Our Focus Topic:

This week we learned about Sunflowers! We discussed the life cycle of a sunflower, and loved learning that the sunflower grows the seeds in the center of the flower. We also found it very interesting that the sunflower will follow the sun across the sky. We talked about the parts of a sunflower, and one of our friends brought in a real sunflower for us to observe!

Preschool Lesson

Our younger Blossoms continued talking about the ocean and beach this week by reading books about the different animals you would find there and voting for their favorite sea creature! They also created name puzzles this week to practice name recognition!

Kindergarten Lesson

Our older Blossoms learned all about cardinal directions this week with Mr. John. They learned to Never Eat Soggy Worms and labeled the directions on their homework!

Reader’s Workshop with Ms. Kelley and Writer’s Workshop with Ms. Tonya started this week! Our readers were introduced to their Book Buddy Bags that will be filled with books and other reading activities for the children to work on. Our writers started writing books already! Their first book is all about something they know a lot about, most of the children chose their pets!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

What are we working on in the classroom?

Teachable Moments this week…

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic: The Five Senses

Preschool Lesson: Emotions

Kindergarten Lesson: Hemispheres

Letter of the Week: Aa

Important Dates:

Monday, September 5: No School, Labor Day

September 21: Picture Day

September 30: Field Trip to Ramseyer Farm!

We had a wonderful start to our school year this week! The Cherry Blossom class was so excited to be back with old friends and meet new ones! We talked about routines and expected behavors this week during line time. We reviewed how we work in the classroom, where all of our favorite works are located, and our important ASL classroom signs. We settled quickly back into our schedule and are looking forward to our classroom chores beginning again next week!

Preschool Lesson was all about the beach this week! Our younger Blossoms learned about seashells, sand dollars, and sea stars this week. They poured sea shells, sorted shells by size, and ladeled sea glass.

Kindergarten Lesson with Mr. John began this week for our older Blossoms! They talked all about the different continents and interesting facts about each one. We were very proud to see that they remembered so much from our Africa study last year!

We would also like to give a big Cherry Blossom welcome to our two new friends that are joining our classroom community this school year!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Sunflowers and Butterflies

Preschool Lesson: The Beach

Kindergarten Lesson: Handwriting, Reader’s Workshop, and Writer’s Workshop begins!

Important Dates:

Monday, September 5: Labor Day – No School!

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

And that’s a wrap on the 2021-2022 school year in the Cherry Blossom Class!  We took some time to celebrate a wonderful year with our friends this week.  We had a picnic outside on a beautiful sunny day.  We enjoyed watching Luca and eating snacks.  We read books, drew pictures, played games, and showed our toys from home.  We had one last science experiment with Mr. John. We had a BLAST at Bash & Splash Day!

Ms. Sam and I have had such a wonderful year with your children.  They brought us so many smiles and laughs every single day.  We are proud of their hard work and all of the amazing things they have learned.  They are kind, caring, funny, unique individuals.  They worked together so well and truly built a classroom community that makes my heart full.  We love them all with our whole hearts!  We hope your family has an amazing summer.  To those that we sadly said goodbye to, we will miss you!  And to those that will return, see you later alligators!  Love, Ms. Tonya

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week we learned about Pollinators!  This was the perfect way to wrap up our May lessons as flowers are important to pollinators and pollinators are important to flowers!  We learned about different types of pollinators: bees, butterflies, bats, and hummingbirds.  We learned that pollinators drink nectar from the flowers and while they do that, pollen sticks to their bodies.  We then learned that the pollinator takes that pollen to another flower and drops it off, allowing that flower to make new seeds! We ended our week with a special presentation from a beekeeper and tasted honey straight from the hive!

Operation Releasing Butterflies!

We let our Painted Lady Butterflies go on Monday and Tuesday this week.   We were sad to see them go but were able to watch one of them fly right to a flower and drink nectar!  How lucky are we?!?

Enrichment Spotlight!

