MARYBETH and ELIJAH's CLASS NOTES

We've had a strong start to the 2023-24 school year! The children have seamlessly settled into routines and are happily engaging in work and play. Much credit is due to the strong example modeled by returning students who have taken a leadership role in the classroom.

The children have been busy personalizing their classroom through several art projects that you will be able to enjoy at our back to school night. The first was the result of a "mystery art bag" challenge where the children created collages and sculptures with materials found in their personalized bags. The second was a fun collaborative painting project inspired by a reading of The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. The children painted in layers over several days, first with cool colors, then warm. On the final day they adorned their paintings with homemade stickers. Presently they are creating self portrait mobiles.

After collecting Monarch caterpillars on the first day of school, the children have been obseiving their progression from caterpillar to chrysalis. Thus far, no butterflies. Our classroom habitat has sparked curiosity and ques-tions. We wondered about the golden marks on the chrysalis and discovered that scientists don't yet know their pipose. The children shared their own hypotheses which were quite thoughtful and reasonable. We are in discussion with our scientist in residence to learn how scientists in the field may go about answering such a question.