Dear parents,

The first day back to school coincides with a solar eclipse. Although we are not in the path of the total eclipse, we should be able to see a partial eclipse of about 90% totality. Obviously, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and the school has purchased enough solar eclipse glasses for students and faculty.

Therefore, this will be a slightly unusual first day back. Apart from some brief getting to know you activities and introductions, we will be spending most of the day preparing for and observing the eclipse. Students will be given clear safety instructions about how to wear the glasses and not to look at the sun at any point during the eclipse. We will also spend some time constructing a pin hole projector. We can also use binoculars to project an image of the sun onto paper. Therefore, if you wish to send some binoculars in with your child, then we can organize this project.

This is a link to some good information that we will be using in class: http://static.nsta.org/extras/solarscience/SolarScienceInsert.pdf.

Monday is, like the rest of the week, an early out day. School will be finishing at 1 pm.

If you have any questions about the beginning of school, or the eclipse, then please email me.

Many thanks – John