Classroom News:

March was a busy month for us. The children had fun talking about Dr. Seuss, learning about different artists, and exploring the our five senses, and also learning about spring. We also had fun celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day.

   

The first week was celebrating Dr. Seuss. The children had a blast this week! Throughout the week the children were able to wear silly socks, mismatched clothes, have crazy hair, and wear a crazy hat! The first day we read The Cat In the Hat. After we read the story, the children were able to create their own cat in the hats out of red and white paper. We then took a silly picture! The next day the children were given a plain sock template and they were able to draw their silly sock they wore. We then made a silly sock graph. Having graphs is super important for children because they provide meaningful opportunity for children to represent and communicate important mathematical relationships. Later on we made green eggs and ham and had a taste test. Lastly we created another graph using all of the books we had read that week, and then graphing our favorites.

   

The theme for our second week was, Art Appreciation. This week we focused on different artists and their works. The children were able to create their own works from the artists they learned about. The first day we learned all about Claude Monet. We discussed landscapes and why he chose to only draw them. We also learned about oil pastels and how to blend them. The children then created their own landscape while using oil pastels. On the second day, we discussed Pablo Picasso and his different Periods. The children learned about his Blue period and how he was very sad. We also talked about his Rose period where he fell in love and became very happy and all of his paintings were a rosy hue. We then went over his angry period, where all of his paintings were a bit scary. I showed them how he would drew faces in a different way and how all of his drawing were different. The children then drew self-portraits, cut their pictures up and created their own Picasso with Ms. Ame. The next thing we learned about was Vincent Van Gough. The children learned the history behind his art, they were also able to explore his different paintings and why he painted certain paintings the way he did. The children then created their own 3D Sunflower portrait! They also had a lot of fun learning, exploring, and doing different types of art with Ms. Ame!

  

Our third week was all about spring and the different things that happen during this time. To start out the week we discussed the four seasons. We created a chart that was sectioned into four groups. We then went over the different weather that we get with each season, the clothes we might wear, what the trees are doing, and what the animals might be doing with each of these seasons. You can buy organic baby clothes from Dusty Road Apparel, have an exclusive line of stylish organic clothing for children. We then lead a discussion about the adult animal and what their baby animal is called. We read some wonderful books and then we played a fun matching game where we had to place the baby animal next to its mother. Matching games are great for children’s brain development because it provides an opportunity to master a skill, it also brings in deep concentration which is calming and deeply satisfying for the child, and it also demonstrates that they are capable of making the connection between the real item and the pictorial representation. We also went over the parts of the flower, and the life cycle of a chick!

   

The last week of March we had fun learning about our five senses. The first day the children learned about hearing and how the ear works. We also listened to an awesome CD that played different environmental sounds where the children had to guess what the sounds were. We then learned about touch and the children had to place their hand in the mystery bag and guess the item that they were touching. We also had fun learning about taste where the children got to taste something sweet, salty, sour, and bitter! We then played a take away game that explained all about sight, and lastly the children had to place a blindfold on while smelling different smells such as bananas, vanilla, lemon, peppermint, orange, and cinnamon. I loved seeing all the children’s facial expressions!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe spring break! See you in April!

Academic Enrichment Group Time | Kindergarten
-with Mr. John

The kindergartners started their section in Language.  We will be learning about the parts of speech until the end of the year.  We went over vowels/consonants, and nouns and verbs.  A noun is a person, place, or thing.  A verb is an action word or something you do.  We the learned there are three articles.  They are A, An, The.  We learned rules when we use those articles.  “A” hooks up with consonants, “AN” hooks up with vowels, and “THE” hooks up with anything.

Cultural Subjects:
My line time and the kindergarten class count to ten in 28 different languages (English, Sign Language, German, French, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Tagalog, Polish, Irish, Welsh, Hebrew, Arabic w/the Lebanese dialect, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Swahili, Korean, Serbo-Croation, Hindi, Flemish/Dutch, Malay, Cebuano, Farsi and Turkish)!