We had our last Music, Art, and Science lessons for this school year.  We enjoyed playing John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt one more time with Ms. Lisa.  We finished most of our art projects with Ms. Varela, and brought our art portfolios home.  And Mr. John showed us an experiment with FIRE!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

A very Happy Birthday to our newest 4 year old!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  FUN WEEK!

Important Dates:

It’s the last week of school! We can’t believe it!

Monday, May 30: Memorial Day – No School!

Tuesday, May 31: Outdoor reading and drawing, picnic lunch, indoor games!

Wednesday, June 1: Maker space, Show & Tell (for children that attend Mon/Wed/Fri ONLY), and watching a movie! ** No Aftercare **

Thursday, June 2: LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!  Board games, Show & Tell, and BASH & SPLASH DAY! ** No Aftercare **

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week we learned about Flowers! We built upon our knowledge of seeds from last week, and talked about how a flower grows, the different parts of a flower, and why pollinators love flowers so much… which will take us into next week! 🙂

Our new favorite work is our Flower Arranging work from Practical Life.  Who knew there was so much you could do with flowers?  We also started another science experiment!  What do you think the colored water will do to the white flowers?  Do you have a hypothesis?

Operation Butterflies!

On Day 18 of our butterfly observations, we were lucky enough to watch the Painted Lady butterflies emerge from their chrysalises!  We watched as they climbed out, rested, and dried their wings.  We loved every single moment of this experience in our classroom!  We’ll release them on Monday and Tuesday next week!

Enrichment Spotlight!

We had our very last Library visit with Ms. Cat for this school year.  We read books and sang songs about space!  We can’t wait to have more fun with Ms. Cat next school year!

A Special Visit from Venom!

One of our students brought in their bearded dragon, Venom, to introduce to our class!  We reviewed what we had learned about reptiles and enjoyed learning more about bearded dragons!  We learned what they eat (roaches and crickets!), about the spikes on their bodies, and about how they shed their skin.  Thank you so much for visiting us Venom!  We loved it!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Butterflies, Bees, Seeds, and Flowers

Important Dates:

It’s so hard to believe that we’re almost at the end of our school year.  What an amazing year it has been in the Cherry Blossom room!  A Field Day email has been sent out to you with the exciting events of the day!  Let me know if you have any questions and I hope you’ll sign up to volunteer!

May 30: Memorial Day – No School

June 2: Field Day and LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week was all about SEEDS!  We learned about what is inside of a seed, how seeds spread and why they need to, the three things a seed needs to grow, and how they grow from a seed to a plant!  We took some time to use a magnifying glass  to look at different types of seeds close up.  And we planted some seeds in our plant viewer!  We can’t wait to see what happens next!

Operation Chrysalis!

Our caterpillars formed their chrysalises this week!  We were so excited to watch the entire process: from the caterpillars forming their J shape, shedding their exoskeletons one last time, and forming their chrysalis.  We also moved our future butterflies into the butterfly house so we can continue observing.

Enrichment Spotlight!

We love Friday mornings when we practice ASL with Ms. Emily!  This week Ms. Sam taught us a song about seeds and Ms. Emily taught us how to sign it!

Overheard in the Classroom…

Living things need food, water, air… and FISH STICKS!

“We’re counting our numbers together!”

“YAY MATH!!!”

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Butterflies, Bees, Seeds, and Flowers

Important Dates:

May 30: Memorial Day – No School

June 2: Field Day and LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

We have had such a busy week in the Cherry Blossom class!  We continued our study of Africa, we took a field trip, celebrated some birthdays, wrote some books, and met a hedgehog!

This week we designed our own African necklaces.

We met an African Dwarf Hedgehog named Daisy!

Our favorite authors have begun writing books featuring animals that you can find in Africa, such as elephants, lions, and hippos! We are encouraging the children to write their own words in their books. Look for more information about this method of teaching writing soon!  They’ll also include a cover that has a title, a picture, and their name as the author! After they have finished, they can sit in the reading area and read their books!

We had a wonderful time at our field trip to the Sieberling Nature Realm!  We used our 5 senses to explore the hiking trail.  We explored what the bark feels like on different types of trees, saw some different early spring wildflowers, and a blue heron flew right over us! Inside the Nature Realm, we got up close to a box turtle!

