October 4, 1999

Dear Friends,

We are second graders at St. Bridget Catholic School in Hobart, Indiana. Hobart is in the northwestern corner of Indiana. Hobart is a small city and is hard to find on many maps. We are next to Gary, Indiana which is a big city. We are 35 miles southeast of Chicago, Illinois. Chicago is a very big city and easy to find on most maps. Hobart does not have many tall buildings. We have many parks and trees. We are very close to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, which is a national park. We go there on field trips to learn about forest animals, farming a long time ago, and Indians. The leaves on the trees have started to change colors. It looks very pretty when the green leaves change to colors of red, gold, yellow, and brown. We have been having weather in the 60's and 70's. However, it will soon start to get much cooler.

We have kindergarten through eighth grade in our school. We also have a preschool here too. We have 2 all day kindergarten classes, 2 second grades, and 2 third grades. All the other grades have just one class each.

One of our favorite activities in school is working in the computer lab. We have a brand new computer lab this year. We get to go to the lab every day. We enjoy using Kid Pix, Type to Learn, Sammy's Science House, and Microsoft Word in the lab. Mrs. Groff, our computer teacher, has told us that we will learn to do many more things in the computer lab. We are excited about getting e-mail.

Right now we have both Abbey and Addey and their mother Goldie in our classroom and computer lab. When we started school Mrs. Groff told us that we would have some special visitors, but she did not tell us right away that they were going to be dogs! They are not real dogs. They are Beanie Babies. They are Cocker Spaniels. Abbey and Addey are twins and they look just like their mother Goldie. They are small and easy to carry in our back packs. We have been taking turns taking them home so they get use to new places and leaving their mother Goldie.

We are excited about sending them to your classrooms, but we will miss them. Abbey will be going to Zion Lutheran School in Dallas, Texas. Addey will be going to Sontag Elementary School in Rocky Mountain Virginia.

We will write more tomorrow.

Love,

Abbey, Addey, & The Second Grades

October 5, 1999

Hi Friends,

We have been learning about safety in school. We have talked about bus, playground, and walking safety rules and traffic signs and what they mean. We made the pups pay very close attention. We wanted to be sure they would know what to do to be safe and avoid accidents while they were on their adventures.

Love,

Abbey, Addey, & The Second Grades

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October 6, 1999

Hi Friends,

We talked about how to take special care of pets. We talked about many things we could do to take good care of our pets. We picked two things that we would like to share with you.

Pet Care Tips:

• Remember that pets have feelings too. Always treat your pets with love and kindness.
• Always make sure your pets have water to drink. During warm weather be sure to give them fresh water often.

Love,

Abbey, Addey, & The Second Grades

October 7, 1999

Hi Friends,

Abbey and Addey have been enjoying many of our second grade activities. We have music and gym twice a week. We have art once a week. We go to the computer lab everyday. We have special teachers for our special classes.

We write in our journals every morning. We have been learning about plants in science, and our community in social studies. Abbey and Addey always enjoy reading books with us.

Our weather has been cool and it has been raining for the past two days. We hope the sun comes out real soon.

Love,

Abbey, Addey, & The Second Grades

October 8, 1999

Hi Friends,

We have been busy this week. We made a book for Abbey and Addey, so they would remember us while they were traveling to all the different schools. They will have the book we made in their box so you can read it when they come to your room. We wrote about ourselves so you would get to know us. We each took a picture with the pups to paste into our story. We did those things in the computer lab. In our classroom we each drew a picture of a place at school so the pups could remember the fun they had with us.

Today we had a Food Festival at lunch time. We all brought in healthy food to share with the whole class. We had lots of fun and ate a lot of healthy, yummy food.

We are sad that the pups will be leaving us. However, we are excited because we are looking forward to following their adventures at your schools through the e-mail that you send us.

Please take good care of the pups. Please give them lots of tender, loving care while they are at your school.

Love,

Abbey, Addey, & The Second Grades