March Happenings

March is a very busy month in Room 202. On Monday, March 16th, we will begin the PSSA test. We have been working very hard to prepare for these tests. Please be sure your child is well rested and eats a good breakfast.

March 17th is Go for the Greens Day where children are encouraged to eat vegetables. We will be snacking on fresh veggies that day here at school. If you would like to send in vegetables with your child for a class snack, please let me know. We will also be participating in a Produce Pentathalon next week. Your child should have brought home a letter explaining this and coupons. Each day next week that your child eats fruit or vegetables at home, please fill in a coupon and send it back with your child. If your child returns all 5 coupons, they will be treated to a special prize.

We are still following the Iditarod. Each day, students are writing in their musher journals. They are recording what is happening to their musher out on the trail. The students have been very excited about this. They can't wait until I pass out the current race standings each day. I predict that the winner will arrive in Nome sometime on March 17th or March 18th. Be sure to check out www.iditarod.com to stay up to date on all the happenings.

The Last Great Race

We have just kicked off a unit on the Iditarod. What is the Iditarod you ask? It is a 1,150 mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. The students have all chosen a musher to follow throughout the race. The race begins tommorrow in Anchorage. We will be closely following the race to see how our mushers are performing. The students will be keeping a journal on their musher. Log on to www.iditarod.com to see how the race is progressing and to learn all about the race. Check back here to see what Room 202 is doing with the Iditarod.

Blog confusion

For those of you who subscribe to my blog, you were sent an update to my blog about an animal report. This post is from last school year. I do not know why you received this as an update. I sorry for any confusion this caused. I hope I can find out why so we don't have this confusion again. We will be doing animal reports this spring, but we haven't started them at all yet. So if your child told you they have no idea about an animal report, they truely had "no idea."

Ellis Island link

For some reason, I am having difficulty adding the Ellis Island link under helpful websites. Here is the link: http://www.tenement.org/immigrate/ . Be sure to try out this really cool websit to learn all about immigrating to America and starting a new life.

Immigrants and Ellis Island

In our unit on the Northeast states, we have been studying about immigrants and Ellis Island. I added a link on the side to a cool website. You get to create a character to immigrate to the United States. Victoria, a previous immigrant, tells all about Ellis Island and beginning a new life in New York City. Check out this website to have a real life immigrant experience.

Important Dates

February 27 - Yearbook orders due
March 2 - Dr. Seuss Day
March 4 - Spring pictures
March 16-27 - PSSA testing
March 20 - Biography book report due

It is hard to believe that February is almost over and March is right around the corner. The school year just seems to be flying by. We have been very busy in Room 202. On Friday, we enjoyed some time with our kindergarten buddies. All the children had fun playing board games with their buddies. Pictured here are Brooke and Makena with their buddies. In Social Studies we are working on the Northeast region. We have been studying the immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, and the students are finding this very interesting. We are also enjoying a novel called Dear Levi. Through this book, the class is getting a true understanding of the hardships of traveling west in a wagon train.