Have a wonderful break!

Mrs. Parnell and Mrs. Hoyt wish everyone a wonderful break and a Happy New Year!  Be sure to write in your new journals!  Let us know about what you do during your time away from school.  Make sure you are reading every day.  We will be looking forward to getting back to work and learning about creatures in the ocean in January!

Polar Express Day

What a wonderful time we had celebrating our Polar Express Day!  Clad in our pjs(students and staff), we met on the stage of the cafeteria with our stuffed, fury friends, for a special reading of The Polar Express.  Mr. Lyons, clad in his pj's too, read to us!  Then back to Room 101 we went for a wide variety of fun activities.  We re-created an image of the Polar Express train with ink and stamps, built beaded candy canes, guessed the contents of the mystery stocking, played the dreidel game, made festive frames, and more!  Our afternoon was topped of with a special viewing of the movie version of our theme for the day!

Our lesson was Electrifying!

Mrs. Parnell shared an enlightening lesson about electricity!  Thanks to hands on resources from the Science Center we were able to test various items to see if they are conductors or non-conductors(insulators).  Then we created electrical circuits! ( A lot like a circle!) We created light and sound.  Be sure to check with your child and ask him/her about the fun we had this week testing out the ways electricity works!

The Hedgies Came to visit!

Clementine and Luna, mother and daughter hedgehogs from the Burlington Science Center visited room 101 with Ms. P. today!  Ms. P was invited to share her friends as a tie in to the Jan Brett stories we have been reading.  We learned that of all the animals that climbed into Nikki's mitten in Brett's story, "The Mitten", the hedgehog is the only animal whose habitat is not in the United States.
Students told Ms. P that hedgies are mammals and are nocturnal.  Ms. P told us that in addition to eating fruits and other foods like lizards and mice, hedgies are insectivores............they really like to eat bugs and insects.
Since we are so big, and sort of loud, we scared the hedgies.  Clementine and Luna showed us what they do to protect themselves when they are scared.  They rolled into a ball, they showed their quills and they made noises.

Mother Ginger Dance!