A Peek into the Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 2/27/23

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Our Focus Lesson: Read Across America/Dr. Seuss

“Congratulations!   Today is your day. You’re off to great places!  You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

You’ll be on your way up!  You’ll be seeing great sights!  You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights! 

Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.  Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Oh, the places you’ll go!  There is fun to be done!  There are points to be scored.  There are games to be won. 

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know.  You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. 

And will you succeed?  Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed!)

KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

You’re off to Great Places!  Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. 

So… get on your way!

– “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ by Dr. Seuss

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Happy Birthday to our newest 4 year old!

It’s Time for International Festival!

The Cherry Blossom Class will be studying the continents of NORTH AMERICA and SOUTH AMERICA for the International Festival.  We have already started our research so make sure your child signs up for the country that they would like to represent by Friday, March 10th!  

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-country5#/

Peek into Next Week!

Focus Lesson: Fish

Preschool Lesson: Land and Water Forms

Kindergarten Lessons: Geometric Solids & Poetry

Important Dates:

March 27-March 31: Spring Break

April 7: Good Friday – Early Release 12:00pm

April 10: Easter Monday – No School

April 26: International Festival Rehearsal

April 28: International Festival

A Peek into the Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 2/20/23

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Our Focus Lesson – Winter

We have spent the past two weeks learning about the season of Winter… which was a tad challenging this year with our current weather. However, we made the most of it! We reviewed the Four Seasons and talked about what is special about Winter. The cold temperatures, the snow, how trees are dormant , and what different animals do.

We also read some fun books about snowmen and The Mitten by Jan Brett!

We had snow much fun reading these books this week! Did you know there is a hidden mouse on every page?
We practiced retelling the story of The Mitten by coloring and cutting out the animals and mitten from the story. We hope you enjoy the children’s retelling at home this weekend!

Preschool Lesson – Hibernation, Migration, Adaptation

Ms. Sam taught us all about hibernation, migration, and adaption over the past couple weeks! We read the story Under and Over the Snow as we learned what types of animals sleep all winter long, which animals fly south for the winter, and which animals stay here and adapt to the cold weather. We enjoyed watching our fluffy sparrows outside at our bird feeder adapt to the temperature. We also thought about why we would love to hibernate. But alas, people adapt.

“I would love to hibernate because I would like to go to sleep all day.”

Kindergarten Lessons

Kindergarteners were introduced to Fractions this week during Kindergarten Lesson. They also ended the week with a special Skittles surprise from Mr. John!

Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop celebrated this week with an Author’s Share! Each Kindergartener chooses one book that they have written recently, sits in the Author’s Chair, and reads their book to the class. They did so well reading to their friends!

This Kindergartener is reading her book The Trail to other Kindergarten friends.

Enrichment Spotlight – Art with Ms. Varela

We continued out pottery study this week, by drawing and coloring our stories on paper.

Peek into Work Time

This young Blossom is working with the Metal Insets. She is strengthening her fine motor skills by tracing inside the pink part of the inset and by tracing the outside of the blue part of the inset. She is also reinforcing her knowledge of this shape’s name.
This older Blossom is also working with the Metal Insets. This child is now using two shapes to create designs with the metal insets. He traces inside and outside of the inset, and then fills the design with different types of lines to further develop those fine motor skills.
This child is exploring the concept of Heavy and Light with the parts of a snowman! We weighed snoman eyes, a snowman nose, a snowman mouth, and a snowman scarf!
Look how proud this Blossom is! He completed the 100 Board for the very first time! We absolutely LOVE these kinds of smiles!
Out Kindergarteners participate in “Buddy Reading” each week. They have a bag of books that are perfect for them, and they practice reading those books out loud to Mr. Gnome and Mrs. Gnome in the classroom. They absolutely love to share these books with our classroom gnomes!

Peek into Next Week!

Focus Lesson: Dr. Seuss/Read Across America Week!

Monday: Wear crazy socks!

Tuesday: Wear your favorite hat!

Wednesday: Dress wacky!

Thursday: Wear green!

Important Dates:

March 26-March 31: Spring Break – No School!

Peek into the Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 2/6/23

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Our Focus Lesson & Preschool Lesson: Dinosaurs

We learned about Dinosaurs this week! Our new vocabulary that we were introduced to is herbivore, carnivore, extinct, paleontologist, and fossils. This was certainly a favorite topic for our kiddos! We spent the whole week asking questions and sharing what we know about dinosaurs with our friends. We read books, watched paleontologists at work, and discussed our favorite dinosaurs. Everyone has a favorite dinosaur, what is yours?

