A perfect day for a field trip! Our class walked to and from the Vern Burton Center in Port Angeles last Friday to attend the children's show at the Juan de Fuca Festival. Despite our preparations for inclement weather, the sun insisted on shining for the duration of our mile long walk. After the show we took time for a picnic lunch on the manicured grounds outside the city council chambers. Passing motorists on both legs of the journey gave us wide birth to cross streets safely. On another note, Room 17 will keep its goldfish who have inhabited our classroom for at least five or six years!

The Crayfish and Snails have arrived! Living organisms in the classroom--and not simply goldfish--welcome the sunny weather in Room 17. The kids are learning about body structures, care and feeding, and the behaviors of crayfish and snails in Science. As they learned from sprouting seeds, animals, too, need food and water to survive, and the means of locomotion to get to it differ from one animal to the next. This kind of diversity in the animal world is one of the reasons this unit is one the students look forward to since the beginning of each year.

Using cubes to understand volume of three dimensional shapes, fourth graders construct rectangular prisms at their desks last week. On Monday we will walk to the high school to see the play "And Then They Came For Me: Remembering Anne Frank." We're looking forward to some good exercise to make us healthier as well as an interesting, informative play production.