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. .

.

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.

bean boxes and snakes

Reptile man photos continued

Week eleven 2008

What an amazing, REPTILIAN week we had!

.

Theme: Reptiles

Focus: Turtles & Tortoises, Lizards & Snakes Number: 14

Classical composer: Peter Tchaikovsky, Russian composer of the Romantic era (1840-1893) . Table Activities: We had great fun with lots of turtle pages…dot-to-dot, maze, color by number, etc. . Music: Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Waltz, Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake, and 1812 Overture . Art: Miss Cristina showed the children some famous paintings using primary colors. The children used another primary color, yellow, to work on their canvas. They put a horizontal and vertical piece of tape on the blue background and discovered what happened when they removed the tape after painting with the yellow acrylic. . Handwriting and Reading: This short week was a review of the sounds we’ve practiced thus far. We focused on the relationship between the picture “name” for each sound train sound- /m/ Marko, /s/ Staccato, short /a/ Anna, long /e/ Ethan, /t/ Todd the Toad, and /r/ Rita the Rhinoceros. Such associations help the kids get the sound from their short term to long-term memory and have quicker recall each time they see the sound. . Theme: Warning: There are way too many exclamation points in the following paragraph!!!

Three words—THE REPTILE MAN! His visit was a great success! The children loved the hands-on presentation, which included riding the tortoise and wearing a snake. We also pet Lucy the alligator and Sheila the gila, and looked at a cobra and a rattlesnake…from a distance, that is! Hearing the rattlesnake rattle and the gaboon viper hiss was fascinating! The entire class pitched in to lift the enormous albino python to the couch where he almost made a quick get-away! We think we’d like to adopt him! Many of us were amazed at how soft and gorgeously patterned the skins of all of these animals were! We learned a lot of cool things to stick in our brains as we enjoyed using every one of our senses during this exciting experience! We certainly won’t be forgetting this tremendous treat anytime soon!

We had two cameras going so more pics will be posted soon!

.

We ended our reptile week with coloring & cutting patterned spiral snakes. Each child was able to uniquely design the pattern and cut out the fun snake. Misses Tracy and Cameron gave each student a fun toy-snake to take home. It wiggles when you hold it horizontally by the tail! . Storybooks: The Tortoise and the Jackrabbit, Turtle Crossing, Verdi, A Color of my Own

.

Math: Number 14 pages came home this week and the children practiced the equation 10 + 4 = 14. The middle teens can be a tricky area, so we are deliberately taking this part slow. . Free-Play Fun: The children had fun playing with the rubber play snakes, lizards, crocodiles and other reptiles. We also spent some time in the rice and bean boxes playing with reptiles and other creepy critters.

Week ten 2008

Happy birthday to Owen!

Here are highlights from week ten…

Theme: Amphibians & Reptiles

Focus: Frogs & Toads, Salamanders & Newts, Alligators, Crocodiles & Caimans Numbers: 11, 12, 13

Classical composer: Peter Tchaikovsky, Russian composer of the Romantic era (1840-1893) Table Activities: We decided that with the phenomenal success of the cutting of numerals 0-9, we could not stop cutting practice in the morning. So, this week the students practiced cutting the letters “F”, “T”, “S”, and “N” to go along with our amphibians. Also, we encouraged the children to color the lifecycles of the frog and the salamander. We also had great fun with reptile stencils and sandpaper cards (the reptile shadow cut in sandpaper to trace with fingers).

Music: The children had fun listening and moving to Tchaikovsky. We will continue Tchaikovsky into next week since there are so many beautiful pieces to hear such as The Sleeping Beauty Waltz, Swan Lake, portions of the Nutcracker Suite, 1812 Overture, etc. Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to the concepts of light and dark (gradation) and primary colors. The children began a wonderful multiple week project involving acrylic paint and canvas. The results will be amazing! Handwriting and Reading: We added the /r/ sound to our sound train. With one group, we reinforced the 6 sounds introduced thus far: /m/, /s/, short /a/, long /e/, /t/, and /r/ and practiced the sounds in a fun and competitive way—by playing a board game.

The other group used those six sounds and a few more to work with the –an word family. We matched –an words with their pictures, emphasizing the beginning sound and the rhyming ending. These papers can be kept and practiced at home to reinforce the skills. For handwriting we used wood pieces, slates, and for one group, paper and pencil or workbooks. We worked on making the numbers 11, 12 and 13 and “Rr” using these media. We demonstrated to the group, and then went around one-on-one to assist each child progress to success while the others practiced. When a student is practicing, the teacher will put a J next to her favorite letters…those formed best following the demonstrated process! Theme: We have collected quite a few plastic play animals, so the children had fun playing with the frogs & toads. We also used some non-fiction books and photos about our focus animals to learn some important facts and differences about frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, crocs, ‘gators, and caimans. One of our favorite activities was our finger play of “5 Green and Speckled Frogs” and the cute craft of the same name. You will see in the video clip that the students are using five “frogs” (ponytail holders with green pom-poms and googly eyes) to imitate the frogs jumping into the pond.

Storybooks: Tale of a Tadpole, Sophie’s Trophy, Newt, The Salamander Room, Catch That Crocodile, There’s an Alligator Under my Bed, If I Were a Crocodile.

Math: You will have seen the number sheets come home with lots of 11s, 12s and 13s. The students practiced making 11s, 12s and 13s by cutting out the 1s, 2s and 3s and gluing them over the zeros. This is a great way to reinforce the tens and ones places and show the kids the relationship between the numbers. We also practiced a lot of counting and looking at the numbers in isolation. On #12 day, we used Play-doh and trays (cookie sheets) to make a dozen cookies. The students really had fun pretending to make different varieties of cookies and counting them to make sure they had a dozen.

Free-Play Fun: In addition to the play animals, the children also spent some time in the reading loft. We brought out the flashlights and rainbow paddles to brighten up the gloomy Northwest day. For your information, we are back to assigned seating and having zero-tolerance on wrestling. The children respond so much better to having more structure. Also, we are looking to recruit 3 more students to begin in January and request your referrals. See you next Thursday for week 11!