Happy Holidays!

Week 16 was a blur of snow, snow, and more snow! We hope everyone has a safe and happy winter break. We will see you back on January 6th.

Week fifteen 2008

Here are some highlights from week fifteen! Theme: 7 Continents & 4 Oceans

Focus: Asia, Australia, and Africa Number: 19 and teens review

Classical composer: Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was an Italian composer who created 39 operas as well as sacred and chamber music. His best known operas are Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and Guillaume Tell (William Tell). As you can see from the video, the children had a great time reenacting the finale to the William Tell Overture as the cavalry comes to free the oppressed! Hi, Ho!! . Table Activities: The children worked their fine motor muscles stretching rubber bands onto various cans, working on wooden puzzles, making long chains with plastic links, and stringing beads to make bracelets, necklaces, and head bands. . Music: In addition to listening to William Tell, the children also heard a child’s brief version of the opera and had great fun pretending to be William shooting an apple off his own son’s head and riding horses with the cavalry to save the day. We also talked briefly about Figaro, the main character from The Barber of Seville. We listed to Figaro’s not-so-humble opening song in English… “...Everyone loves me, everyone wants me, everyone calls me…Fi-ga-ro…Fi-ga-ro…Figaro, Figaro, Figaro…..” The children also had fun keeping the beat with rhythm sticks to “Epo I Tai Tai E”, a traditional Maori song, which translated means “We will not be sad, we will be happy!” The song also features a cool instrument called a didgeridoo. The children learned how this instrument was originally made by termites! . Art: Miss Cristina worked with the children on drawing skills, using many of the skills built upon from previous weeks. The children worked with pencil and paper to draw shapes and make the shapes into objects, such as boats, people, and suns. Each child had an opportunity to show their drawing in front of the class and talk about what they drew. . Theme: Miss Cameron shared her beautiful silk fan from China and the children created their own version using liquid water colors, filter paper, cardstock and craft sticks.

They listened to lullabies from China and Tibet while creating dances to the peaceful music. We also listened to a fun song about saying hello in China called “Ni Hao” and “Do the Monkey” which talks about monkeys, elephants, and tigers. As we shifted focused down under, the children learned about the Great Barrier Reef and how amazing it is. We looked at different shapes of coral such as fan, elkhorn, brain and rod corals. They created a reef with construction paper, sand, pipe cleaner coral, and shimmery craft paper creatures. As you can see from the photos, they are all wonderfully unique. See if you can pick out the example from the photos!

We listened to and "Waltzing Matilda" and "Kookaburra", two favorite Australian songs. For Africa, we learned a song called “Jambo, Bwana” from Kenya. The song helped the kids learn some Swahili words and was a fun way to dance and sing. We also listened to Raffi’s “Anansi” about the African spider legend. . Storybooks: Yoon and the Christmas Mitten, Neptune’s Nursery, What Do You Do With a Kangaroo?, Anansi the Spider, Anansi Goes Fishing

. Math: We made #19s by pasting the nine over the zero. Then we reviewed the teens by playing a game. The kids had all the numbers 1-9 and teacher called out the name of a number (i.e. “13”). The kids took the correct number and pasted it over the zero. It is amazing how well they understood and completed the task. Their understanding, correct identification and awareness of these numbers 11-19 have progressed significantly over these several weeks…it’s exciting to see! . Free-Play Fun: The children love to pretend play with each other and we have relaxed our rules for the reading loft to include some quiet play up there as well as reading. The kids also had great fun this week playing with tunnels and pop-up toys and using the light-up globe to pretend to travel to different lands. The HWT wood pieces also continue to be a big hit!

Weeks thirteen & fourteen 2008

Week 14 Theme: 7 Continents & 4 Oceans

Focus: Introduction to 7 Continents & 4 Oceans, Peoples of the World, Animals of the World Number: 18

Classical Composer: Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). An Austrian composer known as the “Father of the Symphony”. We listened to many beautiful pieces of music and practiced picking out the sounds of different instruments. . Table Activities: Together, we assembled a floor puzzle. The students chose one depicting the universe, which led to an amazing, student-driven discussion! We also had fun playing with count and sort boxes of fruits & veggies, dinosaurs, and farm animals. . Music: We enjoyed practicing for our family night performance and hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. Your children are amazing! We also sang the Seven Continents Song (to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ballgame): Let’s name all of the continents There are seven on earth

There’s Europe & Asia, Australia North and South America Now, don’t forget about Africa and Antarctica, too! For there’s 1…2… 3, 4, 5, 6…7 continents! . Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to sculpture and they observed the differences between “flat” pictures and 3-D creations of art. The children drew their own idea for a sculpture on paper, and then used modeling clay to create their idea. It was wonderful to see their imaginations at work. They brought home their clay and will hopefully spend more time creating wonderful 3-D sculptures. . Handwriting and Reading: We used letter magnets of the sound train sounds, /m/, /s/, short /a/, long /e/, /t/, /r/, /d/, short /i/ to make words. It’s fun to see the kids using these well-known individual sounds to read words. . Theme: The children created their own reference map which hopefully made it home and is displayed where they can see it and review the labels frequently. We are amazed by their memories and demonstration of the power of early introduction. Many schools do not introduce such concepts until the upper elementary grades. We ask, “Why not?” They can learn it and love it! This week we also made paper dolls representing North American, South America, Asia, and Europe. They loved dressing up their dolls and seeing the similarities and differences between people in our own classroom as well as photos from around the world. One of our very favorite activities was ‘flying to the continents”. Miss Cameron cut large continents from fleece and our green carpet room became the earth. The children took turns pretending to be airplanes flying from continent to continent and the others would call out the name where they landed! .

