Dear Spanish Lime Families,
I hope everyone had a wonderful, restful Spring Break and are ready to finish the year off strong! Standardized testing is almost completed! The students appeared to enjoy this new experience and overall took pleasure in receiving the extra outdoor time. Mark your calendars; Student Led Conference is Friday, April 13th with two sessions: 2pm-2:45pm and 3pm-3:45 pm located in the Spanish Lime Classroom. Parent-Teacher Conference is Monday, April 16th from 9am-5:30pm. Sign up is located on clip board outside front office.
As we head into the month of April the Spanish Limes will hear The Fifth Great Lesson: The Story of Numbers. It starts by addressing the underlying motivations for counting in a pre-counting human era. The story goes on to discuss how our number symbols came to be. Before counting began, it is believed that one-to-one matching, or pairing, occurred. In today’s world, a simple example of pairing would be matching yourself to an empty sear at a concert, or you car to a parking place. In ancient times, it may have meant matching a notch to a stick to something. It would have been like counting by ones only. One, one, one, one, one, etc. This is not really counting as we understand it, but it was, and remains, an essential first step in human counting ability. Finally the story goes on to how our number symbols came to be.
May is just around the corner and that means my favorite school fundraiser of all time, Cultural Immersion Day and Art Show Fundraiser. Friday, May 11th from 5pm-7pm. It can be compared to a miniature version of Walk on White with student art hanging throughout the front lawn of our campus. Bring a picnic basket/ blanket and tour all primary and elementary classrooms. Each classroom will have studied a particular continent, and have designed a visual of their animal research. This year our classroom will be studying the Poles and Oceans. Each child will conduct elaborate research on an invertebrate, vertebrate, plant and famous landform/landmark of their choosing. The third years will be adding an ecological assignment to contribute to the Unit Study.
The South Pole lies in Antarctica. The North Pole lies in the Arctic region. Between the poles lie five oceans: the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and the Southern Ocean. The oceans make up three-fourths of Earth’s surface. As a result, there are many animal/plant species, landforms, cultures and fascinating scientific studies that occur in the poles and oceans. We will be doing all the research and projects in the classroom and will need your help to collect shoe boxes, unusual cardboard or crafting items that we could add to our project. In order to enhance our cultural study, if any families have a piece of the Oceans and Poles culture that they want to share; artifacts, photos, stories, books, etc. we would love to borrow them temporarily. Thank you all for your help and support.
Many Thanks,
Ms. Sally
