Trees Down! By Seattle Tree Service

I think the pics and vids speak for themselves, but email me if you have questions and I'll post the answers! camoram@comcast.net

Week thirty-three 2009

Happy Mother’s Day to all of our wonderful mothers! We trust you received your “flower children”. Each child took great care in creating his or her flower for you. We hope your day was spectacular! .......... WEEK 33........................... Theme: Our Amazing Bodies Focus: Babies & Growing, Bones, Muscles & Joints, Cardiovascular & Respiratory Systems

Classical composer: Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) was a French composer. He is considered one of the most prominent figures working within the field of Impressionist music. Debussy is not only among the most important of all French composers; he was also a central figure in European music at the turn of the twentieth century. We enjoyed many of his peaceful compositions this week including the Clair de Lune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfSV_k3MhCw&feature=related

Spanish: mamá (mom), bebé (baby), el cuerpo (the body)

Happy Birthday to Lily!

Theme: We started our theme learning about babies, mothers and growing up. The children guessed whose baby picture was displayed. Some were easy and others hard, usually depending on the age of the baby. They’ve changed a lot since then and will grow and grow lots more until they’re big like their mom and dad! Fascinating stuff! We learned about foods that babies eat starting with milk from mom or in a bottle and had a fun taste test of baby vs. big kid food. On that note, we practiced choosing behaviors that are baby behaviors verses big kid behaviors. Miss Cameron called out or mimicked a behavior and the children chose to hold up a picture of a baby or a big kid. I think they felt very “big” as they figured out the correct answer. We talked about how baby chicks grow in an egg until they are ready to hatch. Inside the egg they are kept safe (the shell), warm and snuggly (the white) and have all they need to eat (the yellow yolk) as they develop. Each child had an egg to crack into a bowl. They used their sense of touch to discover the inside of the egg. This compares to how we develop kept safe, warm and snuggly inside of our mommy’s uterus. We looked at pictures of the baby developing inside a mom and just born. The student’s observed that the brand-new baby was wet and didn’t have any clothes on. The egg white has many similarities to the clear fluid that snuggles the growing baby inside mom. Laurie Berkner has a fun activity song called, “5 days-old” that explores growing up and had us movin’ and groovin’.

For bones, muscles and joints, a.k.a. the musculoskeletal system, the children had fun using their bodies to jump, stretch, push, pull, etc. They used lots of muscles to fill in the missing letters on their bones, muscles, and joints page. We integrated some math skill as we read the numbers “206” and “600”. Our body has 206 bones and more than 600 muscles! Our bones do many important things such as protecting our soft and squishy parts, and holding us up. Bones are hollow, so how do they hold us up when we’re so heavy?

We did an experiment and observation to see just how this works. We placed a hollow TP tube on its side and observed that heavy books placed on top immediately smashed it flat. However, when we stood the tube on its end, we could stack lots of giant books on top and it stood strong, just like the long bones in our body that help us stand up. The students also had fun seeing if they were so strong to hold the heavy stack of books…even Felicity got in on the action to the delight of all present! Muscles work in pairs and can only pull the bone they are connected to. Of particular interest were the gluteal muscles that make up our buns…hey, you’re only 5 once! We read some very fun skeleton books and talked about how muscles like to work…exercise! We did some fun activity songs that had us breathing in and out and exploring our joints and muscles. Mr. Bones, our popular paper-plate skeleton, made a special guest appearance in our schoolroom, and his little brother, Mr. Bones, the small-scale scientific skeleton model, joined us as well! Please refer to the Amazing Body book for more complete information on what we discussed as a class. For the cardiovascular and respiratory system, children paired up and used stethoscopes to listen to each others’ hearts. It was awesome to see their faces light up the moment they could heard something. They also used incentive spirometers to measure their lung capacity…a tricky task to breathe in rather than out into the mouthpiece. As you inhale the float rises to show how much air they breathed in. The children created a heart puzzle and enjoyed looking at pictures of a real heart shape. We discussed and observed that they are smaller than Miss Cameron, and their hearts beat faster than hers. It is fun to learn that a tiny mouse’s heart beats 500 times every minute, while a giant whale’s only beats 10! We explored a small science model of a human torso to observe how each organ fits into the body. To cap off this interesting week, the children explored a real sheep’s heart, lungs and trachea. They were fascinated to touch and see the four “rooms” (atria) in the heart, the delicate “strings” of the valves between the atria, and the rings of cartilage in the airways. The word “Cool!” was heard frequently during this activity. . Table Activities: Magnets, plastic farm animal and dinosaur free play, drawing with watercolor markers, plastic pegs . Art: Miss Cristina worked with the children on their canvas paintings and as they dried we switched gears to create a paper accordion book focusing on our five senses. The students followed directions to fold and then create drawings on some of the sections. They will continue to work on their books next week.

