Classroom News:
The month of March has been very busy in our classroom. We learned about Dr. Seuss, Space, and all about our state of Ohio. The children also enjoyed celebrating St. Patrick’s Day! We were also very excited to welcome Ms. Caroline to our classroom!
Victoria was so proud of her work with the Pink Tower and Brown Stairs! This material helps the child to develop a sense of order as they build from the biggest to smallest piece. It’s also great preparation for the Math area!
During the first week, we had fun learning all about Dr. Seuss. The children enjoyed reading “ Yurtle The Turtle”, “ The Cat In The Hat” , and “ Fox In Sox”. During Afternoon Group Time, the children enjoyed making Cat In The Hat hats with Ms. Kerri. The children also learned that Dr. Seuss’ real name was Theodore Seuss Giesel and he wasn’t actually a real doctor. We also learned that Dr. Seuss lived near a zoo as a child, which is where he began to think of all of his imaginary creatures in his stories! The children also taste tested Green Eggs.
Tenleigh enjoying a Dr. Seuss book in the Library while snuggling the Cat In The Hat.
During week two and three, we enjoyed learning all about Outer Space. The children enjoyed learning all the names of the planets in our solar system, learning all about the phases of the moon, and all about constellations. The children also enjoyed watching footage of the first moon landing. They learned about black holes with Ms. Caroline and learned a Planet Song with Ms. Kristen! Some of the children even took it upon themselves to make their own book of planets!
We also were pleased to welcome Ms. Caroline to our classroom! Ms. Caroline introduced herself to the children by bringing in pictures of her and her family and sharing with us how they moved here from England! We are so thankful to have her as a part of our classroom and the children are so excited she is with us!
We learned all about Ohio during week four! The children learned our state bird, the Cardinal. We also learned that our state capitol is Columbus, and that our state tree is the buckeye tree. We also talked about how our state is a small piece of our country, that our county is a small piece of our state, and our city is a small piece of our county! The children enjoyed seeing this up close using Google Earth to zoom in on our school with Ms. Caroline! We also enjoyed talking about famous sites around Ohio, such as Cedar Point, Progressive Field, The Cuyahoga Falls Clock Tower, etc.
For St. Patrick’s Day, the children enjoyed making a shamrock craft with Ms. Caroline and learning about how St. Patrick’s Day became a holiday!
Finally:
I would encourage you to review with your child what they have learned this past month. Read a Dr. Seuss book together and ask your child to point out some of the rhyming words. Discuss with your child the name of our planet, continent, county, state, and city. Practice naming the planets together and discuss which one you and your child would visit if you could.
Maria Montessori was quoted as saying, “ The child becomes a person through work.” I am enjoying seeing how your children continue to grow in their independence, laying the foundation for the adult they will one day become. I am so fortunate to have front row seat to watching each of these wonderful children learn and grow and I considerate a joy to come to school and learn alongside them every day!
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,
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 21st!