February 15, 2006

Secret Gift Exchange

            Megan sent home information about this last week. Please remind your child to prepare a gift for his/her secret friend. Those gifts will be exchanged this Friday, 2/17. Gifts are to be homemade, small, and wrapped.

Auction Basket Donations

            Please remember to send along your donations for the Maples class auction basket. Our theme is “Game Night”. We prefer educational games.

Field Trip Permission Forms

            The Maples and Pines will take a field trip to the Science Museum on February 28. Please send back your child’s permission slip and $8 as soon as possible. Thanks very much to those who have volunteered to drive. We have 4 parents so far who offered to drive. I think this will cover us, but if there is one more person who is able to drive, then we’ll have plenty of room.

            Note: The museum allows us a certain number of adult admissions free (I need to check with Mary on the number). Once we know how many adults are joining us, we will split the cost of the remaining adult admissions. We don’t anticipate that it will cost very much for the adults who come. Thanks to our drivers!

Talent Show

            The second and third graders are invited to participate in a talent show at the All School Gathering on March 10. There will not be practice time planned into our school day for this, so if your child wishes to participate, please support her/him in preparing.

January 19, 2006

Dear Maples Families,

            Life in the Maples is happy and productive. It really feels like we’ve come together as a community. It’s exciting to be a part of it all. Come in and visit us if you have some time! And thanks so much to all of our volunteers.

            A note regarding birthdays: We have lots of summer birthdays in the Maples. If your child has a summer birthday, please talk to her/him and decide what school day you’d like to celebrate. Children usually bring a treat to share, we sing to them during the morning meeting, and we dedicate the morning message to them by drawing birthday pictures. Then the birthday child gets to take the message home. For these reasons, each child may want to have his/her own day. If we wait until the end of the year, we’ll have a bunch of birthdays to celebrate together. (This is okay with me, but I just want each child to have the opportunity to have her/his own day). Please let me know what date you’d like, and I’ll keep a calendar so that we don’t have overlaps.

            Our ANWR study is going really well. A few children have sent letters to government officials. The posters are almost finished (check them out in the gym!), and some students will conduct opinion surveys today. The reader’s theater group is done writing and will practice next week. We’ll let you know when the performance will be.

            In math, we’re working with money. This always seems to be a motivating topic. J We have a class reading goal for each student to read five books in five different genres and write a book review. The purpose is to teach students about genres and to expand their reading repertoire. In P.E., we’re finishing up soccer this week, and next week we’ll start learning basketball skills and later playing games. The soccer games have become so impressive! Students understand their positions, they spread out, match up, pass, and take good shots. It’s lots of fun!