“Dear Families,
Today we made something for our eggs. We dropped them down to see if they would break. And Friday we are going to use new eggs to see if those eggs will break. Some of us used bubble wrap and cups to protect our egg. We watched a video about Eric Carle. Petey was wearing a Luigi shirt.
Love,
PJ”

Today we continued our study of Eric Carle. We watched a short video of Eric Carle speaking about his book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Eric Carle uses tissue paper to create his illustrations.  We learned that The Very Hungry Caterpillar was originally about a worm. Eric Carle had to do a lot of editing before his book was ready to be published. Lola wore an Eric Carle shirt to school today!

This afternoon we worked on our “Protect the Pilot” project.  The goal was to create a contraption that would keep our pilots (hard-boiled eggs) safe when dropped from various heights. We used the planning and brain-storming sheets that we created on Monday to construct our contraptions.  The engineers in our classroom used a variety of materials to keep their pilots safe.  We used marshmallows, bread, toilet paper, cardboard, tissue, paper, pillows, tape, boxes, paper towel tubes, and more in an attempt to keep our eggs from cracking.  We started by dropping our eggs from table height, then waist height, then teacher height, then off the reading castle.  Several of our eggs cracked during the first trial. We had to modify our designs and problem-solve to make more protective containers for our egg pilots.

Dear Families,
Today Ms. Sarah and Ms. Daphne came to class, and it was Ms. Daphne’s birthday.  New buddies came to our class to read books.  We watched a video about the Whales doing art.  The video was good.  It is my baby brother’s birthday today!
Love,
PJ

This morning we had a music making session with Ms. Shelley. We had fun singing, dancing, and playing instruments.

Today was a special day! We got to meet our new reading buddies.  Our buddies are fourth, fifth, and sixth graders from a nearby school.  Every other Tuesday our buddies will come visit our classroom to read and write with us. Big buddies provide a great way for us to have one-on-one reading and writing experiences with older, experienced readers. These buddies become role model and teachers to the younger students. 

This afternoon we got to express our creativity as we painted our new book boxes. Our book boxes are very special because soon they will contain our very own individual reading books. We are ready to start reading short stories and simple picture books!

View more photos from today in our Jan 11-15 Photo Gallery

On the Friday before winter break we had two wonderful parent volunteers come in to learn with us and to teach us. Ewan’s mom read us a story and talked about some of their family traditions.  Joaquin’s dad came in to bake yummy jam rolls with us.








View more photos from these events in our Dec 15-18 Photo Gallery

Last Thursday and Friday we were busy designing and testing our paper airplanes.  We experimented with different ways of folding planes to see which type of plane flew the furthest.  We created a graph of our hypotheses and then tested the different types of planes. We measured and recorded how far each plane flew. It turns out that the “Arrow” plane flies the furthest of the planes we’ve tried so far. We also experimented with holding the airplanes at different points to determine how that influences the flight. We also experimented with adding weights and parachutes to our planes.  While adding weight to the front of the plane made it fly farther, the parachute just seemed to add drag.

Dear Families,
Today we brainstormed about how to keep eggs safe so they can’t crack.  We also decorated the eggs. Wednesday we are going to make the structure that we brainstormed and then we are gonna put the egg in it and see if the egg will crack or see if the egg will not crack. 
Love,
PJ

Students’ high level of interest in paper airplanes led us to start a mini unit on engineering this week.  Today we began our “Protect the Pilot” project.  We each drew a face on a hard-boiled egg to create a pilot.  The challenge is to create a contraption that will protect the egg pilot and keep it from cracking when dropped from various heights.  Today we created our pilots and drew plans for making our contraptions.  Student engineers created plans utilizing a variety of materials including marshmallows, cardboard, tissue, toilet paper, bread, and egg cartons.  Tomorrow we will add to our plans and finish our materials lists.  On Wednesday we will begin building and testing our contraptions. 

View more photos from last week in our Jan 4-8 Photo Gallery
View more photos from today in our Jan 11-15 Photo Gallery