Dear Parents and Guardians,
Warning: This is a pretty long blog entry. The important dates are highlighted in RED, so skip ahead if you want!
It's hard to believe that it's already the second week of March. I thought that February was our busiest month, since we had the Black History Month Celebration and the Lunar New Year Performance. But I was wrong! March is even busier!
Warning: This is a pretty long blog entry. The important dates are highlighted in RED, so skip ahead if you want!
It's hard to believe that it's already the second week of March. I thought that February was our busiest month, since we had the Black History Month Celebration and the Lunar New Year Performance. But I was wrong! March is even busier!
The Dragon kindergarteners are now proud parents to several trout babies! If you have not checked out our fish tank, please stop by and take a look. The babies, called alevin, are each carrying giant orange yolk sacs. They will feed off the yolk for about the next 2 weeks. The alevin are hidden in the gravel and are pretty tiny, so you may need to ask a student to point them out to you.
So what will we do with our trout? We are going to spend two weeks in March learning about conservation, and will finish off our unit on Thursday, April 2nd, with a field trip to Lake Temescal to release our fish. Each student will (hopefully) get to release his/her own trout. We will write "goodbye letters" to our fish, and will read them before we complete the release. There will also be a Mobile Fish Exhibit at Lake Temescal that day, so we'll get to listen to a presentation from a ranger. Please email the Dragon room parents if you can volunteer on this field trip! We need 6 parents to ride with us on the bus, and 1 parent to drive separately with a 5-gallon container full of our baby trout.
But wait! We actually have another science field trip before our fish release! On Tuesday, March 24th, we are going to the Berkeley Marina with an organization called Kids for the Bay. An environmental science educator will lead the kindergarteners on a 3-hour exploration of the local wildlife and habitat. We will leave at 8:30am and return by 2:00pm. Again, please email the Dragon room parents if you can volunteer on that day. We need a total of 6 parents to chaperone this field trip.
Next week, from March 17th to March 20th, will be our second round of Parent-Teacher Conferences. We will have early dismissal (1:00PM) from Tuesday through Friday next week. If you have not already done so, please sign up for a time slot. If none of the available slots work for you, please email me and we can try to find a different option. I look forward to meeting with all of you!
And finally, I want to let all of you know that both Chen Lao Shi and I will be going to the annual NSTA science conference in Chicago this week. Chang Lao Shi, our new Mandarin reading specialist, will be subbing in Dragon class this Thursday and Friday. I've told the students that I'm going to "school", and that I'll come back with lots of new science activities for them to try out! I will be checking email while I am away, so please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Hope you all have a wonderful week!
Best regards,
Suen Lao Shi 孫老師
Hope you all have a wonderful week!
Best regards,
Suen Lao Shi 孫老師