Mrs.O'Bryan's

 Our home page features updates about our weekly adventures in the JK class!

Happy Friday! We had such a fun week wearing our green and talking about gold, Leprechauns (and a little bit of weather)! Sully showed pictures of what his naughty Leprechaun did to his bathroom and kitchen table which led to a lively discussion of what all the Leprechauns had gotten up to. I must say, we have some very creative and industrious Leprechauns out there! One even cut down a whole tree with a chainsaw and no body heard it!

This week we did a science experiment (sticking with our rainbows because they make for the prettiest experiments) and did a rainbow volcano. We spent 25 minutes conducting and talking about this experiment... I was shocked! They were so engaged and interested! We talked about the ingredients we used, the chemical reaction that would happen and a little about color mixing. It worked out that we conducted this experiment this week as the 6th graders also displayed and tested their volcano's this week so we got to watch that as well and we watched specifically for he chemical reaction (or fizz) that occurred then the two ingredients (vinegar and baking soda) reacted!

Mrs. Ella led the kids in an awesome art project. They drew a pot of gold, dotted the rainbow colors with a q-tip and glued gold shamrocks on to their pot. She also led a few who wanted in a direct drawing of a Leprechaun. In continuing with our St. Patricks week we talked about St. Patrick in religion. We read a book about his mission in Ireland and how he likened the Holy Trinity to a 3 leaf clover to help new believers grasp the concept. After the book, we hunted for clovers in our classroom and every body got to find one! This was also the day that some of our friends went to Malibu Jacks for a field trip. I was able to talk with the group that stayed behind about being happy for others when they get things that we do not and how with a good attitude you can still have fun even when it seems like someone else is having more fun. We got more gym time that day, getting to play red light, green light and extra time in our play room. 

This week we got to do a really fun STEM project. We got to build 3 different types of Leprechaun traps in teams. I had a table with large and small building blocks, a table with faux and real wood blocks and one with legos. Each table also got its own stock pile of gold to use to tempt and trap the Leprechaun. They got super inventinve with the traps they built and they thought process's in where and how to use the gold. It was a lot of fun for all. Each group got about 6 minutes per table. When every group had tried every table we talked about what building materials we liked the most or least for our traps and why. It also gave us a good opportunity to talk about positional words and their meaning (i.e. should we put the gold under this block or to the right of that one). When we conclude our weather unit next week, we will move into our dinosaur unit where we talk alot about positional words (and some measuring as well). Lastly this week we did a worksheet focusing on sounds. Some friends focused on just the beginning sound of each word and some got to identify first, middle and last sounds. Some groups did not get to finish so many of them were eager to finish it at home. 

This week in show and tell we had Sage show us her sandbox at home and Charlotte talked to us about her favorite 'wild cats' and the stuffies she of each! We celebrated Jacks St. Patrick's day birthday! It was mentioned by a friend that maybe Jack was a Leprechaun since his birthday was on St. Patrick's Day. I asked him if he was and he simply and politely responded, 'No" and that was the end of that! Patrick shared a few fun videos with us. He went to a Knick's game and the Leprechaun that lives in his mother's classroom decided to 'destroy it' on St. Patrick's day so he showed us a video of the after math!

Next week we will have Emma and Margot do our show and tell for us. We will also do at least two lowercase letters in our handwriting without tears book as we missed that this week. We will hopefully get outside everyday next week as well as get back to our Wednesday walks! We will wrap up our weather unit and get ready for our Dino unit that we will do before and after spring break. Lots of exciting things coming as we near the end of the year. It will be hear faster then you know it!

Before I close out this week's newsletter I did want to address a very important matter that has been on all our minds and hearts lately, but it's almost been too close and tender to bring up yet. As I am sure many of you all are aware of Mrs. Cahoe's passing. Our community ache's at her loss and grieves for and with her family. Mrs. Cahoe was the JK teacher prior to myself and we made it a point to bring her into the classroom (where she belonged) as often as her health would allow her. This class did have the pleasure of having her as their religion teacher earlier in the year before her health enabled her from coming in. The past few weeks I have wrestled with how and even IF I should discuss this with our kiddo's. I have decided that this matter is best left to each individual family to discuss at home. On April 18th, there will be a celebration of life for Abby and I am hoping that any family who decides it is appropriate for their kiddo will attend to pay their respects and say their goodbye's. In the meantime, if anything comes up in the classroom (from subsequent conversations at home) I will do my best to support, guide and redirect so as to not unduely burden their little hearts. If you would, this weekend pray for Mrs. Cahoe's family (as I am sure many of you all already do) and all who are left mourning her. 

I hope you all have a blessed weekend and I very much look forward to seeing everyone on Monday. 

Mrs. O'Bryan