. Activity Songs: “Jump Up” by Imagination Movers, “Aerobics” (Breathe In, Breathe Out), “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”, “Hinges”, “Five Days Old” by Laurie Berkner . Math, Handwriting and Reading: With such a heavy focus on science this week, we embedded our reading, writing, and math into our theme-based days. The children have practiced cutting and writing their letters in many of our crafts and activities. We’ve also included some free-drawing as this seems to be a favorite among many children. . Storybooks: Is Your Mama a Llama?, From Head to Toe, Boogie Bones, Skeleton Hiccups, A Drop of Blood. . Free-Play Fun: Doll houses and accessories, wooden blocks, stethoscopes and incentive spirometers (by request), free reading

Week thirty-two 2009

Theme: musical instruments and the orchestra . . Focus: woodwinds, percussion, the conductor, solo vs. ensemble . . Spanish: el conductor(masculine), la conductora(feminine), la orquesta (the orchestra) . . . Table Activities: Alphabet games, magnets, word boards, blocks, stencils and paper, chain links, coloring page, pipe cleaners, stacking cubes

Theme: For woodwinds we had a coloring page of a flautist with particularly long ears (one of the students was particularly careful to color the inside of those ears pink). We observed and held a clarinet reed as the concept of woodwind instruments was introduced by name and picture. Bagpipes had their moment as we read a book entitled, "Over the Hills and Far Away" by Chris Conover, about a bagpipe-playing otter. One of the repeated phrases in the book was, "Over the hills and a long way off, the wind shall blow my top hat off." This phrase was soon completed by a couple of the students each time it came up. It was well enjoyed! Then we listened to a bagpipe-soloist playing "Amazing Grace" with the rest of the ensemble joining in as the song built with each repetition of the melody. During this listening exercise, we played with ribbon-wands in various ways. The students made woodwind booklets. We decorated the cover with feathers because, of course, feathers float in the wind and we were discussing woodWIND instruments, after all! Then we had fun listening to a beautiful flute rendition of a Bacarolle by Offenbach while we floated and blew our feathers around. This feather activity and the ribbon wands were requested again during free time! To complete our booklet, we had two pages with photos of our featured woodwind instruments and their names, but we needed to write in the beginning letters. Then we stapled our cover and pages together...working the stapler is always a big hit! We used our books and pointers to find the specific instrument by matching specific sound to photo. Then as we headed outside we blew bubbles using our wind, because, did I mention? We were discussing woodWIND instruments! :-)

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Our day of focus on Percussion started out with a BANG!(sorry...pun intended)as the students excitedly showed the recycled-rhythm instruments they had created and brought from home. Thanks a ton, mom and dad, for helping them with this engaging project! There were some great ideas shared! The students patiently kept their instruments in their cubbies until it was time for that activity, which was after lunch...way to go,kids! Prior to lunch we learned of different instruments (xylophone, cymbals, timpani, snare drums, triangle, tamborine,etc.) by sight(photos) and sound. We decorated pictures of bongos with ric-rac, pom-pons, buttons, sequins and construction paper.

After lunch we closed our eyes and Miss Cameron asked us to identify the instrument we heard. She then inflated and popped a brown-paper lunch sack. That got everyone's attention, a few giggles and "Again!" besides. We discussed how percussionists in a symphony use many different things to create sounds, sometimes even gunshots! We brought out the recycling-bin instruments. We were able to observe, often with amazement, how different beaters create different sounds on the same instrument.

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We took our instruments into the big room and had a lot of fun making music while accompanied by Phil Collins' "Trashin' the Camp", which features a typewriter and breaking dishes, pots and pans, among other things. Other activities were, "Tap Big Lines","Drummer's Song" from the bagpipe corp, "Rhythm of the World" by Cathy Fink and Marcie Marxer.

Our final day to wrap up this theme was focused on the conductor and the instruments as a combined ensemble cooperating to create exquisite music. We discussed the terms "solo", "duet", "trio", etc. We all had a bit of May-day fever so we enjoyed lots of movement activities while we listened to and "conducted" various orchestral works. Time was much shorter than the activities we hoped to cover, but we enjoyed many wonderful experiences together. One favorite was playing instruments bingo, which involved placing a marker over the instrument heard in a sound-byte. This activity combined all groups of instruments and as usual, Misses Tracy and Cameron were amazed by how quick and accurate the students were. We read the book, Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss and Marjorie Priceman, which reviews many of the instruments as well as the terms solo, duet, etc. We also practiced "Do Re Mi" by the students request!

. Art: Miss Cristina helped us create canvas puppets with lots of opportunity for free-expression! These were a big hit and utilized such media as yarn, felt, sharpies, and the ever-popular googly eyes!

Handwriting and Math: Many of these skills were integrated into our music theme during this week. We did review the HWT wood piece pokey and names additionally.

Free-play: This week was marked by the grand entrance of a doll-house, people-figures and Pretty Ponies. It was heaven for several of the students!

As noted above, we often re-played prior activities of the day during free time as well. We have noted the many of the children are abbreviating their lunch in their excitement for free-time. We try to encourage 10 minutes of solid eating-time and taking uneaten lunch home for later. We are happy to note that no child has died of starvation on our watch, but feel certain that many come home with an appetite! Outdoor play occurred this week in smaller doses near the end of class.