*Mystery Reader**

With so many great clues we had a hard time figuring out who our mystery reader was this week...

Thank you for reading to us,  Mrs. Craig!!  We loved listening to Franklin, The Berenstain Bears, and the
story about class picture day!

Fall Community Service Projects at Calvert

Fall Food Drive:

The Lower and Middle Schools will again be participating in the Fall Food Drive from October 14 – October 18. This year we are collecting fresh foods, which will provide less fortunate families at area city schools access to healthy food and produce. Great foods to contribute would be sweet potatoes, squashes such as butternut, acorn and spaghetti, and root vegetables such as radishes, parsnips, turnips and beets.  Other foods to donate are green beans, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, apples, and oranges. 

Fall Family Day:
Calvert will once again sponsor a Fall Family Day of Service on Saturday, October 19^th from 8:30-11:30 A.M. Please wear a Calvert t-shirt and join parents, teachers, and students (5^th Age-8^th Grade) as we work together to make contributions to our school community. 

This year in recognition of our neighbor’s patience during the recent construction, we are devoting certain activities to thanking our neighbors. Families will have the opportunity to participate in gardening and clean up around campus and the neighborhood. Please register on the Calvert website for this fun, worthy event. To ensure a successful community outreach day, please pre-register by October 14, 2013, for all activities in which your family plans to participate. 

If you cannot be with us but would like to contribute baked goods, we are also planning to offer complimentary breakfast treats and coffee to our neighbors.  

Thank you very much, the Calvert Outreach Program.

Our Butterfly is Here!!!

 We've waited two full weeks for our butterfly to emerge.  Here are pictures of what the chrysalis looked like just this morning...we knew it would appear soon because the chrysalis was completely black.

When the girls came back to the classroom from gym, our butterfly was here!!!

It took a few hours for its wings to dry out and for us to figure out that....it's a GIRL!!!  Our first girl butterfly!  And we were able to watch the entire life cycle: from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly.  Tomorrow we will name our beautiful monarch and release her in Molly's Garden.   

Happy Friday!

What a busy and fun week we have had together!!  We have learned five letters thus far in Calvert script…a, c, i, o, and t. The girls completed their very first Calvert script folder paper yesterday and learned how to write their first word in script (pictures below). They all did a beautiful job!

The 7^th Age are proud new parents of a baby boy monarch butterfly. 7-A has named him "C.S." and we released him yesterday for his long journey to Mexico.  Today, while the girls were in science, the second butterfly emerged from its chrysalis.  We will name him/her on Monday and release it too!

  

Earlier this week, we sent home a writing pad for your daughter to use to practice her script writing at home.  Next week we will learn more letters and start writing them in words and sentences!

A Look Ahead:

*Next Tuesday, we are having an assembly called “Music with Milkshake". There will be an acoustic guitar player and a vocalist. Should be a wonderful assembly!

*Next Friday, September 27th is PICTURE DAY. Please return your order forms to me.

Pictures of our first word in Calvert script on Spirit Day:

and a visit from The Calvert Bee!

Our First Butterfly Release

Thursday afternoon, 7-A's first butterfly emerged from its chrysalis!

We realized it was a boy because of the two black spots on the bottom section of his wings.  7-A named him "C.S." for Calvert School.  In the afternoon the entire 7th Age walked over to Molly's Garden to release C.S.  We read the story Gotta Go, Gotta Go,

which is about a caterpillar who knows from the day she was born that she has to go to Mexico.  C.S. took off on this same journey today.  It's close to 2,500 miles, over 2 months, to the mountains of Mexico where he will spend the winter.

Here are a few pictures of the release:

Our First Full Week!

WOW, we had a great first full week together!  We started working with our "Fine Motor Box" (pictures below), we met our reading and math teachers, and we had Mrs. Nichols visit us for a character lesson!  Our caterpillar is quietly on his/her (the girls named her "Stripey") "walk about" which happens right before they hang in a "j' and form their chrysalis- ask the girls all about it...they're Monarch pros!!

News and Notes:
*Please make sure you have submitted your "General Permission Form" to Mrs. Pietrowski.
*Please have your daughter send in her summer reading packet and math packet.  I am still missing a few.
*Picture Day is September 27th.  Please send in your order forms before that date.

A Look Ahead:
*Next week we will start learning Calvert Script!!
*We will meet our 10th Age Buddies on Thursday next week.
*Calvert Spirit Day is next Friday.  Wear black, yellow, and white!
*SAVE THE DATE:  October 8th, class field trip to Irvine Nature Center, 10:00am-12:30pm

nuts and bolts

stringing beads

playdoh

sorting pom-poms

golf tees and marbles

**Our First Mystery Reader**

Thank you Mrs. Cooper for coming in to read to us!
We loved listening to your back-to-school stories and receiving our fun school goody bags!
What a great way to start off the new school year!!

Happy Friday!

We have had another great week at Calvert!  We have been watching our monarchs develop; boy do they eat a lot of milkweed! We now have 2 chrysalises and 2 caterpillars.  Today we watched one shed it's skin!  So cool!!

Visiting the caterpillars in 7-A

Can you find our caterpillar in the picture??  He just finished shedding his skin, which you can see behind him.

We hope to begin with our reading and math groups next week. We will also start working with our "Fine Motor Box" to get our hands ready for learning Calvert script!

A Look Ahead:

Sept. 10th   Assembly on compassion

Sept. 20th  Calvert Spirit Day- dress down day, wear Calvert colors

Sept. 24th  Assembly, Music with Milkshake

Sept 27th   Picture Day

Thank you for attending our back to school night. Have a great weekend.

Playing in Our Classroom

We love having indoor recess in our classroom!  

We play with the Legos, dry erase boards, our stuffed animals, and Pick Up Stix.  

Working hard in 7-B

We loved reading the story Chrysanthemum and decorating our "absolutely perfect" names!