Ms. Brandy from the elementary classroom let us borrow her BIG dinosaur books! We enjoyed looking at all of the pictures inside!
We used paint and straws to create a volcano exploding!

Enrichment Spotlight:

In Music Class, Ms Lisa used a slide whistle to teach us about high and low sounds in music.
In Art Class, Ms. Varela had us look for patterns and designs on clay pots. This is the beginning step to our clay pot lessons! We’ll be designing our pots and then building them with clay!
Science lessons with Mr. John is our favorite part of Thursday!

Valentine’s Day!

We designed bird and dinosaur Valentines to send to residents at a local nursing home.
We also created these adorable “I Love You to Pieces” artwork to bring home to our families!
We collected data and created a bar graph using conversation hearts! Then we got to eat them!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Lesson: Winter

Preschool Lesson: Hibernation, Migration, and Adaptation

Kindergarten Lesson: Division

Important Dates:

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17 – NO SCHOOL, Teacher Inservice Day

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – NO SCHOOL, President’s Day

A Peek into the Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 1/30/23

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Focus Lesson – Our Skeletal System

This week we finished our study of the human body with the Skeletal System! We learned that we have 206 bones in our body, our bones create blood cells for our body, and they hold us up so that we’re not just a blob. We learned the names of our bones: skull, ribs, spine, pelvis, humorus, radius, ulna, femur, fibula, and tibia. We practiced writing these labels for our bones, labeled a skeleton in class, and created a skeleton to bring home!

This Kindergartener and Preschooler are working with our skeletal system work. They are using a nonfiction book about bones to create their own labels and then labeling the skeleton that they built upon the work mat. Older and younger students working together is just one of the benefits of a multi-age classroom environment!

Preschool Lesson – Geometric Solids

Our younger Blossoms studied Geometric Solids this week! They looked at and touched a sphere, cube, cone, and cylinder. We looked for these 3 dimensional shapes within our classroom, and practiced throwing and catching a sphere!

This preschooler is receiving a lesson on the geometric solids from Ms. Sam. During a Montessori 3 period lesson, a child is introduced to vocabulary associated with these three dimensional shapes. The teacher will introduce the name for the geometric solid
This young preschooler is tactilely exploring the geometric solids and making connections between the three demensional shape and the two dimensional shapes that she is already familiar with.

Kindergarten Lesson

Our older Blossoms continued their study of subtraction this week, using the Golden Bead Materials and the Stamp Game. In Handwriting, they practiced writing phrases in order to get used to only picking up our pencil when we start writing a new word. Reader’s Workshop continued learning about blends and phonograms. And in Writer’s Workshop our young authors are publishing their books and preparing for an Author Share next week!

A Special Visitor!

A wonderful way to wrap up our study of the human body was with a special visitor – Ms. Taylor from Dr. Pollock’s office to talk to us about Dental Health! We learned that we have 20 baby teeth and 32 adult teeth. We also learned how to brush our teeth and how to floss. Did you know that you should brush your teeth for 2 minutes? Ms. Taylor also reviewed healthy foods and sometimes foods with us!

100th Day of School!

WE ARE 100 DAYS SMARTER IN THE CHERRY BLOSSOM CLASSROOM! Ms. Tonya and Ms. Sam are so proud of how hard these children have worked over the past 100 days of school, and wanted to celebrate with a pizza party! We also celebrated by placing 100 stickers on a paper, sorting 100 objects, making 100th day hats, and counting to 100 by ones, fives, and tens! But the best part was seeing your children dressed up like they are 100 years old!

100 Days Smarter!
We love these old men!
And these old ladies!
Sorting 100 items!
Making 100 Day hats.
We did 100 exercises!

Peek into Next Week:

Focus & Preschool Lesson: Dinosaurs!

Kindergarten Lesson: Introduction to Division

Important Dates:

Friday, February 10: Valentine’s Day Celebration

Friday, February 17: NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS – Teacher Inservice Day

Monday, February 20: NO SCHOOL – President’s Day

Peek into the Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 1/23/23

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Our Focus Lesson: Internal Organs

This week, the Blossoms class learned all about their internal organs. We started with the brain, which we learned in the boss! The brain is responsible for sending important messages to the rest of the body, as well as making sure your body keeps breathing and your heart keeps pumping even when you’re asleep! We learned about the lungs, and how they are breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. We then looked at the heart, and learned that it pumps blood throughout our bodies while the blood carries the oxygen brought in by the lungs. We wrapped up our study with everyone’s favorite lesson – the digestive system! We learned about the stomach and the intestines!

