Week of April 9th

We kicked this week off with Hat Day! The kids loved being able to wear their hats to Town Hall, etc. Please keep the enthusiasm going and encourage your child to not only bring their hats but to wear them at lunch, recess, and PE. This helps to support and promote Sun Safety.

Tomorrow we are headed to the Dali Museum! Please remember that your child will need to bring a bag lunch unless they signed up to order a Sage lunch. Those forms were turned in a couple of weeks ago. It will be very helpful if you can pack stuff that can be thrown away so that we do not have tons of lunchboxes and items to be responsible for. Please also make sure your child's bag has their name on it. Thank you in advance! Please also remind girls who wear skirts or dresses to wear shorts underneath. We will be sitting on the floor.

African Animal Project
Last week the students chose what African Animal they would like to research. Once the chose the animal, they had to come up with a plan. They had to decide how they wanted to present their project and what materials they were going to need. I will be providing most of the materials - poster boards, paints, clay, etc. However, many of the students have decided to do dioramas. For this, they will need to bring in a box. It can be a shoe box or a bigger box, depending on what they would prefer. Some of the kids have asked to bring in materials from home to use. They are more than welcome to, please just send them in a baggie with their name on them so that we can store them here.

Last week the students were begging me to start researching. Well, today was the day for them and they were oh so very excited. We went to the computer lab and got started. I created a Symbaloo (linked on my blog) where the students went to to find information. They did an amazing job! They used a graphic organizer to organize their research. Here are some of the areas they researched:

• habitat (climate, terrain)
  
• human interactions
• food
• predators
• social structure
• physical description
• adaptations
• other interesting facts

The students also had some guiding questions to help them dive a bit deeper into these areas. I am so proud of them. This project will be done at school, however, you are more than welcome to talk about and learn more about these animals and their habitats with your child at home. Don't forget the guiding question: How does your animal's habitat affect its ability to survive?

Please see the letter below - very exciting:

Second Graders at Shorecrest have worked with Pollyzoom (Artist,
Paula Allen) to create art for an international art exchange with the
Boorai Children’s Art Gallery at the University of Melbourne,
Australia. The focus of the exchange is endangered animals in
Australia and here in the United States. Second graders created
drawings with art teacher Sue Rowe, which were then digitally shared
with Pollyzoom, who then created a giant mother earth and surrounded
her with the children’s drawings.

The collaborative mural between Pollyzoom, Shorecrest, and Family YMCA
of the Glens Falls Area after school program at Kensington Road School
in Glens Falls, NY is being shown at the World Awareness Children’s
Museum in Glens Falls, NY along with the art from the Australian
children. After it’s exhibition in New York, the children's art will
accompany the Australian art back to the University of Melbourne's
Boorai Gallery for another exhibition. On April 20th, Paula Allen will
return to Shorecrest to create a replica of the mother earth mural
that was created in the art exchange for Australia with Shorecrest
second graders.

You are invited to celebrate the art of the Shorecrest second-graders
and the international exchange at a reception on Saturday, May 19 from
11am-3pm at Davidson Fine Art, 1100 1st Avenue N. St. Petersburg, FL
33705. The public art reception will feature the art the Shorecrest
second grades created for the Australian exchange. Pollyzoom will also
be hosting Pollyzoom Live, which is a live art initiative for families
and children to create unique art together. Hope to see you there! For
more information on Pollyzoom, please visit www.pollyzoom.com or
www.facebook.com/pollyzoom.

Paula Allen
Artist
www.pollyzoom.com
Pollyzoomart@gmail.com


Jessica Davis (4th grade student), the Principal for the Day today, is asking that the kids continue to wear their hats this week. If classes have 100% participation in wearing hats for recess, lunch, and PE all week they will get ice pops again next Monday at lunch. She has also decided that the only homework tonight should be reading. Therefore, we will push our homework back one day each week. ABC and vocab will be tomorrow night, etc.

**Book orders are due this Friday.

Have a wonderful week!