More Holiday Activities

Keep checking my delicious account for additional winter activities including Christmas math fun! Winter Delicious Activities

Holiday Wishes (and a total lunar eclipse)!

So much has happened in the past several weeks and now we are all at home (or some other nice place) trying to relax (I hope!).  I want to quickly share some websites on my delicious account regarding holiday fun activities and some information about tonight's lunar eclipse.  Delicious website link.  As reported in AOLnews.com, "As many as 1.5 billion people worldwide will be able to watch when the Earth's shadow creeps across the moon's surface early Tuesday morning, the first time in hundreds of years that a lunar eclipse will fall on the winter solstice."  The article goes on to say that, "Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21," Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory said according to NASA. "Fortunately we won't have to wait 372 years for the next one ... that will be on 2094 DEC 21."  Although the eclipse will take about 3 hours and 38 minutes (it begins on Tuesday at 12:33 am CST), NASA recommends that you check it out about 2:17 am CST when the moon should be covered with an amber glow.  The winter solstice marks the beginning of winter and is the shortest day of the year!
P.S.  Stay tuned - I will be posting information about our recent "Sit for Good" and the December book club meeting:)

Time of Sharing

As November ends today I don't want to forget to mention that Tess Joyce and her mother Heidi came to share Tess' journey from China to Tennessee right before the Thanksgiving break.  November is National Adoption Month and November 22 is a day of celebration in Tess' family as "gotcha day", the day Tess became part of her "forever family"!  All of the second grade girls were able to listen to Tess' story and to see the actual clothes she was wearing the day she met her new family.  It was a wonderful story and yet another reason to be thankful that we have such wonderful friends and families at St. Mary's!

Happy Thanks! Happy Giving!

As Reverend Bush said in the Moss Hall Thanksgiving Chapel on Monday, we should all say Happy Thanks and Happy Giving as we celebrate this Thanksgiving Day. Things have been busy around SMS and I am grateful for many things including Mr. Throckmorton, our Assistant Head of St. Mary's, who recently spoke to the SMS Parent Association about some of the exciting things happening in our St. Mary's classrooms in this technology-rich world. Mr. Throckmorton shared examples of ways that technology is being used as a tool to support and enhance the learning going on at our school. He also listed some titles of books that might be useful to parents in understanding the changes we are facing in educating our young people. Here are the books that Mr. Throckmorton mentioned: Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen; Facebook for Parents by BJ Fogg; What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis; Hamlet’s Blackberry by William Powers; The Global Achievement Gapby Tony Wagner; and Five Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner. We will all have the opportunity to hear William Powers speak in the Buckman Theater on March 29 at 7 pm.
Click here for some Thanksgiving activities: Thanksgiving activities  and games.

Return of the Penguins...

Second grade girls will have the opportunity to be "field researchers" as we follow the nesting habits of the Adelie penguins in Antarctica. Beginning around November 18 the students can record the time spent on the nests by the penguin parents. They will pick one nest to follow and mark how much time is spent by the penguins either on the nest or foraging for food. The students will record their information in their "field journals" (their SMS spirals). This is a voluntary assignment and computers in the classrooms will be available with the website bookmarked for easy access (and I am including the link here for you to check out at home or you can use my delicious page ) - penguin nest check link

Lunch Bunch and other tidbits:)

Sorry that it has been so long since I posted - I was sick last week with strep throat! I want to share a few things with you all. The Learning Lab has some new "students" - Mary and Jane, my new gerbil friends! Feel free to come by and visit them anytime. Also, I am attaching a few photos of my first "lunch bunch" meeting (4th grade students). I am here to help facilitate their project-based learning activities on Thursdays during the 1st lunch shift recess.

2nd Grade Lunch Book Club!

The first monthly meeting of the 2nd grade lunch book club was held this past Thursday, Nov. 4th. Almost 40 girls attended! Thank you to Jessica, Ansley, McKinley and Mrs. Moore for helping make our first meeting so successful. See you next month:)

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