Our Winter Olympics Kickoff!

This week, many of the classes at SMS celebrated the start of the 2018 Winter Olympics by decorating their doors and joining everyone for our very own Opening Ceremony!

The Giraffes are representing Germany, and we were very lucky to have one of our family members (Mrs. Kersten) come in to tell us all about Germany and where she grew up. 

Mrs. Kersten is from Schleswig-Holstein, which is the northernmost state in Germany and is home to Haithabu, the oldest viking village in the world! After showing us where Germany and Schleswig-Holstein were on a map, she told us about its climate, food, wildlife, and she even showed us a day in the life of a student in Germany as well as some activities german students like to play for fun! We learned that students in Germany start their day with a big breakfast at home, and then they walk to school with all the supplies they need for the day. They get to leave for the day around noon-time, when they get to go home for lunch! 

Afterwards, Mrs. Kersten helped us make some cuckoo clocks to hang on our door, which are thought to have originated in Germany!

We also decorated our doorway to represent Germany (Which is Deutschland in German!) and we will be cheering them on during the Winter Games in PyeongChang. Here are just a few of the other countries being represented on the doors at SMS:

On Friday, we marched down to the cafe in our Alpine Hats for our Parade of Nations and Opening Ceremony! 

We got to sit with our friends from the Swiss Alps! 

Eric Flaim, who is an SMS parent, joined us for our Opening Ceremony as he shared his journey as an olympic speed skater with us. He showed us his Silver Medals from the 1988 and 1994 Winter Olympics! Before bringing our ceremony to a close, Mr. Flaim shared a very important message with all the SMS Wolves:

"Have a dream. Have a goal. Write them down and don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it."

Thank you to Mr. Flaim and Mrs. Kersten for helping us kick off our study of the Winter Olympics. Go Team Germany and Team USA!! 

Me On The Map

We have been learning a lot about our community and where it is. We read the book Me On The Map by Joan Sweeny. We talked about the character's spot on the map and compared it to our own. While the character lived in a different city and state as us, we both lived in the U.S.A. After discussing the book, we created our own spots on the map based on where we live.

We drew pictures of our houses and streets and we drew pictures to symbolize our town of Stratham, our state New Hampshire, our country The U.S.A, our continent of North America, and of our Planet Earth. We put all of these together to create our spots! 

Over the next few weeks, we will continue to explore our community and our country as well as learn a little bit about the other continents around the world. Everyone really enjoys learning about our state as well as the other 49 by using the app Stack The States. Check it out!