Happy Birthday!

A very Happy Birthday to our newest 6 year old and our newest 5 year old!

Overheard in the Classroom…

“Hey dude… how are you liking your book?”

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Africa and Mother’s Day!

Important Dates:

May 4: International Festival Rehearsal (not a dress rehearsal)

May 6: International Festival

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

We continued our study of the seven continents this week.  We practiced a song to help us remember all of their names – see if your child can sing it for you at home!  Hint – We always start with North America if they need a little reminder. 🙂

We introduced Continent Boxes this week as well.  We have a box for each continent and it includes landmarks and pictures of the people, places, and animals we could see if we were to visit different countries.

We continued researching our individual African countries for the International Festival.  This week we focused on the flag for our respective countries.  We created a beautiful bulletin board outside of our classroom to showcase all of the different areas of Africa we are studying!

Enrichment Spotlight – Music with Ms. Lisa!

We are practicing some very special songs that we will perform at the International Festival in Music Class.  But Ms. Lisa also introduced us to a fun song – John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt!  We had so much fun waking up the person who was “sleeping”!

 

Our Field Trip to Seiberling Nature Realm is on Thursday!

We are VERY EXCITED to take this trip and look for signs of spring in nature!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Africa!

Important Dates:

April 18: NO SCHOOL – Easter Monday

April 21: Field Trip to Sieberling Nature Realm

May 4: International Festival Rehearsal

May 6: International Festival

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week we started our focus unit on the continents.  We took a deeper look into North America, South America, and Antarctica.

We also started our individual research on the African countries we are respresenting.  Each child is looking through one or two books about their country and learning about the people that live there, the foods that they eat, what sport/game they like to play, animals you would find in that country, and famous landmarks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

A huge Happy Birthday to our newest 4 year old and our two newest 5 year olds!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Africa!

Important Dates:

April 15: No After Care – Good Friday

April 18: NO SCHOOL – Easter Monday

April 21: Field Trip to Sieberling Nature Realm

May 4: International Festival Rehearsal

May 6: International Festival

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week we learned about Spring!  We talked about what weather we would see throughout the spring, what flowers would begin popping up out of the ground, what the birds outside of our window are up to, and observed this beautiful tree outside of our building.  Spring is one of my favorite seasons, so we will keep discussing all of the wonders it brings over the next couple months.

International Festival Update!

We introduced Africa this week!  The Cherry Blossom class is super excited to represent several countries of Africa at the International Festival this spring!  We started locating our individual countries on our Africa Map Puzzle!

What have the 4 year olds been up to in our mixed age classroom?

This child is working with our tweezing work in the Practical Life area.  We have added to this work by having the children sort by color while tweezing.

In our Sensorial area, we use constructive triangles to learn more about shapes.  With this box, we learn about the three different types of triangles – equilaterial, isosceles, and scalene.  We also learn that we can use more than one of theses triangles to form a larger equilaterial triangle.

This child is using foam shapes with the moveable alphabet.  She is isolating the beginning sound of the word, later on she will use the moveable alphabet to sound out the whole word.

This child is tracing and labeling a horse.  We use this work to not only learn the different names of the parts of an animal, but also work on labeling skills and handwriting.

The chalkboards are a favorite tool in our Cherry Blossom Classroom.  We use chalk to practice writing individual letters, blended letters, our names, words, numbers, and so much more!  This child is choosing to write all of the letters of the alphabet!

After the children are comfortable with number recognition and quantity for 0-10, we introduce the child to the Golden Bead material. This material introduces the child to place value which we build upon as we compose numbers, and learn addition and subtraction.

SPRING BREAK IS NEXT WEEK!

Enjoy your break!  We will see you back at school the week of April 4th!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Africa!

Important Dates:

March 28-April 1: NO SCHOOL – Spring Break!

April 18: NO SCHOOL – Easter Monday

May 4: International Festival Rehearsal

May 6: International Festival