We had so much to say about spring break we realized we should probably write it all down. Turns out we were pretty busy over the last ten days.  We've been to Denver, Hawaii, Zion National Park, Arches National Park, Las Vegas, and all around Aspen and Snowmass.  We've been to the zoo, seen sharks, gone swimming, skied, been in the car, been on the airplane, and caught up on sleep!

What did you do with your spring break?  I hope it was wonderful, exciting, and restful!  Here are a few pictures from mine.  It was certainly the most beautiful night for the Grand Traverse.

This morning we wrote all about our Buttermilk ski day  We tried to use our juiciest words.  Turns out we had a lot to write about the wonderful day.  Here's some of what we had to say:

"The Tiehack lift went straight up into the mist like it was floating up the mountain."
"On the chairlift the guy threw a shovel full of snow in my face!"
"The first run was not awesome...but the second run was awesome.  We got to do sick jumps."
"I hit the terrain park and got 10 feet of air."
"We got really stuck in the snow and had to dig ourselves out."
"The sky was really foggy.  It looked like it was pitch white, but luckily I had the right color lenses."

The perfect first grade ski day, with the perfect first grade class, on the perfect Buttermilk day, ripping some perfect spring powder.  Thanks everyone!  It was a huge success!

Quintin shared his super cool experiment with us.  He mixed hot water and copper sulfate together.  Together they made a blue solution.  He then filtered the blue solution into a jar and soaked a string in the liquid.  We're going to have to wait a while (maybe after spring break), but we're going to get some pretty cool crystals once the water starts to evaporate.  

We examined our fossils again and found some cool changes.  The gummy bears got even squishier.  The bread got even harder.  The gummy bears left their imprints on the bread and all of the colors were soaked up by the bread.  

Have you even made a fossil?  We started to today.  We're using gummy bears and bread. Pretend the bread is layers of sand and mud (sedimentary rocks) and the gummy bears are the bones, or bugs, or leaves, or other things that get fossilized.  We layered the bears and bear, we added a lot of pressure, we made observations this afternoon, and then decided our fossils needed a little more time to fossilize.  This is what we found so far...

The gummy bears left their imprints on the bread.
The bread got hard where the gummy bears were pressing.
The gummy bears got really sticky.
The gummy bears left rings on the paper, like glue.
The darker colored gummy bears left their color on the bread.

Today was a great day!  We worked so hard to stay focused and get our work done.  We had a lot of fun comparing Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree to the SOL Theater company's take on the book.  Turns out there were both a lot of similarities and differences.  We found some cozy spots around the room and got to work!

To start off our fun-filled Friday we had a surprise visitor.  Fourth grade teacher Denise came to read a book.  The Jan Brett favorite Hedgie's Surprise.

Little did we know, she had a surprise sleeping in her pocket.  Her hedgehog, Bentley, came to play!  We learned how to pet him and each got a turn.  Did you know hedgehogs are nocturnal. Bentley stays busy at night on his wheel.  His skinny little legs fun FOUR MILES every night.

Then we made our way down to Carbondale to see The Giving Tree.  The play was inspired by the Shel Silverstein's classic, filled with poems, and performed by some very talented kids!

Then Mr. G came.  We did the coolest experiment with floating water (but it was really more like a water fountain).  It tied in nicely to what we learned from Gavin.  Check out the pictures below and ask us to explain how it works.  Hint: air takes up a lot of space...