Science

This week in our science domain we finished our autumn chapter and then read the fable the Grasshopper  and the ants. We also learned and discussed seasonal activities and sports. Miss Bre came in on Tuesday for a lesson on dental hygiene.

Our weekly objectives were to:

• name the four seasons in cyclical order, as experienced in the United States, and correctly name a few characteristics of each season
• explain the lesson that the grasshopper learns at the end of the fable, “The Grasshopper and the Ants”

• name activities that are associated with the four seasons

History & Geography

This week in our unit, Presidents and American Symbols, we read a lesson about Teddy Roosevelt’s bear and learned about Mount Rushmore.  The class had fun sculpting their own monument in play-dough.

Our weekly objectives were to:
• recognize Theodore Roosevelt as an important president the United States
• know that Theodore Roosevelt loved the outdoors and worked for nature conservation
• identify the Mount Rushmore presidents
• describe Mount Rushmore as a monument

English Sight Words

then, need, such, play

* Just a reminder about toys at school,  we would prefer they stay at home unless there is a special reason, such as our Teddy Bear day.  In English we have time for sharing on Fridays, this sharing should be related to what we are studying in class.

La lectura y las matemáticas

The book for this week was “Persevera” (Persevere). The topic of this book, of course, talks about this important skill and why it is important to develop it. The children read about a group of mice trying to climb a wall and the different reactions that every mouse had.  They were curious to see what was on the other side of the wall. For this purpose, all characters have different reactions to help the team to achieve the goal of climbing the wall.

We continue doing more exercises using reading sessions, making full sentences and paying special attention to comprehension when reading out loud. The words of the week “Luego” (Then), “Necesito” (Need) and “Ir” (Go) and “Juego” (Play).

“La Manualidad de la semana” (The craft of the week) was to make a flag, the little ones use their fine motor skills to achieve the goal of finishing a red, white and blue flag.

This week our children were invited by the 2nd and 3rd grade to learn about their native American culture projects.  The host children taught them about this topic and our little ones were excited to learn more.

 

Matematicas.

 

The numbers we were working this week were 105 to 109. We worked on: recognizing if the number is odd or even, identifying tens and ones, and we did subtractions and sums to improve our math skills. We used dice and other fun activities to practice the numbers. We also practiced counting 5 by 5 and 10 by 10, reading written numbers had also been an important exercise we do every week.

It was a fun and busy week!  Please keep reading with your kiddos at home.

Art with Ms. Kelly

Vase of Flowers Painting

We read A Splash of Red about African American artist Horace Pippin

Goals:

• Use black tempera paint to draw a u-shaped vase with simple flower shapes
• Add color with thick tempera paint – They all love painting!

Valentine Pictures

The students learned:

• How to draw and cut out a heart shape, using a letter “V” with an “m” on top
• How to make a bird from heart shapes

I hope you enjoyed their very sweet Valentine messages!

Paper Weaving

The kiddos learned how to weave paper strips over and under on a paper loom. They did a great job on this challenging task that we will work on again in the spring.

Eric Carle Painted Paper Caterpillar

The students learned:

• About Eric Carle, author and illustrator of many famous children’ sbooks
• How to make painted paper like Eric Carle
• How to use painted paper and basic shapes to create a caterpillar

Their very cute caterpillars are almost finished!

Music with Ms. Nadia

This month brought more opportunities to learn about percussion instruments! Hitting a percussion instrument causes vibrations. Striking a metal triangle with a metal stick can cause a pleasant ringing sound when it is suspended in the air by a string, because the vibrations ring into the air and into our ears. When we hold the triangle, the vibrations dampen as they ring into our hands, causing a short, muted sound. We experienced this first-hand (pardon the pun!) with the triangle, claves, cymbals, and drums. In a drum echo game, we took turns creating different patterns. We later used short and long sounds to create code words. Three long sounds in a row could mean “cheetah” while three short sounds could mean “cinnamon”. One short sound followed by two long sounds could mean “dog” while two short sounds followed by one long sound could mean “bear”. Incorporating this into our bear cub adventures, one day Bartholomew Bear Cub rescued a cheetah from a top-secret alligator cave by arranging the codes in the right order. Another time we used the codes to tell a story about our cheetah’s cat Cinnamon. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Bartholomew Bear Cub prepared a special version of “You are My Sunshine” for his best friend. Try making secret codes at home! It’s fun!

Other highlights include freeze-dancing to lullabies, singing Skidamarinkidinkidink, and creating our own verses to songs. For example, we used different 5-letter combinations to rewrite B-I-N-G-O. This is our favorite verse:

“There is a food I really love, and pizza is its name-o! P-I-Z-Z-A, P-I-Z-Z-A, P-I-Z-Z-A, and pizza is its name-o!”