Week eight 2008

Happy Birthday to Noah!

Here are some more highlights from week eight.

Theme: Autumn

Focus: Scarecrows, Apples, Pumpkins

Classical composer: Berlioz, born in France early 1800’s, known for conducting large orchestras with as many as 1,000 musicians.

Table Activities:. Cutting and coloring zeros, fun with magnets, 24 piece puzzles, ABC blocks, alphabet puzzles (matching capital and lowercase letters and filling in the entire alphabet puzzle).

Music: Songs and rhymes included: “If I Only Had a Brain”, “Way up high in the apple tree…”, “Five Shiny Apples”, “Five Little Pumpkins” . We are continually playing games with and reinforcing the music concepts we’ve worked on thus far: Forte/Pianissimo, Presto/Largo, Staccato/Legato, Treble/Bass. We have also introduced “mezzo forte”, which means “medium loud” and is represented by a normal singing or talking voice. This new concept has produced some beauty-ous results in our opening circle-time! Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to watercolor. First, they looked at some beautiful watercolor paintings by Miss Cristina and saw the different techniques used in watercolor. They practiced strokes and using lots of water. First they only painted with water. Then they added just one color, then another and saw what happened as the paint spread. The children were amazed to see the effect of salt on their paper. They also experimented with using crayon first, then watercolor painting over it. The results are beautiful and will go in their portfolios.

Handwriting and Reading: We added the long e (with a horizontal line over the top) to our sound train. Miss Tracy made a small sound train to allow the two groups to advance through the train at the rate they are ready for. We are working on handwriting and reading in two groups. Both groups made Mat Man and played “Tap Big Lines”. We reviewed the stroke names. Both groups worked on forming uppercase letters correctly on the slates with small pieces of chalk with emphasis on going all the way from the top to the bottom and making straight lines as well as use of the helper-hand. We are happy to lend out any of our HWT supplies if you are interested in doing a little homework with your child.

Theme: We couldn’t talk about scarecrows without moving like them. We practiced being very floppy and dancing around like scarecrows. We made scarecrow puppets and the kids were so proud of their results. Apple day was a smash as we made our very own applesauce…Mmmmm. We also made apple prints with paint and real apples. We counted apple seeds and saw the “star” made when cutting the apple horizontally through the carpals. We discussed real mummies and saw some pictures of a sarcophagus, the pyramids of Giza, and actual mummies. The oldest mummy ever found is 5500 years old! We looked at the map to see different continents where they have found mummies: Asia, Africa and South America. We made our very own pumpkins into mummies. Each child’s picture is on the previous post proudly displaying their pumpkin and includes directions for making the mummies. We also had fun being 5 little pumpkins sitting on the gate (balance beam) and rolling out of sight (somersaulting).

Storybooks: The Scarecrow’s Hat, Three Little Ghosties, Ten Red Apples, Ten Apples Up on Top, Johnny Appleseed, Pumpkin Soup, Five Little Pumpkins, Inside a House That is Haunted (You might hear your child say, “Here is the hand that knocked on the door….”) .

Math: Small group work included: Counting skills and counting by 5s and 10s. We used the linking cubes to make groups of 10 on two different days, practicing counting skills to make sure we had the correct amount. Then we linked the 10 towers together to make a long number line. The groups of ten were different colors so they were easy to differentiate. One of the groups counted by 10s to 50 and the other group went on to 100. We discussed and demonstrated making all of the 10’s up to 50 by adding a zero We also reinforced counting by tens on the 100s chart so the children can begin to see the relationships of the numbers to each other. This week we also spent time talking about the teens (11-19) and the “tens” place and “ones” place. We used cards with 10s and each of the numbers 1-9 to create 11-19. All of the children were able to see that the 1-9 went in place of the zero. We then practiced jumping as we counted to get the rhythm of the teens which can be tricky to order correctly. This is something you can do at home!

Free-Play Fun: We spent some recess time in the reading loft, playing with the fishing pond, balance beam, cars, people figures, running around and making very loud noises! (We allow a certain amount of this during free-play!) Several of the boys are enjoying wrestling and rough-housing. We are careful to monitor this activity and frequently ask each child if they are having fun, encouraging them to ask for it to please stop if they aren’t enjoying themselves. So far, it has generally been a happy, fun thing. Please let us know if your child tells you otherwise so that we can intervene appropriately.

Scarecrow Ethan!

Listening closely about mummies!