Mad Hatter Math Tea Party and more!

Happy 2012! Welcome back! Here is a flashback from before the holidays. I am amazed at the leadership in our school! Not only do they handle all of their many responsibilities, but they find time to spread joy and spend time with the kids as well. Here are a few pictures of the holiday hallway sing-along:

Below is a picture of the kids after 2 of them finally solved the 4 x 4 puzzle. There are 250,000 incorrect solutions so you can see why they are thrilled to have found a solution. YEA! Awesome work!

After the holiday break, the kids were so excited to see the baby rats and how they had grown.

Here are the kids exploring the properties of solids

Next, we learned about the properties of liquids.

Shake, shake, shake...do bubbles appear?

Yes, they do!

Is this liquid transparent, translucent, or opaque?

Since we're reading and studying fairy tales and fractured fairy tales, we decided to make a mural in the hall of Falling for Rapunzel, one of our favorite fractured fairy tales.

The kids worked together to make the mural.

Here is the finished product!

The kids enjoyed learning about the obstacles that Martin Luther King, Jr. and other African Americans has to overcome so that all people no matter their skin color or race could truly be treated equally. We wrote letters to Martin Luther King, Jr. to tell him about all of the wonderful changes that have taken place since his death - thanks to his determination and willingness to fight hate with love.

And now, it's time for the Mad Hatter Math Tea Party!

You can't have a tea party without a tea set and cookies that look like clocks (since Mr. White Rabbit was always in such a hurry and constantly looking at his stopwatch!).

You can't have a Mad Hatter Tea Party without Alice and the mad hatters.

You can't have a Mad Hatter Tea Party without shrinking yourself to fit through the door in the world of Alice in Wonderland.

And you certainly can't have a tea party without TEA! We tasted Constant Comment flavored tea and Citrus Green Tea. Yummy!

You can't have a Mad Hatter Math Tea Party without yelling SWITCH! The kids rotated from class to class to play math games dealing with dice, cards, and telling time.

And...

they all lived happily ever after!

Holiday Fun!

Thank you to everyone who sent PJs for JP. The babies and kids at Jessie's Place will be so thrilled to have new pajamas to wear this Christmas!

Here are some pictures from our holiday party on Friday. Thank you, Allyson, Jennifer, Denise, Rhonda, Theresa, and everyone else who sent items, helped with centers, or came to the party. It was so much fun!

decorating cookies! Yummy!

making ornaments

paiting faces!

eating cupcakes and snacks

making snowman "family" ornaments

Eloise, our class mascot?! Precious!

making snow

Look how much our first set of babies have grown! On Friday, they were 9 days old. They weighed about 0.8 ounces. They have fur but their eyes and ears are still closed.

At one point, I looked around and every child but 1 or 2 was holding 2-3 baby rats. They had the best time!

**Lovey still hasn't had her babies! She's very close!

Day 5: baby rats update

Ms. Cobern introduced our class to straw weaving. We have really enjoyed learning how to do it!

Here are the babies at 5 days old. All but 2 weigh 0.5 ounces. They are growing and changing everyday! We are having so much fun watching them.
Their eyes and ears are still closed.

You have to love how the kids have turned their straw weaving into blankets for the babies.

DAY 1: The babies are here!

We had no idea the babies would be here so soon! Are they precious, or what?! There are 9 healthy pinkies. If you look closely in the picture, you can see the black umbilical cord still attached on the baby on the right side of the picture. You can also see the milk band (belly full of milk) on the baby on the bottom left. We've already had 2 classes and many previous students come in to see our babies.

Isn't this amazing!!!! So perfect and so tiny!

We had another neat surprise today. The Enrichment students came in and taught us about Mexican Jumping Beans. Did you know that they are really moths inside cocoon-like seeds? They don't like heat so they "jump" to get away when they get too hot. The kids enjoyed watching them jump.

We hope that you will come back soon so you can watch as we track the growth of our babies. If anyone wants some precious baby rats, they are free to good homes and will be ready in 5-6 weeks.

Merry Christmas to us!

It looks like our class is getting an early Christmas present this year...baby rats! The kids are SO excited! Pepper is about to POP. The babies will likely be born at the end of the week or over the weekend. Stay tuned...