Firefighters Visit for Fire Safety

Today three of our local volunteer firefighters visited to teach us about fire safety.  Our first visit was with Firefighter Spivak who showed us all of the special firefighter clothing firefighters wear.  Special boots, pants, gloves and jacket...fire hood and helmet.  He also shared with children the importance of staying low in the event of a fire (crawl below the smoke) and that if you ever catch fire to STOP, DROP AND ROLL!

Then we went outside and Firefighter Jon showed us the fire truck...

and all of the tools on it.  The most popular tool was the large flashlight!  Everyone wanted a turn holding the flashlight!

Firefighter Jon let everyone have a seat in the fire truck!  Big smiles all around!

Finally, we checked out the heavy rescue truck that holds the medical gear.  There was a lot to see and hear!

At the end of the day, I passed out fire hats and activity booklets that the fire department sent over for us!  Many thanks to our Hineburg Fire Department!

We Have Butterflies!

Today I stopped by school to check on each chrysalis.  I wasn't surprised to find two beautiful butterflies!  I really wanted us to let them go together as a class, but...

I didn't want to leave them even one more day-just in case!  So, I let them go!  One flew right out of the plastic container!  I didn't even have time to take a picture!  The other other butterfly stayed for a few minutes!

This is the second Monarch flying away!

I followed it to the bushes right outside our classroom!  

For the next few weeks, I want to pretend that every Monarch we see outside our window is this one and it's coming back for a visit!  Safe travels!

Sprinkler Days!!!

I thought you'd enjoy seeing what sprinkler days look like at HCS! It was SO hot in our rooms this week!!!  We had sprinkler days on Wednesday and Thursday, but Friday was a bit cooler so we had popsicles (frozen yogurt) Friday afternoon instead.  Take a look at these happy, cool sprinkler faces!

 

And these faces!

Lots of shrieking and chasing the sprinler! 

Friends!

Wet?  Who me?

I love sprinkler days!

Get me wet!  No, don't get me wet!

So much fun!  Thanks for supporting sprinkler days!  

Monarch Caterpillars

As you can see, we have visitors this week!  Eli brought two Monarch caterpillars that he found last weekend!  When you see them attach and make this "J" shape, it's not long before they transform into the chrysalis form.  Yesterday the first of the two caterpillars transformed while we were all away at lunch.  Today I was determined we wouldn't miss it!  They start to wiggle a lot and you know it's going to happen soon...

Just as we began math the transformation started!  Math halted and we all watched as our caterpillar became a chrysalis!  The bottom splits and they wiggle the caterpillar skin up until it falls off with just the chrysalis left.

Here it's almost done.  Don't the kids look funny as seen through the plastic container?!!!  Now we wait again until we have butterflies!