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We also used the fleece continents to sort animals of the world and used the paddles to practice continent ocean? We used our ginormous blow-up globe ball many times this week to have fun with naming the continents and oceans. . Storybooks: Bright Stanley, I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean, Whoever You Are by Mem Fox, Rumble in the Jungle, Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett, Head to Toe by Eric Carle.

. Math: We made #18s by pasting an eight over the ones place in the number 10. The kids have done this now 8 times to make numbers 11-18 and are very proficient at this activity…they get right to work with confidence when they see the worksheet! This repetitive demonstration of the tens and ones place will lead nicely into learning the number 20 next week. We believe that an early understanding of the numbers will contribute to a solid foundation of math skills. Each student has progressed in awareness and understanding at their individual level of learning through these exercises. We hope you’ve noticed a difference! . Free-Play Fun: The children used the handwriting wood pieces to free create some very interesting shapes. We also got out the paper tubes and balls, which for some end up becoming long paper arms. The children have fun pretending to be robots, or knights, or whatever fits their imagination. (Ironman comes to mind! Not that any of our students have seen the movie, but apparently the idea of this action-hero is a big hit! Misses Tracy and Cameron got some great chuckles!)

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. Week 13 Since this “week” was actually one day, here are a few brief notes about our day, focusing on Thanksgiving! . The children created Thanksgiving coloring books with many of the themes we discussed today, such as a Mayflower, the Pilgrims, the Indians/Native Americans, and the cornucopia with the plentiful harvest. We did some research and made sure to tell the children factual things about their history. (For example, did you know that the pilgrims did not wear black clothing and hats with buckles as depicted in almost every Thanksgiving decoration? Instead, they wore a variety of rich colors!) . We completed a cornucopia craft overflowing with foods the pilgrims and Native Americans ate. (They enjoyed lobster and fish, as well as turkey and deer for their feast…no popcorn or potatoes, either!) The word “cornucopia” means “horn of plenty” in Latin and was a shape of basket they gathered and stored their harvest in. . We practiced some songs about sharing and kindness “I Am Glad for Many Things” and “A Special Gift is Kindness” and read a few books, the favorite being Run, Turkey, Run! . We all enjoyed pretend play with the play kitchen, cash registers and play food. It is fun to see the progress in social skills as we do these fun activities.

Week twelve 2008

Congratulations to the Jossart family. Baby Anna Grace was born Friday, November 14th at 7:45 PM. She weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces and was 21 inches long. The picture of Kristen holding Anna is just minutes after she was born and the others are of 12-hour-old Anna at home with her family. We wish you much joy! . . Theme: Fall Days Focus: Leaves & trees, bears and squirrels getting ready for winter, turkeys Numbers: 15, 16, & 17 Classical composer: Bedřich Smetana (1824 -1884) was a Czech composer, one of the most significant that his country has ever hosted. He is best known for his symphonic poem Vltava (also known as The Moldau from the German), the second in a cycle of six which he entitled Má vlast ("My Country”). To hear a sample, please follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlLPLO90fSk&feature=related . Table Activities: We created autumn, winter, spring, and summer trees with felt boards, felt trunks, felt leaves, blossoms, and snow. We also used strawberry pickers to pick up and sort colored pom-poms. The magnetic puzzles helped the children practice sorting colors, counting to 12, and matching letters. Pipe cleaners were fun to make into all sorts of creations including letters & numbers, rocket ships, animals, and trees. We let the children bring their favorite design home. . . Music: We enjoyed Smetana’s “Die Moldau” several times this week. We’ve also been learning several songs this week that will be performed at family night. You may have heard something about a squirrel shaking its tail, perhaps? The children are enjoying taking turns being the leader for the songs. . Art: Miss Cristina showed the children some more unique paintings using primary colors. The children used another primary color, red, to work on their canvas. They painted using leaves and sticks as tools to make interesting shapes and lines. . Handwriting and Reading: Reading: We added the /d/ sound to our sound train, with “Desiree” as our picture association and also reinforcing the “dee /d/ dee, a donut hits a wall” image. For reading practice we used turkey cut-outs to play a matching game—match the upper- and lowercase letters. We got into some very tricky ones, like Q, q and N, n. We really over-emphasize the mouth, tongue, lip placement of letters to help the children not only learn to say the letter sounds correctly, but differentiate between the subtle distinctions. Having them do this in front of a mirror at home is a great activity and fun for all, especially when getting to the /th/ and seeing the spit fly! Handwriting: Wet-dry-try, flannel board letters . Theme: Our tree craft was interesting. As you see from the master version, the children were to cut their trees, glue them, and then use small sponges to stamp the leaves. The children really used their own sense of creativity to design their autumn trees. As you can see, they are unique! . . This week we also used Play-doh to make acorns for the squirrels. In the green carpet room, we pretended to be “Little Feather”, a young Indian brave who hears lots of sounds in the forest, then happens upon a bear sleeping in a cave. We created the turkey headbands and had fun pretending to sleep, eat and run around the range. .

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Storybooks: Leaves; Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf; The Leaf Man; Bear Snores On; Run, Turkey, Run! .

Math: Numbers 15, 16, and 17 pages came home this week and the children practiced the equations 10 + 5 = 15, etc. We practiced counting by fives and began talking about even and odd numbers. . Free-Play Fun: The children enjoyed the reading loft, puzzles, and magnetic wand mazes.