This week, we had Mrs. Hanes as a guest teacher one morning.  She brought in a “brain helmet.”  We learned that different parts of our brain help us do different things.  The purpose of her visit was to tell us that when we get scared or angry, we have a chance to calm our brain before we do something we shouldn’t.  We have been working on many techniques in class.

     Permission slips for the first field trip were sent home Wednesday.  If you did not receive one, please let us know and we’ll put another copy in the mailbox.

     This week, we hit that magical moment when all we need to say is “Please go to your reading group,” or “please go to your math group,” and the kids actually know where to go!  Routine is beautiful. 

     We do a lot of drawing and building etc, but once a week we try to do a “real” art lesson.  Last week, we painted apples to decorate a tree outside Mrs. Shaw’s room.  We painted a red apple and a yellow apple.  Then we guessed what would happen if we mixed up our red and yellow paint for the 3rd apple.  Most of the kids thought we’d get a green apple…  but we didn’t.  This week, our lesson was on watercolors and what happens if you paint over crayon or oil pastel.  Ask your child about it!

     Our Instagram account is full of cute pictures.  Most of them are posted as slide shows so make sure you swipe through.  Keep in mind we are posting pictures of 50+ kids.  We’re keeping track of how many times each child is featured in a picture, but expect to see 49 kids who are not your own for each time you do see your cutie.  We still have 4 folks who have not signed media releases so we’ll do our best not to post pics of those kids.

Choice tidbits from this week:

1st grade student after being given a popsicle in math class:  “This is the BEST day of my ENTIRE life!”  (doesn’t take much)

Non-future comedian:

Child:  “Teacher, do you like knock-knock jokes?”

Teacher:  “Yes”

Child:  “knock knock”

Teacher:  “Who’s there?”

Child:  “uh…uh..   I forgot the rest of it.”