It has been an exciting week of observations and excitement!  Our long wait was over Monday, when we welcomed our newest classroom family member, Turbo Blossom!  Luke discovered our small little friend crawling around in our makeshift hatchery.  Our musk turtle hatchling was voted in as "Turbo," but with such a passionate argument that it could be a girl, we adopted "Blossom" as a second name (T.B. for short).  If you haven't had a chance to stop in to see our little friend, you are welcome to stop by when you have a chance.

Our first Expert of the Week this week, John, explained his love for building legos.  He brought in a few examples of his handiwork and a great book of lego building examples.  Thank you, John and family for starting off our expert weeks!  On Thursday, we filled John's bucket with reasons why he is such a great friend to all in the classroom:

On Thursday afternoon, we walked to the library and visited the public safety building.  As one of our little friends commented, "That was a great trip-better than recess, but the walk seemed like we were walking through the Sahara for 8 hours." We had A LOT of sunshine on our way back :).  Please go to my website (click here) to view a slideshow our pictures from our trip.  Our first graders were stunned/amazed to learn from Ms. Morgan, one of the children's librarians, that library cards were *free*, that you can check out up to 100 books at a time and they have over 40,000 books in our library.  I also learned few things, even though I've been visiting this fabulous library since my girls were babies: 

• They have backpacks with birdwatching materials (bird books with bird calls, binoculars, etc) to check out for 3 weeks at a time behind the desk in the children's section.
• They have mp3 little mini-players which you can check out that contain one book on each player.  Simply plug in headphones, press play and listen! 
• They also have an amazing variety of books on CD to check out, which, paired with the book, would be a fun way to experience books in the car and at home as well.

Our trip to the public safety building led to interesting and fascinating tour behind the scenes.  One of the Officers and a Sergeant gave us a walk through of their living room/kitchen area that they use, conference room, showed us where they store evidence and the garage for their vehicles.  Our first grade friends also were able to climb through the the air boat and one of the firetrucks!  We learned that all of our public safety officers are certified police officers, firefighters and medics on 24 hours shifts.  We are fortunate to have such prepared, professional public safety officers serving our community.  What a great trip!  Our line leaders on the walk home:

Thank you for beginning the IXL math program with your child at home.  To get to IXL, you can go to my website or simply type in www.ixl.com, type in your child's username and password (located on your child's calendar at the bottom).  Go to 1st grade and have fun!  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me anytime.

Parent Volunteers:  Please check the calendar on the left hand column on the blog to see if the time/dates that I've written down for your work.  If you have a moment, please shoot me an email just to confirm that they do or do not work for you!  Thank you!

Next Tuesday afternoon, we will be having our 1st grade Apple Exploration Extravaganza!  Today, your child is bringing home a note with a few important things to bring for Tuesday.  We will be exploring the inside of apples and making apple prints in our room, taste testing and graphing with Mrs. Hitchcock and making apple cider with Mrs. Sawade!  Thank you to Emily (Will's mom), Rachel (John's mom), Katrina (Tess's mom) and Sue (Trent's mom) for helping us out that afternoon.

On Monday, Wealthy Elementary will begin collecting spare change for the Hearts of Gold campaign.   This year’s Hearts of Gold- Playing for Health and Happiness – will benefit The Mental Health Foundation of West Michigan.  The Mental Health Foundation shares the Hearts of Gold mission for healthier and happier children.  The Mental Health Foundation raises awareness of mental health issues.  The Be Nice campaign teaches students to be a positive force in order to reduce bullying situations, which can have devastating effects such as depression and suicide.  In order to bring this awareness to an elementary level, we will have two buckets in our room to collect donations with this slogan:  We know pets fill our buckets.  Which warms your heart more - Dogs or Cats?  Let the friendly competition between cats and dogs begin :).  The campaign ends October 25th.  

Have a beautiful fall weekend!