Dear Parents,
By now, I'm sure you've heard about George. He came in with Felix earlier this week as a caterpillar and transformed into a chrysalis during our fire drill.
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| George makes a J. |
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| Newly formed chrysalis |
We watched this video together as a class:
Caterpillar to Chrysalis to see the pupa dance.
Apparently, there's a way to tell the sex of the butterfly from the chrysalis, so several of our SK's have been really looking carefully at the sac and debating amongst themselves. (Consensus for now is that George may be more properly called Georgina.)
We've had a busy week, exploring the life cycle of butterflies as a result. Felix also brought in some monarch eggs he'd found on milkweed leaves. We've been working hard to make them hatch and learning more about the Monarch as a result.
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| The letter from Felix's family and an overview of the monarch lifecycle are posted on our science wall. |
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| These milkweed leaves have a couple more caterpillar eggs on them |
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| These students are spending some time investigating those eggs |
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| We cut the eggs out of the old leaves daily and put them on fresh milkweed. |
On Friday afternoon, we saw our first new baby caterpillar wriggling about. We're hoping it survives until Monday to grow some more.
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| Students have painted these egg cartons with yellow, white, and black, just like monarchs. |
We've been switching the milkweed leaves daily to make sure the eggs have fresh food to eat. Our butterfly garden here at school has some milkweed, so students are learning to identify these plants to help feed our new caterpillars and eggs.
As you learned last week, we've been looking at different parts of plants to learn about how plants grow.
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| Here a student investigates the roots. |
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| These milkweed seed pods are bringing our plant investigations in line with our seed investigations. |
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| "Look, all the seeds are lined up" |
It's hard to keep a single focus in the classroom though, so here are some of the other things going on this week too:
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| Playing teacher |
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| Exploring materials: students made airplanes, letter shapes, and more conceptual pieces like a "machine for playing music at bad guys, or sometimes good guys too" |
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| Painting on easels while I do journals in the background |
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| Fishing for the letters in your name |
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| "What letter is this?" |
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| You'll have to read this one upside down. |
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| Fitting together tetris shapes |
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| Cooking in the kitchen |
The other big, exciting thing we've started is Reading Buddies. Students in Ms. Oseghale's class are paired with our class for a weekly chance to read together.
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| I love getting to know families: the reading buddy here is the older brother of a graduated SK |
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| Answering more questions about butterflies |
So, that's Week Two in Room 202. I haven't had a chance to meet with parents formally this year, so, as always, if you have questions (or concerns) about anything in this blog or our classroom, please do contact me via email.
Sincerely,
Ms. Goegan
P.S. I've been waiting for our schedule to solidify before sending home our newsletter, but you should see that this week as well.