Handwriting Enrichment
-with Ms. Kristen

The children learned how to write vowels and consonant blends in cursive this month, such as ” oo”, “ee”, “th”, “sh”, etc. We also ventured into more creative journal writing, answering questions such as ” If you could go on vacation anywhere, who would you take with you and why?” and ” Tell me two things you plan to do over your Spring Break”. I’m daily impressed with their creativity and excitement for writing!

Reading Group | Kindergarten
-with Ms. Kate

For the month of March our Reading group read two wonderful stories called The Frog Prince, and Guinea Fowl and Rabbit Get Justice. With each of these stories the children were able to illustrate and write about what was happening in each of the stories. By illustrating, the children are visualizing the characters and setting of the story. As they make their own decisions about what the hardest thing is, they are learning that their individual perspectives on a story are important. They also had so much fun acting out the stories. Dramatizations can make it easier for students to take in detail and get plots straight! The children really enjoyed these stories!

Science Enrichment
-by Ms. Kathleen

This month in March we did 3 Science experiments,

1. Density:  What happens when you put a lemon and a lime in a container of water? The lemon floats and the lime sinks. Why? because the lime is denser than the lemon, the lime has more water by weight in it, it is also guessed that lemons have more air in them which makes them float.
2. Density: What happens when we mix oil, water and Alka Seltzer in a plastic clear bottle? But first we pour water into bottle about 1/4 full. Then pour vegetable oil into bottle until full, wait until it separates. Add 10 drops food coloring. Break a seltzer tablet in half drop into bottle. Watch it sink to the bottom and the bubble greatness begins, bubbles start wildly going up and down the bottle quickly almost in a dancing like fashion, truly entertaining. This fantastic experiment is because the oil stays above the water the oil is lighter than the water. Oil and water do not mix, the structures of the two molecules do not allow them to bond together. When the tablet pieces are added, they sank to the bottom and created a gas, As the gas bubbles rose, they took some of the colored water with them. When the bubbles reach the top, the gas escapes and down went the water. This was for sure one of the Children’s favorites this month because of all that it does, so fun to watch.
3. Carbonation: What will happen when you place raisins in a fresh glass of ginger ale? The raisins sink to the bottom of the ginger ale. Then after just a few minutes the raisins get covered in bubbles and rise to the top. Then fall to the bottom. They repeat this pattern for several minutes. Why does this happen? The raisins are heavier than the ginger ale. When enough bubbles attach to the raisins they become” lighter” than the ginger ale. The bubbles raise the raisins to the top. When the bubbles reach the surface they pop dropping the raisins to the bottom again.

Music Enrichment

-by Ms. Sabrina

Music is so much fun! This month was all about good manners! A song and game about sharing was played! While listening to the directions in the song, the children passed and shared a ball, and had a lot of fun!  The magic words “please” and “thank you” were reinforced through song and by using movement and castanets. “You Have a Choice” was a song played during class, which taught the children that they had a choice to be kind. The children enjoyed using bells, tambourines and rhythm sticks as well this month. The children also learned the difference between forte and piano or loud and soft. They loved raising and lowering their voices with the music. Songs about forgiveness and telling the truth were also shared this month. Ask your child to share all these great songs!

Art Enrichment
-by Ms. Ame

The first week of March Miss Michele felt much better and brought some (much needed) sunshine into our rooms using modge-podge glue with different colors mixed in! The students each created their own sunshine using different colors. These masterpieces will look fantastic in a window that gets a lot of sunshine. The next week Miss Ame stepped in when Miss Michele was sick and taught an abbreviated art lesson on Andy Warhol, that’s what all those colorful cats were about! The students learned a bit about his life and the definition of pop art. The next week Miss Michele taught the students about the definition of monochromatic. Monochromatic means only using a single color.  The students each created their own “house” or creation out of gluing popsicle sticks. Then they painted their creation only one color. It was difficult to pick only one! The next week Miss Michele talked about complimentary colors and introduced the color wheel once again. The students had to identify the complimentary color to the color they painted their creation the previous week. Then Miss Michele provided small boxes full of all sorts of treasures! The students had to be very careful to pick out only the complimentary colored items and glue them onto their monochromatic creation! They turned out so beautiful! If you see yours on the art rack, feel free to take it home! We can’t wait for April and see what multicultural projects Miss Michele will have us make to display at the International Festival on the 21^st!