Dear Families:

There is so much great learning happening at MSES this week. I am lucky enough to spend a lot of time in classrooms weekly, watching the powerful instruction in your child's classroom. It is such a joy to reflect on the growth each student has made this year.

One of my highlights this week was watching Ms. Babcock's class learn about hurricanes and their impacts on the environment, especially housing. The class learned about the role of environmental engineers, structural engineers, levy engineers and more. Students were able to re-create a mini-hurricane on a coastline.

In second grade, students learned about dialogue and the importance of using quotation marks. Students also learned about figures of speech, specifically, onomatopoeia like: buzz, hiss, and honk. Your second graders are smart!

Come check out our fifth grade Science Fair projects on April 26, when we host the School of Excellence Night. Each grade level hallway will have a unique feature on display. Science Fair projects will be showcased in the gym between 4-7pm and the Spanish program will perform at 5:00pm. Families are invited to join us for dinner catered by Adam's Mountain Cafe at 5:30 or 6:30pm and tour our beautiful building. Meals are $18.00 for adults and $10.00 for children. Join us for a fun-filled night by filling out this School of Excellence form. Prospective families to MSES can tour the school with teachers and student leaders from 4-5:30pm.

Check out our upcoming events:

• April 26- School of Excellence Night, MSES
• 4-7pm Open House/Hallway Exhibits
• 4-5:30 Building Tours for new families
  
• 5-5:30 Flamenco Dance performance
• 5:30 /6:30 Adam's Mountain Cafe dinner
• May 16- Field Day, Grades 3, 4, 5, Manitou Springs High School
• May 20 - Family Movie Night, MSES
• May 24 - Field Day, Grade K, 1, 2, MSES
  

Hopefully, you have seen the new cross walk markers the city has provided our school. There will be new flashing school signs soon and the city will be painting all of our crosswalks.

We hope to see you on Tuesday. Have a terrific weekend!

Warmly,

Maria

First graders have been working on an Earth Day writing assignment. Students were given prompts and showed off their hard work with writing this year. The prompts were: 1. "I love Earth because..." 2. "I can help the Earth by..." 3. "If the Earth could talk, it would say..." Be sure to ask your student how they answered (or will answer) these prompts!

We are also watching videos about Earth heroes and making Earth Day posters. Both the writings and the posters will be on display for MSES's Night of Excellence! Here are some of the Earth Day heroes we are (or will be) learning about:

Felix Finkbeiner

Boyan Slat

Autumn Peltier

Gitanjali Rao

We are now on a journey from Europe to the Americas with our next unit, “European Exploration of North America.” Ask your expert what the European explorers were looking for. (Gold, spices, wealth) What was Columbus looking for and where did he land? (A shorter route to the East Indies, he landed in the Caribbean region) Be sure your expert knows the word conquistador (conqueror, travelers, soldiers and explorers from Spain looking for wealth and conquering native peoples to gain control of land) Ponce de Leon explored the Florida peninsula. What was he looking for? (The Fountain of Youth)

Hernando de Soto was a conquistador that explored areas today known as Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado traveled through the southwest and was the first known European to see what? (The Grand Canyon) Did he find what he was looking for? (He was looking for the Seven Cities of Cibola, but there was no gold, and he lost a lot of his own money!) John Cabot decided to travel north through the Atlantic because it should be a shorter route, what was it called? (Northwest Passage) Who did he sail for? (England, King Henry VII) Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain are next, tell your expert what you know about them, and ask them what they learn about these explorers next week!

In our lab, How to Save a Town, we were trying to see in what ways engineers work to keep the coastline safe during storm surges and hurricanes. The three types of engineers we are studying are structural engineers, environmental engineers, and seawall engineers. The structural engineers work with making buildings structurally safe and they work to design houses that won’t flood. Environmental engineers may plant wetlands along coasts to help slow down the waves and stop the flow of water onto the coastline. Finally, seawall engineers build seawalls to protect the coasts and block waves from hitting the shore.

By Izzy Smith, 5th Grade, Ms. Babcock's class

You probably already know about our King Soopers fundraiser - where you register your King's loyalty card online once, and every time you scan that loyalty card, MSES gets 5% of the purchase amount at no cost to you!

If you don't shop at King Soopers (or don't use a loyalty card there), follow the instructions below to scan your receipts from almost any grocery store and collect Box Tops for our school! This replaces the old cardboard box clips we used to collect. To date, MSES has earned $20.10 from Box Tops this school year. Money earned through King Soopers and Box Tops helps our school support students in many ways - extra classroom supplies, crafts/projects, playground equipment, celebrations, and more!