March 3, 2000: Tunia arrived today. She was sent at the end of last week from New York. The children were very excited. Tunia got to see our students with sweatshirts and t-shirts with words on them. Tunia was very excited to read all the shirts and share in the massive reading going on. Tunia is going to enjoy an early spring in our area. The snow is melting about a month early here, but there are still a few huge snowhills to sled on. We will send snowy pictures of Tunia next. She will get to see the Sault Locks this weekend and visit some historic sites in our area. Next week we will send information about Tunia's visits and all she has learned about our very historic area.

Our Reading Month celebration has begun and we have a very happy Tunia picture to share. She is looking at our banner with the Reading month theme of Up up and away...in the new millennium!

March 10, 2000: Tunia has had an interesting week in Sault Ste. Marie. She experienced warm weather at the beginning of the week. It was unseasonably warm at 60 degrees. Tunia went outside with our class for recess. She got to climb a large snowhill on the playground and watch the children playing. The snowhill was taller than even the adults were. By the end of the week, winter came back with a 40-degree drop in temperature, snow, and blowing snow. We kept Tunia warm indoors. The snow that fell and the cold weather should last for awhile!

There is not much plant life anywhere as snow covers everything. Even the few warm days did not cause any sprouts to form. Sault Ste. Marie is a very flat area on the eastern part of the upper peninsula of Michigan. About the only thing that grows here is hay or straw. The growing season is very short. It lasts only from Memorial Day until September.

The children wore hats with words today. Tunia got to help read some of the words on the hats. The children helped her with some of the words.

Tunia is sitting on a snowhill watching her friends at recess.

Tunia poses with some of the hats on Hat Day.

March 15, 2000: Tunia had quite an adventure today. We had about a foot of new snowfall on Sault Ste. Marie. It was pretty exciting for everyone making snow angels again. This is not unexpected as the Sault area gets 150+ inches of snowfall every winter. We are very close to that now. Tunia got to frolic in the snow and feel the big snowflakes fall on her. As an added treat, our 4th and 5th grade students did their Science Fair projects today. We got to view them with our Reading Buddies from 4th grade. It was neat to see all the creative experiments. We especially enjoyed hearing about our buddies' projects. Our school has a Principal's Challenge for Reading Month. This year if our students read enough books to equal 1,000 Accelerated Reader points we can watch Ms. Homeister get married in the Gym on Friday. Tunia will get to go with us before she has to leave on her next destination. Our 350 students actually read 1,800 books, which equaled 2,018 points. How amazing in just 14 school days! Our class read 260 books. We are very proud.

Tunia and some of her friends from Michigan enjoy the snow.

Tunia poses with a science project at the Science Fair.

March 22, 2000: Our class really enjoyed Tunia's visit. She got to experience many different things in the Sault Ste. Marie area. Attached is a view of some interesting places in the Sault. The International Bridge is across the St. Mary's River and connects the 2 Saults together. We have Michigan and Canada within minutes of each other, We also saw the Valley Camp. It is an old ore freighter that serves as a tourist attraction to view what a lake boat is like inside and out. We also have a main Coast Guard base on the river. The ice breaker Mackinac is in port as the river opens up on March 25. Our river needs dredging so we have a machine that keeps the river deep enough for the big boats to pass through.

The International Bridge

The Valley Camp

The Ice Breaker Mackinac

The Coast Guard Base

Click on the flower to return to Tunia's main page.

Click on the arrow to go to Tunia's next stop - San José , California.