Preschool Lesson: Body Parts

Ms. Sam introduced us to our body parts, from our eyelashes to our ankles, we learned all kinds of new words! We had so much fun labeling Ms. Tonya’s body at the end of the week!

Kindergarten Lesson:

Our older Blossoms practiced more subtraction this week during Kindergarten lesson. Our readers continued studying phonemes and phonograms, and using transition words in their books during Writer’s Workshop. In Handwriting, our kinders completed the lowercase alphabet! We’ll spend the next few weeks practicing writing words, and then we’ll begin uppercase letters!

Grandparent’s Day:

Thank you so much to all of the grandparents that came to visit us! We loved showing you what we do in the classroom, and hope that you enjoyed your science lesson with Mr. John!

Peek Into Next Week:

Focus Lesson: Our Skeleton

Preschool Lesson: The Number 100!

Kindergarten Lesson: Subtraction

Important Dates:

Friday, February 3: 100th Day of School! We are celebrating being 100 days smarter by dressing up like we are 100 years old! We will also be having a pizza party on this day. You can follow this link to sign up for some more items we’ll need at lunch. Thank you! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f4ca5a628a3f4cf8-100th#/

A Peek into the Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 1/16/23

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Focus Lesson:

This week we learned all about Healthy Habits. We focused on 5 main things that can keep our bodies healthy: eating healthy foods, drinking water, sleeping, exercising, and hygiene.

We continued discussing the 5 food groups daily at lunch, we always have so much fun finding our food group of the day inside of our lunch box. Ms. Tonya guided discussions on the importance of drinking water (because our bodies are made up of mostly water!), getting a good night’s sleep (so we can grow and make memories!), and exercising (it’s so important for kids these age to move their bodies for at least an hour per day!). Ms. Sam guided lessons on hygiene this week. Blossoms learned about the importance of brushing their teeth and bathing, and of course, washing their hands!

Kindergarten Lessons:

Kindergarteners continued learning about multiplication this week in Kindergarten Lesson. In Handwriting, they continued to learn how to form bump letters, focusing on v and . We’re almost done with the lowercase alphabet! In Reader’s Workshop our Blossoms practiced . And in Writer’s Workshop, our young authors continued to work on sentence structure, as well as adding transition words to their stories such as “one day”, “everday”, “next”, “then”, or “after”.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

Happy Birthday to our newest 6 year old!

Enrichment Spotlight – Library with Ms. Lindsey!

Ms. Lindsey read us a book about the hospital and a silly book about bones. The bones book introduced us to the names of different bones in our body, something we’ll be learning about very soon!

A Peek into Work Time: Math

This child has mastered matching the colored bead bars to their appropriate numeral. He is now using his knowledge of the beads to practice writing his numbers, combining math and handwriting!
This child is working with the Tens Board as he is being introduced to the conventional names for the tens quantities: twenty, thirty, fourty, etc. He is using ten beads to connect quantity and symbol.
This child is working with the 6 cube chain. This work reinforces the ability to count in sequence, as well as introduces the concept of counting in multiples and skip counting.
This child is working with the addition strip board. We use this work to practice addition facts, as well as reinforcing the compostition of 10.

Outside Fun!

We love playing outside with our Aspen friends!

Peek Into Next Week:

Focus Lesson: Internal Organs

Preschool Lesson: Body Parts

Kindergarten Lesson: Subtraction

Important Dates:

Thursday, January 26: Grandparent’s Day

Thursday, February 2: 100th Day of School!

Only 10 more school days until we’re 100 days smarter!

A Peek Into the Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 1/9/2023

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Our Focus Lesson: Healthy Foods & The 5 Food Groups

Our class learned all about Healthy Foods this week! We talked about how healthy foods give us energy to play, learn, and grow! We also spent some time this week talking about Healthy Foods and Sometimes Foods.

We spent time discussing each of the 5 food groups as well this week. We talked about how these food groups grow and examples of each one. We took time at lunch to find the food groups that we brought to school. But the best part of the week was preparing our own snack each day! Thank you so much to the parents that donated food for snack this week!

