Adventurers Team    

Team teachers Pam Wise/Joplin James                     

    Welcome to the Adventurers Parentlink for Friday, February 9th, 2001.

Since school was cancelled today, we're not sure what that means about making up our last day of dancing with Karen Amirault or when we do the performance. We'll let you know as soon as we hear.

    We have enjoyed this week working with dancer-in-residence Karen Amirault. Adventurers have been working each day with her and preparing for the performance. We're very excited about the show.

      This Thursday was the 100th day of school. We filled the wall with many different collections of 100 items and it was fun to compare all the different sets. Students also worked with a partner to choose an activity and estimate how many they could complete in 100 seconds. After we recorded our estimates we did

a trial and recorded our results and then compared them to our estimates. 100 seconds was much longer than we thought.

    This week in the afternoon the first and second graders started working on a research project on the vertebrate animals. We reviewed some of the different groups of animals that belong in that group and how to tell the difference between an animal that is "gooey on stick" (has a backbone), "gooey in a can" (has an exoskeleton), or just plain gooey (no skeleton). Each student signed up to learn more in depth

about one of the five groups (reptiles, fish, birds, amphibians, mammals) and they'll pick one species within that group to do research in the library. We went to the library to review how to do a search with the card catalog and find things in the non-fiction section and the reference area.

        Our poem this week was called "Jack Frost" by Helen Bayley Davis. Ask your child to recite it for you. Joplin filled the estimating jar with sheets of copy paper. We learned that a ream of paper is 500, and it looked like there was less than that, but we'll find out on Monday when we do the count.

For our challenge this week the children were shown a design of six boxes, two rows of three, made of 17 popsicle sticks. We had to remove only four popsicle sticks to leave four boxes. Ask your child to show you this Challenge!

Since we couldn't tally up the "I Love to Read" records on Friday, please send them in on Monday so we can find out our total.

Some of the books we read this week included "Katy and the Big Snow," "Never Let your Cat make Lunch for You" (have you ever tried a peanut butter and anchovy sandwich?), "Valentine's Day" (about the

history and traditions of Valentine's Day), and "You Are Special" by Max Lucado.

This week in Kindergarten math students worked on money exchanges (e.g. two nickels for a penny

or five pennies for a nickel), patterns, and graphing. First graders are working on learning their addition

facts and the second graders explored patterns of coin amounts, found a median jump length for the class

(as well as a median height), made a frequency table and graph, and compared their jumps, mathematically,

to those of grasshoppers!

First and second graders made valentines to be sent to veterans currently in Vermont's veteran's

hospitals. They did an excellent job of transforming a heart playing card into a friendly greeting. And next

Wednesday we will celebrate Valentine's Day. Each Adventurer made a special mailbag for the art project

this week. We will use them to hold our special valentines we receive next week. The children decorated

their bags with hearts, and glitter. They look great! If your child would like to make cards for their

classmates, we just want to remind you to have them make one for everyone (see the pink sheet that came

home last week) If your child wants to put names on the envelopes they may, but only if they can read them

all themselves so they can deliver them. PLEASE DO NOT DO ANY OF THE WRITING FOR THEM!

They may bring in their valentines beginning Monday if they are in a bag with their name on it. THANKS...

We know this is a big job so there's no ParentLink homework activity this week.

On Monday, along with the new "I Love to Read" record, your child will bring home two other notes.

First there is a letter about the upcoming Adventurers Homepage. We are hoping to launch this site soon,

for parents to have access to information about team activities and news. In part this would replace the

attached files that we have sent with the ParentLink which many have appreciated but others have not been

able to receive successfully. We are asking for suggestions for what kind of information you would find

useful and also a permission form so that we can include photographs and work of your child. We ask that

you return this form next week. Also there is a letter about

Also coming up:

******** This Sunday evening, FEBRUARY 11th, from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m., is our fundraiser at VERMONT

TEDDY BEAR FACTORY. Please join us. Help get to the Granby Zoo this spring.

Parent group work party: Monday, February 19th, 6:00

Mardi Gras celebration, February 20th,

Also this Sunday afternoon is the Tom Chapin concert at the Flynn Center. We've sung a lot of

his songs and we're looking forward to seeing him live. There are still tickets available, so if you've been

jealous about all the shows your child gets to go to at the Flynn, here's your chance to bring the whole

family and Joplin will be ushering, so he'll help you find your seat.

Congratulations to Nancy Jaffe and Kathy Gallagher who recognized "It is fruitless to become

lachrymose over precipitately decanted lacteal fluid" as "Don't cry over spilled milk!"

See if you can get this one: Surveillance should precede salation."

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Home Page maintained by Joplin James/ Pam Wise
jjames@shelburne.k12.vt.us
Last updated: February 20, 2001