveled to Hawaii. He had lots of fun kayaking, water sliding, tubing, and going on a zipline through the jungle. Then he was off to visit some new friends in New Jersey. He had lots of fun in their kindergarten class.

Flat Stanley also did a lot with our students here in town. He made cookies, slid down banisters, played with the family pets, went to Sam's Club, played piano, visited a poinsettia farm, and even met Santa Claus when he was delivering presents.

He also took some trips out of town and went skiing, before heading off to Panama City beach.

I know Stanley is up for more adventures, and we can't wait to hear what else he has been doing on his travels.

Teeth Drawings

This week for project work we did observational drawings of our own mouths. Students used mirrors to draw their teeth as best they could. Some of them counted their teeth to make sure the correct number was included in their depictions.

Students also worked on conducting surveys within our own class and have come up with many questions they are working to answer in the coming weeks.

Help for Haiti

For the remainder of January and throughout the month of February, Mary Castle will be donating 100% of the proceeds collected through Box Top’s to help with the relief of Haiti. Please continue collecting your Box Top’s and attach them to the form that will be coming home with your child. For each form you return to Mary Castle, $1.00 will be collected for assistance and relief. What a great opportunity to get involved and help make a difference in the countless lives of those that need our help the most. Thank you for your support!

Also we will work with the Red Cross an international organization as we collect coins and donations from our students, staff and parents. Beginning next week we will have Spirit Days in which students can participate by making donations of any amount. A penny, any coin or amount is appreciated.

Tues. Jan. 19th Hats Day
Wed. Jan. 20th TEAM Day
Thurs. Jan. 21st Slippers and Socks Day (Bring these items to school to wear in the classroom)
Fri. Jan. 22nd Mis-Match Day

Friday, January 29th we will sell popcorn for 25 cents. Our first Popcorn Friday will be organized by the students in Pam Hasse’s classroom.

MLK

Today we began discussion about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was. We read a book about why we celebrate this important holiday and I reminded the children we would not be in school on Monday. We also talked extensively about how things have changed, how they used to be versus today. This is usually a very hard concept to understand since the students don't have much experience with prejudice. We also watched a video that was given to me by a parent years ago called "Our Friend Martin" It shows some very realistic and sad portayals of what life was like and could have been like had Dr. King not changed things. I talked about the events in the movie several times, and stopped at two points to emphasize what I wanted them to understand. We will be discussing Dr. King in more depth next week as well.

Place Value

We have started a new unit in Math Workshop on place value. Place value is part of number sense, and helps us understand counting, writing, and grouping numbers. It will provide a foundation for students to work with bogger numbers as we learn double digit addition and subtraction.

For this unit we will be using a Marilyn Burns Replacement unit. It is very hands on, and has a lot of writing in it as well. So far we have talked about the 0-99 chart and patterns the children have noticed. They have practiced different grouping strategies, with an emphasis on grouping by tens. Yesterday we learned how to play two new menu math games: Cover a Flat and $ Signs. The first is played much like Race for a Dollar and involves rolling a die and exchanging groups of 10 cubes for a stick worth the same amount. Whoever can get 10 sticks to trade in for a flat wins the game. $ Signs has the children using the clock to time 1 minute increments, and then counting the $ signs they draw in that amount of time. Counting is done two different ways and is encouraged to be grouped in tens once again. We will be learning other games in the weeks to come to practice these skills.