The Pre-K, Kindergarten and 1st grade have been learning about Tacoma native Dale Chihuly. During art class they have looked at his sculptures, watched videos of how his stained glass work is made, and looked at his vessels, called Maachia. The students made their own art work based on Chihuly’s glass, as they will tell you, part one, two and three. The kids are super excited about their “Chihuly’s” and will follow up their classroom study with a visit to the Museum of Glass to see his work and watch how glass is blown in the Hot Shop. (contributed by Ms. Head, art teacher)

 We celebrated our 100th day of school and Read Across America. Here we are counting out cereal rings in 10 groups of 10 and then threading them onto a string for a 100 piece necklace. Some of us realized we would need 1000 pieces of cereal to make all 10 necklaces. Scroll down for a picture of us in our Cat in the Hat hats holding some of our many Dr. Seuss books! Two great days in the Bumblebee class!

 We were so lucky that the weather was perfect for our day at the zoo. We saw some of the polar animals that we had been studying and many others. We listened to a docent talk at the aquarium and the tigers. We touched small sharks and rays, shark teeth and skin, and watched bigger sharks swim by us. The camel was nose to nose with some of us through a window and  the peacock spread its tail for us more than once!

 We had so much fun in our swimming lessons for PE these past few weeks. Everyone made progress and became more confident in the water.

 After hearing the book "Twenty-one Elephants and still standing" , the true story of the Brooklyn bridge the Bumblebees and friends built bridges. We used all our STEAM skills to design beautiful bridges that would be functional and carry weight. In the book, P.T. Barnum walks his 21 elephants across the new Brooklyn bridge to show that it is safe. So we lined up our animals on the bridges as well. We had some enormous successes!

 With the Mentors this week the Bumblebees and Ladybugs created helicopters. Starting from a rectangular piece of paper the kids cut, folded, taped and added a paper clip for weight. Then off they flew twirling through  the room. Sometimes that sent us back to the drawing board to tweak design or balance or size and soon they were flying again. We explored gravity, rotation and changing variables.

 Bumblebees enjoyed the cold weather this week. We were especially taken by the icicles that kept forming from this pipe. We also watched as liquid matter (water) turned to solid matter (ice) right outside our door then back to liquid when we brought it inside! We learned that snow forms when gas (water vapor) freezes without turning into liquid form (rain) first.