Field Trip Follow-Up

Recently, kindergarten traveled to a New Hampton sugar house to see how sap is turned into maple syrup. In ICT classes, they used their blossoming TuxPaint skills to draw and write about the experience.

Reach For The Stars!

The Reach for the Stars reading challenge is on!! Get ready for it by signing up some relatives or friends to sponsor your reading. In the next two weeks, read or be read to for 300 minutes. Log your reading time on the journal page you got at school. On April 3rd, the last day of the challenge, fill out your paperwork and collect your sponsor's donations to bring into school the next day.

Don't forget to choose free books here - worth 50% of whatever you collect for pledges!

Brand New Books!

The newest book in the NHCS Library Media Center is Tucker's Countryside, the sequel to A Cricket in Times Square! What's a sequel, you say? It's a book that continues the story of another book by the same author. And this book continues the story of Chester Cricket, the spring after he gets back to Connecticut. Tucker is in this book, of course - and so is Harry Cat. Is that Tucker on the cover? It looks like he's in some kind of trouble!

Here's part of the blurb from the back cover of the book:

Chester Cricket needs help. That's the message that John Robin carries to the Times Square subway station where Harry Cat and Tucker Mouse live. Quickly, Chester's good friends set off on the long, hard journey to the Old Meadow, where all is not well. 

This book isn't a Newbery Honor Book like A Cricket in Times Square. But it's a New York Times Book of the Year - and that's good! Check out Tucker's Countryside next time you come to the Library Media Center!

Also new to the library are Chester Cricket's New Home and Chester Cricket's Pigeon Ride. Come on into the Library Media Center to borrow either of these books. I'd love to have a guest blogger post reviews of one or both of these books!

Josh's Slideshow

During Winter Activities last month, Josh was in the Photography group that met weekly with Mr. Peringer and me. After he learned to use the camera, Josh ventured out around school and took many pictures, some of which were used on the school website! At his last photography session, Josh created this "Mystery Slide Show." He shows a close up of an unidentified item, then shows the same item photographed from a distance. See how many pictures you can identify. Way to go, Josh!

Seuss Quiz!

Dr. Seuss is everywhere this week with Read Across America events happening! How much do you know about Dr. Seuss? Take this quiz to find out!

Iditarod 2011

image: CC-BY Frank Kovalchek

Tomorrow is the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the annual race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. The official start will come on Sunday. Before vacation, Mrs. Sawicki met with third, fourth, and fifth graders to show students the official web site for the Iditarod, to give them some background information and history about the race, and to have them choose a musher to follow. It's easy to get caught up in the race - it's full of sportsmanship, extreme weather, adverse conditions, long lonely distances between checkpoints, and lots and lots of dogs! During the ten or so days that the race traditionally runs, Mrs. Sawicki posts daily information about standings and locations on a central bulletin board in the main hallway of the school. Students can use the website to read about daily events, calculate distances, prizes, and monetary costs to the mushers, and watch interviews by mushers as they stop at checkpoints along the trail. If you'd like to keep up with the race at home, the official website is iditarod.com. It makes for great dinnertime conversation since so much happens over the course of 24 hours!

A sidenote: for the last four years, the Iditarod has been won by a Lance Mackey, a consumate musher and cancer survivor from Alaska. He's the man to beat this year - and that should make the 2011 Iditarod all the more interesting!

For the kids, here's the 2011 Iditarod's youngest musher, Cain Carter, talking about his hopes for the race.