Rainbow Ice Sculptures
For the 2017 Lantern Parade at UES
Sunday, February 19th
We need the entire UES community to help create the building blocks, literally, for a day of colorful construction on Sunday, February 19. It’s easy! Please save your ½ gallon milk and juice cartons, rinse them out, fill with water to the top of the rectangle (not all the way if there is a plastic spout!) and a dash or two of food coloring, and leave outside to freeze. Save and freeze as many blocks as you can between now and February 19th. Ask your neighbors to help, get your grandmother to make colorful ice blocks too! On February 19th, we will be building colorful ice sculptures and functional outdoor furniture at Union Elementary School, where the parade and winter festival will culminate the following week. You will be able to drop your ice blocks off the day before and that morning, and we would love you to stay to help build if you can. Dan Clar and Seth Mitchell will be our construction and engineering leaders. Building will be an all day project so feel free to drop ice blocks and go, come back later if your Sunday schedule allows. The plan is to make tables and benches, to function at the celebration, and other fantastic colorful forms to celebrate UES. All community members are invited to participate. Our inspiration is the 2012 Edmonton Rainbow Igloo, and while we won’t be making covered structures that can be entered, we will be making hollow forms that we will light up from within! Our sculptures will glow colorfully as the lantern procession reaches the UES playground on February23rd. The sculptures will remain as long as nature allows.
In 2015 we did the same project and the results were magical. Many families helped with the construction and it made for wonderfully fast work that we all could share and take pride in. We will expand our sculptures this year if we can gather more blocks!
What you can do:
1. Save and rinse as many ½ gallon milk and juice PAPER cartons as you can between now and Feb.19
2. (plastic jugs are problematic, not square, etc. please avoid!)
3. Open up tops, add water and some food coloring, place outside to freeze. Do not fill to the top if there is a plastic spout
4. Bring UNWRAPPED/REMOVED frozen blocks to the UES playground starting Saturday February 18th through Sunday morning, February 19th(drop off location will be obvious)
5. If you want to make colored ice spheres with balloons, any size will be welcome. Its easy, use the same method as above, but with a balloon instead of milk carton:-)
In our continued effort to show acts of kindness, first graders set out into the community this week to deliver food to the food shelf, and sing songs to residents at Heaton Woods Nursing Home. Our first graders even brought kindness notes and shared with all. I am so proud of these first graders for extending their heart to those in our community. And thank you to all the parents for your support!
Day in the Dark 
Last week, the Super Secret Detective Agency left us a number of word solving clues that led us to a special surprise in the hallway. Read the clues with your child and have them help you solve (click on picture to zoom in). The clues led us into the hallway where we found congratulatory bookmarks for all our hard work during this word detective unit. We have had a lot of fun playing around with words these last few weeks. One of our favorite games is "I SPY" with our snap words. Example, "I Spy a word that sounds like day, but has 4 letters and begins with a consonant blend." Have fun at home playing word games like I Spy with your child. 
Part of each day is focused on developing a sight word vocabulary. Kinesthetic learning is tied together in auditory and visual as students are introduced to new "snap words." We are working on both reading and WRITING these words - the latter a bigger challenge in first grade. If you are looking for sight words to practice with your child at home, be sure to let me know and I can share our newest lists with you. We have fun practicing these words daily. INQUIRE with your child how to play the game, "Sparkle."
Word Detectives have been voraciously tackling new and challenging words in their just right books. Students have learned a variety of strategies, from looking at beginning and endings to learning about vowel teams in words. As they add new strategies to their toolbox, students are able to tackle more challenging text and make improvements in their accuracy and fluency. I am so proud of our first graders and the progress they are making. Thank you so much for continuing to support your child at home. Take a closer look at these strategies your child has used (click on pictures) and watch them use them as they read to you at home. Hope you are having as much fun as I am watching them progress into readers! 
Here are just a few of our kindness elves who have been visiting our classroom each day. As the kids enter each morning, they look for the Kindness Elves, who mysteriously move hiding spots each day. They leave a message with a special task for all first graders to do for the day. Examples include: help a friend get ready for recess, share a smile, make a gift, walk with quiet bodies in the hall, etc. We have been fun earning a letter, which seems to be giving us a secret message about kindness. Students have also been exhibiting and helping all friends learn how to show acts of kindness throughout their day. Stay tuned....
Before the snow fell, students enjoyed learning about tending a fire during our ECO outing with Mrs. Dostie's class. It was a chilly day, and no better way to spend it then making hot tea. INQUIRE with your child what they learned about fire safety at Harrison. We were bummed to miss ECO last week, as this was our all day celebration with all first grade classes. We hope to reschedule soon, for a warmer day (negative temps didn't seem like fun with 80 kids...). 
