Space Day!
Wednesday was SO MUCH FUN! We absolutely LOVED celebrating the end of our astronomy unit in reading by participating in Space Day activities. We knew it would be a busy and full day, and we needed to take care of a few things in the morning before the celebrations could really begin. But we handled everything like champs and got to have a memorable Wednesday before Spring Break.
We had to begin our day by taking our times test, spelling test, and our Unit 7 astronomy test. Phew! I know that seems like a lot of tests, but you guys did awesome. We had several students pass their times tests, even for only having 2 days to practice! We owe a couple more students some special lunches for passing their 9s.
We had several students go take their spring pictures with Susan in the morning. Then, we read a special story about Katherine Johnson, one of the most famous and important black women to ever work at NASA. Her mathematic skills and ingenuity for solving problems helped different Apollo crews make it home safely. Then we started watching the movie about her life, Hidden Figures. Before we knew it, it was time for recess and lunch!
We asked our specials teachers if we could bump everything up 30 minutes early since we had a full afternoon of Space Day to look forward to, and we are so lucky that they are flexible and willing to do anything for our students! In library, you entered into the Star Lab, an inflatable dome with a projector inside to show you the different constellations. Your teachers took a quick peek inside and we were very impressed with all the things you could learn in there - we even saw many of the same constellations we have learned about in class!
After specials, we started our special mission to the moon. The music room was divided into 2 parts: 1 for NASA and 1 for the astronauts on the Moon. It was important that EVERY single student read their instructions for their team carefully and follow all the steps so we could pass our mission! Some of the hardest parts were not being able to communicate with your teams over a video - the communication teams were kept VERY busy because they were one of the only teams who could talk to each other and pass messages back and forth. It became a little frustrating for some of you, but that just helped us realize that the real life workers at NASA have to be patient, too. There are definitely some challenges involved in sending astronauts up to space, and even though every team didn't pass their mission, we were able to plant the flag on the moon's surface, solve some tough math problems, build a crater lander prototype, study the phases of the moon using oreos, and write a history book about all the things that happened. We also need to thank our medical team for taking such good care of everyone so nobody got thirsty or sick during the mission!
Your teachers were so busy helping all the teams during the moon mission that we barely got any pictures, but here's a couple:
We ended our day by having a Color Run kickoff assembly, eating delicious birthday treats for Branson's birthday, and packing up our stuff so we could switch cohorts. We hope you have the most wonderful spring break ever - don't let the crummy weather take away from all your relaxation. When you return, we will hit the ground running with our last 9 weeks of 3rd Grade!