Reading is Fundamental

In the days leading up to February vacation, a lot of special things happened at the Perkins School. If you scroll back to a few of our older posts, you'll remember the firefighters' visit to Ms. Haney's class and the beginning rehearsals for Evacuation Day, the Musical! We didn't have the time or space to let you know everything as it occurred. So this week, we're reporting on some of those other events. Monday's post was about the Magic Show.



















Today we're showing you our special version of Reading is Fundamental Day--all the readers who came to visit our classrooms were men and women in uniform. We also had a canine visitor as well, but Yahtzee didn't do any reading. She has another job. When she's not visiting kids in school, she works with Officer Cunningham to sniff out the causes of fires around our part of Massachusetts. She has worked to find the cause of over 350 fires in the last four years.

After Officer Cunningham read a book about firefighters to the kindergarteners, he decided to show them Yahtzee at work. He gave a few of them little sticks with a drop of a chemical on them. Then he went into the hall so the kids could hide them wherever they wanted...























...Meanwhile in Ms. Muenkel's class, State Trooper Ahearn was already answering some questions from the fifth graders. This time Reading is Fundamental Day was also doubling as a job fair, giving the kids a chance to learn about different jobs for the future.

Officer Ahearn was telling the kids that getting good grades and learning discipline would help them, whether they wanted to be a state trooper, a doctor, or get a scholarship to play basketball in college.

And...


















...in Ms. Murphy's class, some of the second graders were reading along with Officer Mitchell, who is a security guard at Longwood Security.



















After reading and talking about her future career in the Air Force, ROTC Cadet Krause got some hugs from Ms. Haney's first graders--and her picture taken.

























All over the school, in every class, kids were learning about new jobs and reading new books. Ms. Meadow's class was especially lucky. They had two readers, and got to hear the first chapter of The Hobbit! Meanwhile...






...Yahtzee was working hard in the kindergarten. She found every tiny stick that the kids tried to hide.

She did her job, and why not? Each time she discovered a new one, she got lots of pets--and a treat!

Save Energy. It's Magic!

In the days leading up to February vacation, a lot of special things happened at the Perkins School. If you scroll back to a few of our older posts, you'll remember the firefighters' visit to Ms. Haney's class and the beginning rehearsals for Evacuation Day, the Musical! We didn't have the time or space to let you know everything that happened. So this week, we'll report in on some of those other events.



















One of the wonderful things about having Phase 1 of Old Colony done is that we finally have an auditorium--even if it's across the block. The Tierney Learning Center was built so people from our community could have a place to meet and, well, learn. That's what our first and second graders did.


















The Perkins's very first use of Tierney's big meeting room was to meet with Joules the NSTAR Energy Wizard. Joules showed the kids some magic tricks. He made the Earth disappear, which was quite a trick even if it was a small wooden version. He turned ice into water and then back to ice again.


















He also taught the kids to be energy wizards. He told them some amazing tricks about saving energy. Saving energy means saving money, but it also saves the Earth. When you save energy, there will be more left for later.























When you go the fridge because you're hungry, for example, don't leave the door open while you are making your snack. Leaving the refrigerator open is like trying to cool down your entire kitchen. Shut the door!

When you use lights and you are done being in that room, turn them off!


















Also, if every American home replaced just one old light bulb with a new fluorescent one, we would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year. People would save a lot of money too.





By the end of the show, kids had learned to be energy wizards. Let's hope they shared some of their new tricks with the rest of their families.

We're on Vacation!

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!