Valentine EVERYTHING!

We took advantage of valentines day to mix up our week a little bit!  Valentine's Day was heart EVERYTHING!!  In math we used tally marks to count our candy hearts, and then we graphed our hearts by color.

We also played the H-E-A-R-T challenge.  Try this at home.  How many words can you come up with from the letters in the word "heart"?

The kids made valentine mail bags and had so much fun sharing their valentines with their friends.  I love how the mail bags were all so unique!  Thank you to everyone who brought snacks for our Valentine's Day party!

We even had a special guest show up to our party... Maycie's chocolate lab and best buddy, Diesel!  

In science we are continuing to explore the weather!  We answered the students' question, "How are rainbows made?"  First, in reading we read some native legends about rainbows and other weather phenomena.  Then in writing, the kids wrote and illustrated their own legends - they were AWESOME!  Some ideas they had were, "There are rainbows in the sky because fairies are having a party and spilled their drinks."  or, "There are rainbows in the sky because the Lego people built a bridge out of Legos."  Then we learned some science about light and rainbows.  Finally, we did experiments to make our own rainbows!  We used glass prisms and water to try to create rainbows a couple of different ways.  We have had so much fun this week trying to "catch" the rainbows all around our room!  We hung up a "magic rainbow maker" crystal raindrop in the window, and it is so much fun to see where the rainbows land each sunny day!

We had so much fun learning about animal tracks with Steve Rudolph from Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge!  First we learned about "reading" the stories of animals through their tracks, and then we created our own track stories with stamps.  

Then we headed outside to look for tracks!  We found lots of squirrel tracks!  Beware that your kids will now be tracking you everywhere you go... 

We did find some very strange tracks on our walk... Big Foot?

We ended our tracking hike with Tiana's birthday party!  It was so warm (actually above zero) that we enjoyed our ice cream outside in the sunshine!  Happy Birthday Tiana!!!