We started the week with Dairy Foods! We ate yogurt tubes and yummy cheese cubes!
Our second day was Grains! We did so well spreading butter onto slices of bread. Who doesn’t love bread and butter?
Wednesday was Fruits! We practiced peeling bananas, as well as cutting bananas and apple slices.
We added all of the fruits together to make fruit salad! It was our favorite snack of the week!
Thursday was Vegetables! We peeled carrots.
And chopped celery.
And enjoyed our vegetables with hummus and ranch dressing!
On the last day of the week, we learned about Proteins! We also practiced our spreading skills some more as we spread peanut butter onto crackers!

Kindergarten Lessons:

Kindergarteners learned Multiplication in Kindergarten Lesson this week. In Handwriting, they started their study on bump letters by forming the letters n and m. In Reader’s Workshop our older Blossoms practiced phonemes and isolating the middle sounds of words. And in Writer’s Workshop our authors worked on sentence structure!

Enrichment Spotlight: Science with Mr. John

There was so much giggling during this week’s science experiment! Why does a diaper hold more water than a paper towel?

Peek Into Next Week:

Focus Lesson: Healthy Habits

Bring Your Parent to Work Days: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-cblossom#/

Grandparent’s Day: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-cherry3#/

A Peek into the Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 1/2/23

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Happy New Year Blossoms! We were very excited to be back at school this week and see our friends. Our days were full of chatting and laughing together.

Focus Lesson:

This week we reviewed our classroom routines and expected behaviors. We settled back into our classroom after our long break. We reviewed how to be respectful of others and our materials within our room. We also took some time to talk all about our winter breaks! What we did, who we saw, what our favorite parts were. We even added a fireworks science experiment to our discussion about New Year’s Eve!

We added warm water, vegetable oil, and food coloring to a jar. We talked about density and molecules!
Check our how our “fireworks in a jar” exploded!

Preschool Lesson:

Ms. Sam reviewed the Geometric Cabinet with our younger Blossoms this week. They discussed polygons and quadrilaterals!

Kindergarten Lesson:

Our older Blossoms were introduced to Multiplication this week with Mr. John in Kindergarten Lesson. In Handwriting, they worked on writing words that connect using a dip connector. Reader’s Workshop and Writer’s Workshop discussed vowels, blends, and writing words and sentences!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our newest 5 year old!

Welcome to Our New Friend!

A big welcome to our new friend that joined our classroom community!

A Special Visitor!

The older sibling of one of our students joined us this week to read us a story. We loved having her with us, she was a great reader!

Peek into Work Time: Cultural

We were all about the map puzzles this week! The Montessori map cabinet is an important work in the classroom. Children use this material as an introduction to Geography. We begin with learning the names of the different continents. As a child becomes more comfortable with an individual map puzzle, we then introduce the child to the names of the countries within the continent. Children are encouraged to trace and label the countries within the continent, sneaking in more work for those fine motor skills!

We begin our Map Cabinet lessons with the Map of the Continents. This is a puzzle map in which each continent on the Painted Globe becomes an individual puzzle piece. The child learns the name of the continents and oceans, as well as where they are located, through the Three Period Lesson.
This student has mastered the Australia Map Puzzle. A child has mastered a Map Puzzle when they can consistently return all the pieces to the map without help. The child is then introduced to the names of the countries or territories. Then the child can trace and label the map puzzle, creating their own map and reinforcing what they have learned!
This older Kindergarten student is tracing and labeling The United States Map Puzzle. He is learning the names of a few states per day and has had lots of questions about how many hours it would take to get to different states. (We googled these answers for him!)

Peek into Next Week!

Focus Lesson: Healthy Foods

Preschool Lesson: The Food Groups

We’ll be preparing Healthy Foods in class! Sign up here! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4CA5A628A3F4CF8-5foodgroups

Important Dates:

Bring Your Parent to Work Dates! We have lots of dates still available! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-cblossom#/

Monday, January 16: No School for MLK Jr. Day

Thursday, January 26: Grandparent’s Day! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-cherry3#/

Peek Into The Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 11/28/22

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Our Focus Lesson & Preschool Lesson:

This week our Blossoms learned about Reptiles! We learned about the characteristics of this animal group, the things that make a reptile a reptile! We know that reptiles are vertebrates, they are cold blooded, they have dry, scaly skin, they hatch from soft shelled eggs, and they breathe with their lungs. The reptile we focused on this week were turtles!

