Hurricane Houses and the 100th Day!

We started our week in a literal whirlwind....testing our hurricane houses!  After designing and creating the houses, we tested their strength with hurricane winds.  Each pair faced off with our hurricane (a leaf blower) to see if could withstand stronger and stronger winds as the leaf blower moved closer.  We were amazed at how many structures actually stayed together!  We have some great engineers on Team Esprit!  How did your child's structure fair?  What would he or she change?

 
Our next excitement for the week was celebrating the 100th day of school!  It's amazing that we have already reached this milestone!  Of course, we had a visit from Zero the Hero who talked about the importance of the number zero and how it brings value to numbers.  We also made a special trail mix with hundreds of fun treats!  What did your child think of the Hiyaku (Japanese for 100)?  We also had a special 100th day challenge in math; we had to write 100 words; and we even drew what we would look like at 100 years old?!?!  It was definitely a great day!

 If that wasn't enough, on Friday we celebrated Vermont Writes Day.  The children could choose from five topics and were excited to know that children all over Vermont were writing about the same topics today. Click HERE to read about the prompts for this year.  We were so impressed with their creativity!  What did your child write about today?

In math, we solved more measurement story problems; however, we also learned a card game called Target 1,000. The goal is to make two three-digit numbers that, when added, get closest to 1,000. Next week, we will be working with fractions and making fair shares.

 Lastly, in Reader's Workshop we are continuing with our nonfiction unit, but we have turned our attention to biographies.  For the next couple of weeks, the children will be reading biographies and completing book projects to share their learning about the subjects of their books.  Miss Niles' class learned how to complete a book project using the app Puppet Edu.  The children had a good time exploring this app and were able to make a presentation easily taking pictures and recording their voices.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Just a reminder that we will be celebrating Valentine's Day on Tuesday. Please make sure if your child is making Valentines, that he or she has one for every child in the class.  Thank you!