Dear Blossom Families,
The Blossoms are truly body experts! There are
without a doubt several future doctors, nurses, and
researchers among us. Curiosity and exploration
have successfully been guiding the body study for
nearly two months. We journeyed through the
digestive system, pulled on actual heart strings,
raised and lowered our heart rates with our
breathing, and ate the rainbow! Thank you to
everyone who made this unit so exciting and
special. Matt Braga, Taylor Stockton, Ekaterina
Urch, and Jen McCaffrey thank you again for
sharing your expertise with us!
Questions to ask your body expert:
- What happens to your dinner after you chew
it up and swallow it? - What would happen if you didn’t have any
bones? - What is the job of white blood cells?
- How does your heart change when you
exercise? Why? - What food groups does our dinner include?
This March we will be exploring our great Beaver
State and many of its important animal species. We
will begin with beavers–a keystone species that
creates invaluable habitat for many other local
species. Next to humans, beavers change their
environment more than any other animal. We’ll use
real artifacts, legends and observations of beavers,
and their homes and their habitats to investigate the
creatures that once dominated the West. As we
continue our study we will learn the life cycle of
salmon as they mysteriously move downstream to
the ocean and back again. Each year we are
reminded of salmon’s wonder and endless ways - they give life to our environment. Our third focus
- will be on the birds of Oregon, including the bald
- eagle and the impressive peregrine falcon. Zooming
- back to mammals, we will learn all about the
- beloved coyote, the legendary figure of great wild
- western America. We will make comparisons
- between this populous creature and the much more
- scarce gray wolf. We will fill our last week of
- Oregon animals with animals that can be found at
- the High Desert Museum, Brook and Pitch the river
- otters, Gert the gray fox, and porcupines among
- others! We are so excited to be going on a field trip
- towards the end of the month to visit these animals
- together. Permission slips and details coming soon!
- If you have any materials, items, stories or
- photographs to share please let us know!
- As the unpredictable weather continues, please
- label all clothing and cold weather accessories
- with your Blossom’s name. Showing them and
- talking to your Blossom about what their accessory
- labels look like is a great way to help them be
- successful. Thank you for your help!
- As always, we are so grateful to you for sharing
- your creative, kind, curious, clever, capable, caring
- children with us this year.
- We wish you well,
- Emily, Rachel, Kinderoo & Joey
