News from The Cardinal Classroom;
So Much has gone on in these past seven weeks. We had a warm and beautiful send off for Monique on Thursday October 10th. We did a traditional candle walk with the theme of new beginnings. Each child was able to stand up and share their love and well wishes for Monique on her new path. We added a wish stone to the ceremony ,a beautiful varnished wish stone (natural gray stone with a while circle around it) from Lincolnviille Beach. We passed the stone around the circle and each child held it dearly in their hands as they gently blew a wish on it. We truly felt the love of our community as the stone was passed from hand to hand. We sealed the stone in a jar and gave it to Monique to always have apart of us with her. The class has remained in touch with Monique through snail mail. October brought us big changes in staff and classroom themes. We created our stick bundle to demonstrate the strength in numbers and that as individuals we are weak but as a team we are strong. The stick bundle will remain in the classroom all year as a symbol of our family/union and community. At the end of the school year, each child will bring their stick home to represent that a part of us and a part of them will forever be connected. Other areas of study in the classroom were, studying leaves and reading about pumpkin jack. We carved our own pumpkin Jack and learned loads of new songs about Autumn and Pumpkins. We rehearsed Fire drills and the procedures implemented throughout the school for each individual class. We even had real life firefighters join us for a demonstration of fire safety, fire equipment and a tour of a fire truck. We Thank the Liberty Fire Department for their valuable lessons. I am pleased to say that all our children experienced the real Fire siren w/o any ill effects. We will continue to practice fire safety once a month. October brought a deeper and more thorough focus on art. Sandee has worked hard with all the children to create incredible works of art. All the children's art is now available for sale in note card form. We encourage you to take a moment out of your morning to look over the thumb nails of note cards from the entire student body.
October drew to a conclusion with parent teacher conferences. We want to extend a big thank you to all the parents who have shared their wonderful children with us. It was a pleasure to get to know you and a little more about your children through meaningful conversations.Thank you for your commitment to your child's education. November arrived with many new works and projects in our classroom. November's main themes will be Stone Soup and Gratitude. We will be talking, reading and expressing ways to give thanks and we will also continue to build on our new classroom community.We will be building community by learning to work together in drama, movement, food preparation, grace and courtesy and of course the main ingredient in Stone Soup"sharing".Some new works in the classroom that your child may share with you are, Nut cracking, Bread making, napkin folding,cutting and serving food and placing notes of Gratitude on our Gratitude tree. Please come in our classroom and sneak a peek and some of our leaves.Please also remember to contribute easy to cut foods for the classroom food prep and serving work like carrots, celery, cheese sticks or apples. We are beginning to fill our Wellness basket . Please sign up for contribute items and thank you to families who have begun to add gifts to our classroom Wellness basket. Any parent who would like to come in and lead bread baking on Monday November 25 please let us know. Monday the 25 will be our last bread baking day. Tuesday November 26 we will share this loaf at our stone soup celebration. On this day we will work together as a community to prep food, cook soup, set the table and organize for our family style meal. Tuesday will be the last day before our Thanksgiving Vacation begins.
Lastly we have been really enjoying yoga and movement. We hope your children are sharing the new postures and moves with you in your homes.
The students used a centrifuge to
conduct an investigation using density to determine what parasite eggs were
present in fecal samples of 3 cows, 1 horse, 1 goat, and their resident rabbit
Fuzzles von Skittles. They observed
whip worm and stomach worm eggs as well as pollen of digested hay under the
microscope. They also viewed
preserved parasites and calculated the number of worm eggs a cow puts out
daily.
