Newsletter

 

Chilly greetings, families!

 

Despite the frigid temperatures outside, the Rushmore House has been warm and busy! 

 

This week we've been embracing the winter weather. We have continued our experiment with gloves and balloons filled with water. Last Friday we poured the liquid inside and put them right outside our door. When we came back together this week we checked on them. The experiment was covered in snow, which showed just how cold it stayed while we were away! First we observed the gloves and balloon with our eyes. They looked similar to how we left them on Friday. Then we felt them with our hands, and they felt much harder and colder than last week. Then we cut open the gloves and balloon. Our friends were excited to discover that the water turned into ice! We learned that this process is call freezing. As we discussed what the ice looked like uncovered, the teacher held it in their warm hands. The ice started to drip since we were warming it up, so we observed as the ice began to melt. We then continued the experiment for the rest of the week, putting the ice back outside overnight and checking on it in the morning. We made predictions on what would happen to the ice as it sat in the very cold weather. Some people thought it would melt, some thought the ice would get bigger, and some thought it would explode. Each day we observed differences in the ice. Notably, the "fingers" from the gloves eventually broke off, and overnight they froze together. Each day that we checked, some of the ice melted inside then froze again once outside. We noticed how the ice changed shape according to how much water had melted. We were, however, slightly disappointed to find that the ice did not explode.

 

During centers time we continued with this theme. We made ice cubes filled with liquid water colors, then used them to paint on paper. As our friends held the ice cubes they melted and made it easier to paint with. We also filled tubs up with snow, and buried dinosaurs at the bottom. Our friends had fun making the snow melt and move it around to uncover the dinos. Also continuing with our line theme from last week we used lines to complete drawings of faces. Our friends decided what kinds of lines to use to make a mouth, eyebrows, hair, and chose whether they wanted to add a mustache or earrings to the face.

 

Finally, you may have heard that there was a visitor this week. Dafne came to our classroom Wednesday and Thursday since her family recently moved to the area. All our friends were very excited for this visitor and worked hard to be kind and welcoming. They all had so much fun with Dafne and we hope to see her again soon.

 

Please pull your car all the way up during drop off and pick up time so there is more room for cars behind you. Thank you!

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