La Lectura

This week we read “La primera Navidad de Clifford” (Clifford’s first Christmas), because the book talks about the different activities that Emilia (The dog owner) did with Clifford in his first Christmas. All our children participated, also telling their own experiences in Christmas and all the activities they do when preparing for the holidays. The book talks about preparing and decorating the Christmas tree, wrapping gifts and at the end the joyful moment of opening their own gifts.

We worked with the children to develop their skills to talk and blend vowels A, E and I. For this activity we practiced doing dictation and reading words. We also practiced our letter strokes. We pay special attention for our children to recognize the sound of each letter and their form. With these activities the students will better understand how the letters work together. This is a systematic program that helps the children to connect language to written words. The main goal is that the children understand that words are composed of sounds and the letters that represent sounds.

The words of the week were “Se” and “Su” the children worked making sentences using these words like “Mamá se comió la manzana.” (Mom ate the apple). Or “Yo veo su chaqueta roja.” (I see his red jacket.)

As in all weeks, we had fun making a craft. This week our children made a Paper Elf, incorporating their own photo to the paper cut elf.

 

Las matemáticas

We continue working on the strokes of numbers. The numbers of the week were from 58 to 62. We revisited the more than/less than concepts, also identifying if a number is even or odd. We are also continuing with our number sense by identifying tens and units inside a given number. This week we started a new activity in math: The use of the abacus to make sums.

 

 

 

 

Science

This week in The Five Senses science domain we finished up our sense of smell and began learning about the sense of taste.  We learned about the four types of taste: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. The class enjoyed tasting sour pickles and sweet honey.

Our weekly objectives were to:

• identify the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch
• identify each of the body parts associated with the five senses
• demonstrate understanding of the sense of smell and taste
• identify the parts of the mouth and their functions
• provide simple explanations about how we taste

History & Geography

We began our next unit called Columbus and the Pilgrims.  The class learned about Spice Seekers in the 1400s. They learned when Constantinople closed the road to East Asia this led to commissioned expeditions by ship with the goal of finding a new route.

Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify the continents of Europe, Africa, and Asia
• understand why Europeans wanted to travel to Asia
• identify King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain

English Sight Words of the Week

said, eat, get, away

Wednesday Specials

Character Education 

This week we were so grateful to have Dr. Torres join us for a special lesson. We brainstormed emotions and read a lovely book “Moody Cow Meditates”. We then made our own Mind Jars. We needed to imagine that this jar is our mind. When we are in a calm state, we can think clearly, and make good decisions. We imagined that the glitter is anger, worry, fear, etc – when those feelings hit, we may feel unbalanced or our thoughts may feel jumbled up. Our mind is cloudy and we can’t think as clearly. If we are still, slow down and take deep breaths our thoughts can settle and we can see more clearly and make better decisions.

 

Music with Ms. Nadia

Do your ears hang low? That was our signature song last month as we learned about pitch. Big instruments, like the booming double bass, play low. Small instruments, such as flutes (featured in Morning by Edvard Grieg) and violins (heard in Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nactmusik) sound high. The piccolo looks like a flue, but since it is smaller, it’s even higher! The piccolo is so high that in our Bear Cub Adventures this month, it was in the clouds! (Fun fact: Piccolo clouds rain pickles, which can be retrieved in a pirate ship and taken to a pirate princess to make her favorite pickle tea!) We also used a wonderful online resource which allowed us to listen to each instrument individually. Check it out at www.mydso.com/dso-kids/learn-and-listen/instruments .

Other highlights include dancing like animals and learning the alphabet backwards. I am so proud of these kids as they are learning how to sing together and get along with others!