Pearl S. Buck Elementary
September 23, 2016
Something to Tweet About!
The week started off with the Third Grade teachers, along with all 108 third graders, rushing to get to school on Monday….There was a special delivery last week from Loretta Rush of the Penn State Extension Program. Along with her extensive knowledge, Mrs. Rush brought incubators for the fertilized eggs she delivered. Last week the scientists were turning the eggs in the incubators to aid in the healthy hatching of the chicks. Some of the scientists were lucky enough to be eye-witnesses to the hatchings. The third grade classrooms were very popular this week….visitors were in all week to see the baby chicks. The third graders did more than observe, however. They examined their structures, weighed the chicks to measure their growth, and noted their behaviors. The children named the chicks and sung lullabies to put them to sleep….okay, not scientific but oh, so cute! What a great way to start the Living Structures Unit in Science!
Growth Mindset
In Kindergarten children do not have a fixed mindset. Their mindset is 100% growth! They come to school thinking that they can learn and be successful! As children travel through life and reach third grade their mindset will have shifted to the point that their mindset is 42% fixed and 58% growth! Maintaining a belief system in students that they can be successful is crucial! The Class Dojo website is great for helping children develop a growth mindset. You can register as a parent if you wish, and explore with your child what the website has to offer! Each week an episode will be highlighted and discussed within this newsletter. We will also provided some questions to help you introduce the growth mindset language at home!
Sticky Business
Students in B-2 used a special feature of today, the autumnal equinox, to make the shadow of a stick completely disappear. The sticks were pointed south at a 50 degree angle because we are located on the 40 degree N latitude line. To do this experiment, we used a craft stick, a protractor, and a compass. At noon, the stick had no shadow at all!
Picture - Day Volunteers Needed
If you are available and interested in helping with our picture day routines, you can sign-up by clicking here.
School Pictures will be taken on Thursday, September 29th. Order forms should be on their way home today (Friday, 9/23). Please call or stop by the school's office if you need an additional order form.
Be Allergy Aware!
Due to varied allergy and dietary needs, please contact your child's teacher before sending in food for students in a classroom (e.g. birthday celebrations, class parties). Also, students should not share food at any time during school - even with a close friend. A seemingly harmless food item may unexpectedly contain allergens, or interact with other medical conditions. Depending on the health needs in the classroom, teachers may choose to avoid food-oriented experiences altogether.
Please see our guidelines for more information.
October PTO Meeting
Our next PTO meeting will be Wednesday, October 5th, in the teacher's lounge. We will have an executive meeting beginning at 9:15 AM, followed by a full membership meeting at 9:45. If we need more space, we will move to the cafeteria.
PTO Dinner Night @ Panera Bread
See our flyer for more information.
Thursday, Sep 29, 2016, 04:00 PM
Panera Bread, Lincoln Highway, Levittown, PA, United States
Locomotion, Space Ships and musculoskeletal propulsion systems
Students in kindergarten and first grade are learning loco-motor movements such as walking, galloping, hopping, jumping, skipping, sliding, jogging and running. We use “Space-Ships” (hula hoops) to help visualize moving in self space throughout the gym. As you can imagine, the concept of spatial awareness isn’t always easy for our youngest students to grasp. We played a game call Space Ship – One Whistle, Two Whistle. The object of the game was to move around the gym inside of a “space-ship” while performing different forms of locomotion each round. To make it even more challenging, the students had to respond to a whistle before moving. One whistle was the signal to “go”, two whistles was the signal to “freeze”. We have so much fun playing, we don’t even realize we are exercising! Encourage your child to practice their loco-motor movements!