We learned the life cycle of a sea turtle. Egg, hatchling, juvenile, and adult!
We also used our Reptile 3 part cards to discover different types of reptiles. Did you know that there are over 8,000 different types of living reptiles in the world?
Another step of our Reptile study is to trace and label a turtle. This Kindergartener has used copy writing to label her turtle, but then also used her knowledge of writing in cursive to add additional labels!
This Preschool student is also tracing and labeling a turtle. This work reinforces the parts of a turtle while also strengthening fine motor skills.
One of our Kindergarten students brought in a reptile book from home and read it to the class! We love the opportunities a mixed age classroom provides!

Lighting the World with Kindness!

Check out our bulletin board this month! We’re recognizing acts of kindness throughout the classroom all month long and adding lightbulbs to our reindeer’s antlers! This student overheard Ms. Sam say how beautiful his metal inset designs were so he gifted her his work!

Enrichment Spotlight!

In Art Class, we made a tree using just lines. We worked on slowing down and getting our lines close together.
We then colored in between the lines we made using different colors of green. Afterwards, we’ll paint over our tree with water and create a beautiful tree painting!
In Music class, we are practicing for the Christmas Show!
In ASL Class, we learned how to sign “My name is”, and voted to call our class the Electric Wolves, which we can also sign!

A Peek Into Work Time!

These best friends are working with our Pattern Completion work. This is an important pre-reading work as it encourages logical connections and reasoning skills.
This preschooler is working with the Moveable Alphabet to create words using seasonally themed pictures. The Moveable Alphabet is a child’s first foray into writing, transforming thoughts into words. The child’s use of the material progresses from single words, to phrases, and eventually to stories. This child also took his learning a step further by choosing to write he words he sounded out onto the dry erase board.
Check out this Kindergartener’s hard work! Writing sentences in print and in cursive!

Peek Into Next Week!

We will be busy the next two weeks! We will be practicing for our Christmas Show, decorating our shirts for the Christmas Show, and creating special gifts for our families!

Important Dates!

Wednesday, December 14 – Rehearsal at Cuyahoga Falls High School 6:00 – 7:00pm. Students should arrive by 5:45pm. Not a dress rehearsal.

Friday, December 16 – Christmas Show at Cuyahoga Falls High School! Students should arrive by 5:30pm! Show begins at 6:00pm. Cherry Blossom children should wear their green shirt, black or green bottoms, and tennis shoes.

Winter Break – December 17 – January 2. School resumes on Tuesday, January 3!

Peek Into The Cherry Blossom Classroom – week of 11/21/22

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Happy Thanksgiving!

This week we learned about Thanksgiving! We briefly covered the history of the day, and how Thanksgiving is a holiday that is celebrated at different times all over the world to give thanks for the harvest in the Fall. We also discussed how this is a time for us to be grateful for all that we have. We talked about what makes our hearts happy, and then told the class what we’re most grateful for. Mom, Dads, sisters, brothers, and pets were at the top of the list!

We also celebrated the holiday with some fun activities including a game of “Turkey Says”, following along with a directed drawing, and creating our own “Recipe for Cooking a Turkey.” We hope you enjoy these recipes for years to come, they truly brought us so much joy! Your children are hilarious!

Turkey says fly like a bat. Turkey says jump up and down. Turkey says be a bag. Turkey says touch your knee.

Community Helpers!

We had a surprise visit from some Community Helpers on Monday! Officer Davis and Officer Dennis from the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department came to talk to us about dog safety. We then got to meet a very special K-9 named Dan! But the best part was making the sirens and lights go off on the police car!

Thank you Officer Davis for coming to visit us! We were so excited!
Thank you Officer Dennis and Dan for visiting us! We loved learning about K-9 dogs!
Making the lights and sirens go off was the best part!
Haha we were trying to wake up the firefighters next door!

O-H-I-O!

We wrapped up the week with Mr. John’s favorite day of the school year! We all wore our OSU colors to help the Buckeyes get ready for the Big Game this weekend!

We are Thankful for YOU!

Thank you to each of our families, from the bottom of our hearts, for all your help and support. We couldn’t do what we do each day without you. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday full of yummy food and beautiful memories!

Peek Into Next Week:

Focus Lesson & Preschool Lesson: Reptiles and Turtles

Kindergarten Lesson: Addition with Golden Beads

Important Dates:

Friday, Dec. 2: Bring Your Parent to Work Day (all spots filled)

Wednesday, Dec. 14: Christmas Show Rehearsal

Friday, Dec. 16: CHRISTMAS SHOW!

Winter Break: Dec. 17 – Jan. 2. School Resumes Tuesday, Jan. 3.