April, 2015

Courtney Owens

Classroom

We started off the month of March talking about Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle. The children (and teachers) loved coming to school dressed crazy with their hats, silly socks, and crazy hair! We enjoyed reading Green Eggs and Ham and watching the students cringe as they tried that first bite of their very own green eggs and ham.

 

 

 

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The second week of March we learned all about insects. The children learned how to identify animals belonging in the insect category and those that do not. They learned the main parts of an insect with the help of our own version of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes (Head, Thorax, and Abdomen.) Together the preschoolers made a beautiful diagram of an insect to display in the classroom. For the third week of March we talked about plants and flowers. The children discovered the four elements needed to grow a plant soil, seeds, sun and water. They also learned the word photosynthesis! We planted flowers to watch grow in the classroom.

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The last week of March we talked about butterflies and caterpillars. Students had a blast learning about how butterflies go through stages of growth and change called a life cycle. They even got to create a butterfly life cycles using different types of macaroni. We also designed butterflies using coffee filters and clothes pins.

I hope everyone enjoyed their spring break and is ready to get back into the swing of things!

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Kindergarten

The kindergarteners started their grammar unit by learning their five vowels and what isn’t a vowel is a consonant. We learned a fun song to the tune of BINGO there are five letters that I know and vowel are their name O’s A,E,I,O,U A,E,I,O,U A,E,I,O,U and vowels are their name O’s. Then we looked at noun and verbs. Nouns are people, places, and things. Verbs are action words or something you can do. We also learned that there are three articles, a, an, the.  We learned that “a” hooks up with consonants, “an” is very picky and only hooks up with vowels. And “the” is not picky at all and hooks up with anything!

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Science

For the first week of March we defied gravity using water cardboard and a cup! With no air inside the glass, the air pressure from outside the glass is greater than the pressure of the water inside the glass. The extra air pressure manages to hold the cardboard in place, keeping you dry and your water where it should be, inside the glass even when you hold the glass upside down.

The second week we made a tornado in a bottle by spinning a bottle in a circular motion which create a water vortex that looks like a mini tornado. The water is rapidly spinning around the center of the vortex due to centripetal force. Some vortexes found in nature include tornadoes, hurricanes and waterspouts.

The third week of March we filled baggies up with water and poked pencils through them. No water spilled out the holes because ziploc bags are made of a polymer. Polymers have long chains of molecules that are flexible. When we poked the sharp pencils through the baggie, the pencils slide in between the chain of molecules that made up the polymer. The molecule chains made a seal around the pencils and didn’t let any water out.

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Art

By: Ms. Faith

The first week of March was a celebration for Dr. Seuss’ birthday. So, in honor of his birthday, Ms. Michele brought in a piece of artwork that Dr. Seuss painted himself. The title of the pieces was called Dream and then the students got to draw their own dream. They were allowed to use markers, crayons, and colored pencils. The next week, Ms. Michele showed the students different pictures of structures from around the world. These structures included, the Great Wall of China, pyramids, and the Pentagon. Students were given sugar cubes, glue, and pieces of foam to create their own structure. Another project we completed was to go along with the classroom them of plants and flowers. We read a book about and garden and discussed what a garden needs to grow. The young artists got to paint their own gardens using paint, paintbrushes, and forks. The students dipped the forks into the paint and drug them on the paper to create the petals of a flower. We saw a lot of creativity just from using simple objects. Some children painted a sun or insects since those are things a garden needs to grow. At the end of the month, Ms. Michele brought in some art works from an artist who paints robots. The class got to draw their own robot using oil pastels and had to come up with a purpose for their creation. Some students designed robots to help them clean, do homework, and even plant gardens. The students love to be creative and can not wait until the next art class!

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Music

By: Ms. Faith

In the last month, Ms. Lisa reviewed many of the terms we have been learning throughout the year. The students reviewed the terms Adagio and Allegro. Adagio is Italian for slow and Allegro is Italian for fast. She uses these terms for describing tempos of songs. To reinforce these concepts, Ms. Lisa played a song from Beethoven, which had a slow tempo, and a song from Chopin, which had a fast tempo. The students used scarves to dance along with the different tempos. The students also got to practice singing in their high and low voices as well as quite and loud voices. Since the students enjoyed the game called “Cat and Mouse” that Ms. Lisa introduced to them last month, she brought it back again this month. The students have a lot of fun trying not to get caught by the cat. To wrap up music class before spring break, Ms. Lisa brought back her keyboard and taught the students the difference between the black and the white keys. She had two students come up and play a duet on the white keys, then the black keys. The students had to learn how to be an audience and listen respectfully while their peers were playing their duet. Once their duet was finished, the students took a bow and their audience clapped for them. We hope Ms. Lisa has a great spring break and I know the students will look forward to the first music class in April.

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