Week twenty-seven 2009

Happy Birthday, Andrés! Theme: Our Solar System (and Spheres)…(and St. Paddy’s)

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Classical composer: We enjoyed repeat performances of Beethoven’s Fur Elise (The Planets Eight Song) and had fun listening to some Celtic music for St. Patrick’s Day. . Spanish: see week twenty-six . Theme: For St. Patrick’s Day we enjoyed telling brief Irish fables of leprechauns, pots of gold at the end of rainbows, four-leaf clovers, and the color green. According to legend, a leprechaun couldn’t get away from you if you kept your eyes locked right on them and didn’t look away. You can bet we took advantage of that little idea as teachers! (“Catch me with your eyes and don’t let me get away!”) We listened to some Celtic music and danced the “Irish Trot”. We read the fun story Leprechaun on the Loose. We showed them a picture of the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day and talked about how many Americans came here from Ireland. . Week two of planets led us to tell the origins of the planet names and also some of the most famous star constellations, the story of Orion the Hunter and the shape of the big dipper. The children made the constellations with stickers and enjoyed hearing and acting out the story of Orion being slain by the scorpion (by themselves, not with each other!).

We also had pics of the planets on sticks so that the kids could practice putting them in order while singing the planets eight song.

We used marble spheres to create beautiful paintings by rolling the painted spheres on filters in cake and pie pans.

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It was interesting to see the children use a new tool to paint and the finished products are wonderful! We discussed the shape “ellipse” by squeezing our lips with our fingers. This is the shape of an orbit. It was very cute to see the students do this, and several of them remembered it very well! We got out our tubes and balls (spheres of various sizes) and had fun thinking up new ways to play with them. Our author in residence, Miss Cameron, composed a fun story called, It’s Okay Pluto, I’m Not a Planet Either. We talked extensively this week about what makes a planet and why poor Pluto got the boot a few years ago. Planets must be spherical, must orbit the sun, can’t be a star, and can only share their orbits with their moons. The kids practiced being planets and orbiting around the sun with only their moon (holding a ball). Then they all held hands to be the Kuiper belt (see video) which is the orbit of Pluto, other dwarf planets like Makemake, and thousands of other objects, called “Plutinos”. The dwarf planets are too small to kick other objects out of their orbit or capture them as moons and thus are not planets. It’s amazing to hear the 4- and 5-year-olds understanding such complex ideas. Several of them even remember that planets spin as they orbit the sun. Many of these concepts were taught in order to answer their own questions. Very exciting! This is one area where the science is constantly changing as new discoveries are being made, so we do a lot of research to keep up, and we can vouch for its accuracy only at this moment! Table Activities: St. Patrick’s and space pages (dot-to-dots, mazes, coloring pages), star, moon, sun stencils, pom-poms and spoon launchers, opposite puzzle cards, number puzzle cards, wooden puzzles. . Art: Miss Cristina put together the crayon drawing books which came home this week. Ask your child about their favorites things they drew. This week, Miss Cristina has the children use colored pencils and talked about the difference drawing with pencils v. crayons. They used the pencils to draw the inside and outside of their house following specific directions. They also used the pencils to blend colors, draw light and dark, and fill-in space with a fluid motion. The house project will be added to their portfolios. Music and Activity Songs: “The Irish Trot”, “The Tortoise and the Hare” (Laurie Berkner song with a Celtic tune), and “Fly Me to the Moon”. Our favorite of the week had to be “Rocketship Run” another brilliant Laurie Berkner Band song. The video is a segment of this song. We loved the part when the kids do their own dance moves.

. Math, Handwriting and Reading: For reading, the children in one group worked on identifying lower and uppercase letters, matching them, and saying the sounds. We used a puzzle game that they enjoy to increase the interest and keep their attention level high during this activity. The other group worked on the –at and –an word families and this time we put them together with sight words to make simple sentences. We talked about the “period” or dot at the end. This is when we take a breath and end our sentence. They took turns reading the sentences themselves and were very proud. For math and handwriting we practiced writing numbers on slates and played a game where they had to identify the numbers11-19 correctly by sight. They were given clues to guess what picture they would find under the number. This activity was very enjoyable and will likely be expanded upon during this upcoming week. . Storybooks: It’s Okay Pluto, I’m Not a Planet Either by Miss Cameron, Captain Invincible and the Space Shapes, Space Guys, Some Day Daddy, and many non-fiction space books. . Free-Play Fun: We had some reading time in the loft this week, trains and tracks, of course, and some new free-time toys, bouncy hoppity balls and stilts, made an appearance this week and are big hits. ……………………………………………