5/9

Hello all! We are getting closer to the end of our school year. Your child is growing so big (and losing so many teeth!), and everyone is ready to soar into second grade. 

Our day began with a prayer and our Bible verse:
"I thank you Lord, with all my heart." Psalm 138:1  We discussed starting our daily prayers with praise and thanks to our Lord for all He gives to us. 

Then we got into Science. Today's topic was Frozen Water. We filled up two bowls with water, labeled them bowl 1 & bowl 2, the put salt into bowl 2. We put them in the freezer to see what happens. We discussed the various jobs that salt can have and when it comes to freezing water with salt in it, salt water has a much lower freezing temperature. We talked about freshwater lakes and how they can freeze so hard that you can walk on them, but how often do you see the ocean freezing over? When we took the bowls out later on, we saw that bowl 1 had frozen solid, and bowl 2 had only frozen slushy-like. That's why people put salt on the roads in snowy places, so that car tires won't slip and slide all over. We discussed two new terms: Fahrenheit and Celsius and what their numbers are at their freezing and boiling points.     We had a chance to see some Life science in action because Mrs. Rivera had a white flower that someone had given her, and she decided to show the students how water travels up the stem of a plant and into its leaves by coloring the water. The petals started to turn blue! That was pretty cool. 

In History, we discussed the sad event of 9/11. Our History book gave us an overview of that tragic day. But we focused our discussion more on the heroes of that day (and the heroes of everyday): our first responders and how they sacrifice their lives, including military personnel. We have some firefighters and police officers in our families and we started to make thank you letters for them to show our appreciation. We will finish them next week.

The last part of the morning was spent enjoying the performing arts show "La Fiesta!".  Wow, we have some talented students at Branches! Beautiful scenery, costumes, singing, and dancing were enjoyed by all. 

We hope you can join us for Open House on Friday, May 19th in the evening. I will have some of your child's work on display and it's a fun chance to see everyone from both Tuesday and Thursday classes!  Please take the time to sign up for our last Potluck on May 23, our last day of school.