**We are the world, we are the children... we are the solar system**


Yesterday Hannah put up the third grade's planets and sun on the wall. That's the sun on the top right. No Pluto anymore :( The kids made them in collage style with torn up paper. (Click on them to see.) Then Hannah attempted to laminate them... they did not all fit through the machine. Hence, Saturn's diminutive size relative to Uranus and Neptune. Saturn got caught in the jaws of the laminating machine and had to be cut down a bit. The sun, Jupiter and Neptune didn't make it through the machine at all. Uranus' rings were not glued down well enough so they folded under. Hannah cut the other two down somewhat but apparently, not enough. Didn't notice until she was four feet in the air on a ladder, with tape strips in one hand and a yard stick to pat down the tape in the other. Oh well!

You an also see the students heritage figures for social studies. Those came out really well. On Tuesday, our class took a field trip to the San Leandro History Museum. Hannah expected it to be a dull, local museum but it has such a good program! It's very interactive and the kids loved it. They acted out periods of San Leandro/California history in an accurate account in the morning. In the afternoon they played games from the past, washed clothes like "olden times" and created a firefighting team without hoses and trucks. They learned a lot more than they do with their book. They hate their social studies book. Too bad every town doesn't have a place like the museum.

Drew's problem areas are well enough he doesn't need to spend time in bed aside from sleeping. Being in bed for a couple of hours a day for these weeks definitely prevented tragedy.