Another busy week!

Our week started with a visit from the puppets of Puppets in Education.  Through the puppet show we learned about celebrating differences, both cultural and learning.  The puppets taught us what the word culture means and encouraged us to share about traditions and celebrations that connect to our families' cultures. We also learned about learning differences and that we all learn in different ways!  Be sure to ask your child about the puppet show!

Besides celebrating friendship on Valentine's Day, we also had a Mix-it-Up afternoon!  Miss Niles' class visited Ms. Bennett's middle schoolers to play board games and card games and Miss Deb's class met up with Mr. Brunvand's class to play board games as well!  It was fun to watch Jenga, chess, charades, and various card games all going on at one time. 

In writer's workshop, we are continuing to finish our opinion speeches and turning them into slideshow presentations on Google Slides.  This week Miss Niles' class learned how to use Screencastify to record their speeches to go along with the slide show   We will be sharing these with you at home soon!

During Reader's Workshop, we have been participating in the Reading Olympics!  For each sport in the Winter Olympics, the children have a corresponding reading challenge.  For example, to earn credit for the biathlon, the children have to read two books by the same author. If a child competes in and completes two events, he or she earns the bronze medal.  If a child completes four events, he or she earns a silver medal and if a child completes seven events, he or she earns a gold medal!  We have a lot of Olympic Readers on Team Esprit!  How is your child doing in the Olympic Reading Challenge?

In math, we learned two games that involved division: Line 'Em Up and Division Capture.  In one game, Line 'Em Up, we used the array model to demonstrate division.  Division Capture provided the children with practice with their division facts.  Ask your child to tell you about these two games!  We also focused some of our time on finding the area of surfaces.  We measured the area of surfaces in the room using non-standard units and made comparisons to our estimates of the area of these objects.

Have a great weekend!