Thank you to families for coming out to the Lewis Annual Art Night 2012 and to the children who shared their art expertise as Docents:) This wonderful night at Lewis was made even better by the great music, (made possible by our amazing music teacher, Mr. Jamesbarry), and the delicious donated desserts served at the Paintbrush Cafe. A special thanks to second grade teacher, Mrs. Swan, for once again spearheading this event. I am inspired and  already researching new art activities for my students next year! This week and on through the next 4 weeks of school, our classroom will be bustling with projects and activities. In science, we have many interesting insects growing and changing in our classroom "laboratory":) The students are caring for and observing crickets, silk worm eggs, meal worms and an assortment of visiting insects brought to us from home and our playground including some beautiful snails. We are in need of mulberry leaves to feed our Silk Worms when they hatch. If anyone has access to these please let me know. In math we continue learning about geometric shapes and their attributes. Our new focus this week is on number operations and  fractions. Please talk to your children about reading a traditional clock face, especially identifying on the hour and half hour time positions. Connecting time with events is especially meaningful for our little ones. In writing, we are paying extra attention to rereading for meaning and checking to be sure our mechanics are correct. I am planning a trip for the students to The Oregon Zoo in early June so please let me know if you have a Zoo pass you would like to use and/or if you would like to Chaperone. Keep a look out for paper work coming home this week. As the spring days warm up and first grade , some of the children are becoming restless and at times cranky in the classroom. any are "burning the candle at both ends" as they are playing sports after school and weekends.