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

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

We have had a super busy week in the Cherry Blossom room!  Our focus was on clouds and rainbows, and we completed so many fun science experiments as we learned about these awesome parts of nature!

Ms. Sam introduced us to the order of the colors in a rainbow.

We used sunight and prisms to create rainbows on the wall of our classroom!  We learned that raindrops and prisms work the same way by bending the sunlight to reveal the colors!

We know that clouds are water droplets that stick together, but then how does it rain?  We saw that when the cloud gets too heavy or too full of water then the drops fall down!

We learned about the three main types of clouds that we can see in the sky.  Cirrus and Cumulus clouds generally mean good weather but Stratus clouds cover the sky like a blanket and generally bring rain.  We’ve been checking the sky all week to see what types of clouds are up there.

This experiment was definitely their favorite.  Maybe you could try it at home too!

That sneaky little leprechaun caused some mischief!

We were quite surprised to come inside from recess and find that a sneaky little leprechaun had visited our classroom!

What have the 3 year olds been up to in our mixed age classroom?

This group is all about the sensory based works!

This child is working with both the Brown Stairs and the Pink Tower to build extensions.  You’ll notice that the Brown Stairs are still built from thick to thin and the Pink Tower is still built from big to small.

This child is working with all four knobbed cylinder blocks.

This child is beginning to learn how to write individual letters with our sandpaper letters and our sand tray.

Our 3 year olds are beginning to work on writing their names!  We are focusing on the first letters at this time, and they’ve started writing that first letter on all of their papers!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Spring and Seeds!

Letter of the Week: Qq & Zz

Number of the Week: 18 & 19

Important Dates:

March 24: Elementary LIVE Wax Museum – 6:00-7:00pm

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

April 18: NO SCHOOL – Easter Monday

May 4: International Festival Rehearsal

May 6: International Festival

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

A HUGE thank you to all of the families that attended our Breakfast Club this morning!  It was so nice to spend some time with families and friends before our school day began.  We enjoyed joining conversations and hope the All About Mom and Dad papers made you smile!  And a huge thank you to everyone for making my birthday special as well!  My heart is full today!

This week we talked about weather!  We learned that weather is what we see outside, and that it can change throughout the day!  We also learned that temperature is the way it feels outside.  We briefly dicussed different types of weather and will continue to do so all month long as we fill in our March weather graph.  What type of weather do you think we’ll have the most of this month?

We also talked about the water cycle this week, learning big words such as: collection, evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.  We started a science experiment in our room that can show us all of the steps of the water cycle, and we’ll keep talking about this cycle next week as we take a deeper look at clouds.

What have the 5 year olds been up to in our mixed age classroom?

This child is working with the Trinomial Cube.  She has practiced building the cube in the box and on the lid, and is now working with the pieces of the cube on the table.

This child is composing large numbers with the Golden Bead material in our classroom. We break numbers down into units, tens, hundreds, and thousands and then the child can use the bead material to build that number in a concrete way.

This child is using the moveable alphabet to write words without pictures.  We were focusing on making “at” and “in” word families with known words and nonsense words.

This child has been working with individual sandpaper letters and is now working with the sandpaper letter blends to practice connecting letters together while writing in cursive.

This child is working with our 3 part cards.  3 part cards include a control card with picture and word, a picture card, and a word card.  The child will lay out the control cards, then match the pictures cards to the control cards, and finally match the word cards.  We use 3 part cards in the Language, Geography, and Science areas of the classroom to build upon our focus lessons.

International Festival News!!!

The Cherry Blossom Class will be studying the continent of AFRICA for the International Festival.  We’ll be diving right in after Spring Break so make sure your child signs up for the country that they would like to represent by Friday, March 18th!  

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-country2

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Spring, Clouds, and Rainbows!

Letter of the Week: Bb

Number of the Week: 17

Important Dates:

March 24: Elementary LIVE Wax Museum – 6:00-7:00pm

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

April 18: NO SCHOOL – Easter Monday

May 4: International Festival Rehearsal

May 6: International Festival

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

“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

Dear Parents,

Thank you for assisting us with a fun, silly, wonderful, fantastic week with your child!  This book brings tears to our eyes as we think of all the amazing places this group of children is going to go!  We love your kiddos!

– Ms. Tonya & Ms. Sam

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Weather and Clouds

Letter of the Week: Ww

Number of the Week: 16

Important Dates:

March 11: Breakfast Club!

March 24: Elementary LIVE Wax Museum – 6:00-7:00pm

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

April 18: NO SCHOOL – Easter Monday

May 4: International Festival Rehearsal

May 6: International Festival

Bring Your Parent To Work Days: Come observe your child working within the classroom to see what their day looks like!  Sign up here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-bring7

A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

We continued learning about Our Earth this week.  We focused on land and water forms, such as lake, island, cape, bay, gulf, and peninsula.  We also talked about what would we would see if we could cut the Earth in half.  We found out that there are different layers inside the Earth.  The inner core, the outer core, the mantle, and the crust!

We also continued our study of habitats this week, focusing on the ocean, the savannah, and the desert.  We participated in a science experiment with Ms. Sam, introducing us to the different zones of the ocean.  We were most interested in the Twilight Zone and a special animal – the Vampire Squid!  We watched a special Octonauts episode to learn even more about the Vampire Squid.

Enrichment Spotlight – ASL with Ms. Emily!

Ms. Emily was so excited to hear that we were learning about habitats!  She told us a story about forest animals, all with ASL!  Then we discussed the story we saw her tell and practiced signing with her!  It was a wonderful ASL lesson this week!

Peek Into Next Week!

Focus Topic:  Dr. Seuss!

MONDAY: Wear Crazy Socks!

TUESDAY: Wear a Hat!

WEDNESDAY: Dress Wacky!

THURSDAY: Wear Green!

FRIDAY: Dress like what you want to be when you grow up!

Letter of the Week: Ll

Number of the Week: 15

Important Dates:

March 11: Breakfast Club!

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

Bring Your Parent To Work Days: Come observe your child working within the classroom to see what their day looks like!  Sign up here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-bring7