Week ninteen 2009

Tuesday was Caleb’s last day with us for this school year. We will miss you and your family and wish you the best in China! Theme: The United States Focus: U.S. Presidents, The Old West, Cowboys & Cowgirls and all that entails… Classical composer: John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) was born in Washington D.C. and is one of the best-known American composers. He worked in the theater and conducted the U.S. Marine Band before starting his own civilian band in 1892. He wrote over 136 marches, several operettas and hundreds of other pieces. Stars and Stripes Forever is arguably the most famous march in the world and it's certainly one of the best! It is recognized by the U.S. government as the official march of the United States. Spanish: el presidente (the president), el vaquero (cowboy), las botas (boots), el caballo (horse) . Theme: This week was a prime example of letting the children take the lead. We had planned for the week to focus on U.S. Presidents and Symbols, and started out talking about the inauguration, President Barack Obama (#44), President George Washington (#1), President Thomas Jefferson (#3), and President Abraham Lincoln (#16). We did a cute craft of the tallest president and had some interesting discussion about the presidents we highlighted. We talked in general about the United States and explored the US MAP. We learned the Pledge of Allegiance and practiced it a few times, also teaching the etiquette of standing in respect with your right hand over your heart when the flag enters the room. We were careful to break down and explain the words “allegiance”, “republic”, “indivisible” and “liberty”. Sousa and his marches were introduced with such rambunctious, rousing results that we needed to limit exposure! We decided that perhaps the presidents weren’t as engaging to the students as planned so we adjusted the focus for Thursday and Friday to something within the theme, but more exciting to 4-and 5-year-olds. What could be more engaging that the Old West, with cowboys, cowgirls, horse ridin’, cattle wranglin’, and all the gear (ropes, hat, boots, neckerchief, sheriff star, “yee haw!”) that little cowboys and cowgirls need? Just as we thought, it was quite a hit. The cactus cowboy was assembled with gusto. Each child named their pretend horse and galloped across the range. We pointed out the “cowboy-states” on the U.S. map. We read and sang She’ll Be Comin’ 'Round the Mountain by Jonathan Emmett and Deborah Allwright with the appropriate actions, hootin’ and hollerin’. (If your child is dropping his or her “g”s we sincerely apologize. It’s catchin’!) Table Activities: We offered math manipulatives including dominoes, foam pattern blocks and patterns. We colored and cut various symbols of the West including horseshoes, boots, Marshall stars, horses, etc. We had 4 or 5 laminated U.S. maps that the kids could draw on with dry-erase markers…this was a surprisingly big hit! Friday was a free-play Play-doh day.

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Music: Friday’s try at marching to Sousa was much more successful. The students used flags, batons and streamers and learned how to lead the marching band as we all marched around the room. We saw the difference between how a conductor conducts an orchestra verses a marching band. We jumped and pranced to the song, “You’re a Grand Old Flag”. Classic cowboy songs from real cowboys Roy Rogers and Sons of the Pioneers got some time in the spotlight. Home on the Range, Happy Trails, Ghostriders in the Sky, Pecos Bill and Good-bye Old Paint were a few that we featured. We also revisited several of our favorite activity songs this week and most children got a chance to be the leader for a song of their choice. . Art: Miss Cristina continued teaching the students about contrast. They learned about texture and studied rough/smooth, heavy/light, and shiny/dull. They created some contrast projects using objects such as foil, coins, feathers, sandpaper, etc. to represent each of the six terms. These pages will be put with the pages from last week into a book for the art portfolio. We would also point out our efforts to use many different materials, textures and formats in our classroom projects. This week we used buttons, felt, cotton fabric, crayons, markers, cutting and gluing. . Handwriting and Reading: Our sound train sound is the /n/ sound for Noah. This week’s reading focus was putting sound-train sounds together to make words. The children are doing so well with this concept and are really excited to read words. If you’d like to practice putting three letter words together at home, here are the sound train sounds we’ve learned so far: /m/, /s/, short /a/, long /e/, /t/, /r/, /d/, short /i/, /th/, hard /c/, short/o/, /n/. Let us know if you have any questions. . Storybooks: She’ll Be Comin’ 'Round the Mountain (follow this link for a great preview of this fun version: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=J-nPqSVHCjkC&dq=she'll+be+coming+round+the+mountain+by+emmett&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=jucHfbjaXn&sig=azjmnvKZ3knNwKtWxvtkVfRz1Jc&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPT4,M1), Lasso Lou and Cowboy McCoy, Giddy-Up Cowgirl, Cowboy Bunnies, Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa, The Pledge of Allegiance

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Math: We cut and glued numbers into the tens place to make the number the teacher randomly called out. . Free-Play Fun: Friday was chilly but beautiful so we bundled up, went outside and had some fun playing tag, swinging, pretending to live in the playhouse, and being pilots. We also had more fun with the train table, which is now complete with trains and tracks, cars and airplanes and the big bin of wooden blocks. One of the most requested free time activites was playing the song She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain...over and over and over and pretending to ride our horses. We must’ve listened to it more than 15 times! ……………………………………………………………