80 Days Smarter!

We did it. We made it to our 80th day of school. That means we are nearly half way through our kindergarten year together and these kiddos have worked their bottoms off to grow their brains for the past 80 days. I am oh-so-proud of them and cannot wait to see what the next 80 days have in store for them! 

Each year I am so overwhelmed with gratitude for the generosity, kindness, and thoughtfulness of our families who participate in the Adopt-A-Family project. I love that the students are excited to bring their gifts in for the family and that our little Room 4 family can help another family in the community. All of the gifts have been collected and wrapped and will be delivered this week. Here is a snapshot of what we donated to Nicole, German, Ezmeralda (6), and Khali (4). 

This week we visited the STEAM lab to follow up on our studies of open and closed circuits. Last week the students worked with Mrs. Caldwell in art class to create beautiful holiday cards. This week we added an LED light and battery to our cards to make a light up card! Please be sure to check your child's Friday folder for their fun card. Inside is a brief explanation of how the closed circuit works - ask your child to explain to you how they helped put it together! 

After we finished our cards, the students did some more exploring with circuit boards. We played around with making a buzzer beep, a fan spin, and a light turn on. We love circuitry! (And thank you to our fabulous parent volunteer Caroline Glassell for these fun photos!) 

We couldn't end 2016 without a final visit from Scientist Bowe. Although we don't usually do soda science until January or February (after we've spent time learning about solids, liquids, and gases), I couldn't imagine not experiencing the joy and wonder of this experiment with these 22 kiddos. Thanks to Paul, Nooshin, and Hrund for volunteering to help with this experiment! The extra hands were beyond helpful in carrying 5 two-liter bottles, taking photos and videos, and conducting the experiment! 

Our scientific question of the day was: What will happen when we put the Mentos in the soda? We came up with a few hypotheses: It will explode! It will change colors. It will bubble up like a volcano. Like all good scientists, we recorded our materials and then we headed outside to conduct our experiment! 

We started out small with Fanta...

Then it got a little more exciting with Coca-Cola...

And then our grand finale with Coke Zero....!

...you know, just 30 of Tiburon's finest ladies gathered together at the beautiful Turner residence.

Friday afternoon was an absolutely overwhemling and humbling event. I cannot thank everyone enough. Thank you to Tracey Turner for hosting a beautiful evening. Thank you to Jen Riley, Laura Smith, and Courtney Ammons for organizing and planning. Thank you to the fabulous Mrs. Masino and Ms. Lopez for being there. And thank you to all of the 2015-2016 Room 4 moms and the 2016-2017 Room 4 moms for your love, support, and incredibly generous gifts. It blows my mind to think about how much love there is for this little girl and she doesn't even know it...yet. I cannot wait to introduce her to everyone in the new year. Fingers crossed she stays put for the next four days so I can finish out the year with my (other) 22 kids who I love and adore with all of my heart. Cheers to finishing out 2016 strong. :) xo - Mrs. Bowe