We’ve had a wonderful week here in room 103 and I know we’re all eager to come back on Monday for more fun learning and play!

Our class was quite busy this week with getting familiar with our classroom, scavenger hunts, new specials like photography (how cool!) and of course lots and lots of play and learning new games such as Buildzi, Zingo, and Connect4. 

For our first exploration, we will be learning about all things SPACE! We started slow this week by building clay models of the planets we know and painted a picture of what we think about when we hear the word space. So interesting to see and hear how different everyone’s models and pictures were! A few quotes..
“I painted the sun and did you know it’s not actually yellow! It’s red and orange and fire!” 
“I drew earth because that’s where we live, but I don’t think anyone lives on the other ones.”
“Saturn is my mom’s favorite!”

What is philotimo? We watched a few minutes of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyOIgzVKLT4 and chatted briefly about our takeaway as a class. Ask your child, what does philotimo mean to you? Collectively, we came up with four main ideas of how we can exude philotimo daily, not just within our classroom and school, but everywhere we go. The kids came up with being kind, respectful, helping people, and love each other. 

Books we read this week:

• Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss
• There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Lucille Colandro
• Oh! The Thinks You Can Think by Dr. Seuss

We also created our first self-portraits of the year that added some more beauty to our classroom using all natural materials such as corks, various sticks, leaves, and flower petals. They look amazing! Ask your child what they used-or better yet-see if they can create one at home, too! 

A couple of your children may have brought home a green net bag. This will be used for Show and Tell throughout the year. For now, your child is free to bring whatever they choose, as long as it fits in the bag. If it is something that does not fit, encourage them to draw a picture of that item and put that into their bag. Later on in the year our show and tell will become more specific to explorations we are covering. For example, if we are learning about dinosaurs and your child has a super cool dino book they want to share, they can bring that! Show and Tell is such an important and often undervalued activity for children at this age, yet assists children with becoming more comfortable during public speaking, builds their self-confidence, and improves social skills.

Today we had our first “challenge” of the year and that was to create your own pattern. Following a game involving patterns this morning, I asked your child to create their own pattern, any pattern, in their notebooks. It was really cool to see each child’s thought process on patterns. Some used shapes, others used colors, and some even used letters and numbers! Perhaps this could make for a Sunday Funday morning challenge at home, too:) If your child makes a pattern at home this weekend, please have them draw a picture of it and bring to school to share with the class!

A few quick reminders..

• Uniforms: Please make sure your child is wearing their gym uniform on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and their dress uniform on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They should always wear a Plato shirt and/or sweater on top with matching (they don’t need to be monogrammed) bottoms. For example, Plato navy shirt with matching navy bottoms. Also, it may be a good idea to label the tag on the inside to avoid any mix-ups!
• If you would like to send any old shirt for a smock to protect clothing, feel free to do so!
• If you haven’t gotten a chance yet, no worries, but please send your family photo with your child on Monday so we can add it to our class family tree! 
• Snacks: Per Parent Notes, “Each classroom will have at least one snack time during the day.  Please remember that all lunches and snacks must be NUT-FREE.  No items that contain or “may contain” nuts of any kind are allowed in the school.  Items marked “produced in a facility that also handles nuts” are permitted.  Candy, cakes or frosted items are not permitted.  Healthy snacks ideas: fruit, veggies, pretzels, crackers, applesauce, yogurt, cheese.” 
• If any of you have any extra wine corks lying around that you don’t need for an upcoming DIY project, we’d be happy to take them off your hands! Additionally, we love book donations to our classroom library, especially of your child’s favorite book (thank you Geo!) and welcome at any time! We also love age appropriate puzzles:)  

Pictures will be posted Monday. Please bear with me while I get reacquainted with technology 🙂 Hopefully I haven’t lost you! Have a wonderful weekend and GO BEARS! 

-Ms. Anna