Peek In Our Week ||| Thee Buckeye Room ||| Week Of February 6, 2023

Thee Buckeye Room Bulletin

Line Time:
We first learned about George Washington and how he was our first president and was the General of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln came from a poor family, freed the slaves and was president during the Civil War.  We were introduced to Franklin D. Roosevelt and how he was president during World War II and how John F. Kennedy fought for equal rights.  We then learned that Joe Biden was current president. The children were taught that the president’s wives are called the first lady and that the president lives in the white house in Washington DC, and flies on a jet called Air Force 1.  We discussed what responsibilities the President has.  The children came up with keeping us safe, keeping the world safe, and running the country. 

Presidents Of The United States Of America (Wasn’t that a 90’s band? Gunna eat a lot of peaches!)…

Again… Too much TV and radio.

       

   

What’s The Diff? (Supper and Dinner)?
Dinner and supper are both used to refer to the main meal of the day, and especially to that meal as eaten in the evening. Supper is used especially when the meal is an informal one eaten at home, while dinner tends to be the term chosen when the meal is more formal.

Chicken Paprikash with heavy cream, dark meat, no “light stuff” allowed. I am waiting (im)patiently for Ms. Angela to make me this dish!!!!!!!!!

A Message From Mr. John (Ear bugs):

Half Birthdays:

Summer birthdays need love too.

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 23 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation)

Know Your Languages (Serbo-Croation): Audio only

Enrichments (Music):

In music Ms. Lisa is telling the story of Peter and the Wolf.

Measuring and Recording Data:

They noticed the stem is longer than the ruler. They figured out how to use the ruler in this situation.

Peek In The Classroom:

She is proudly showing her favorite color as she works on Color Box 2. The primary purpose of the Montessori color tablet box 2 is to develop visual discrimination of color using primary, secondary and tertiary colors. The secondary purpose of this activity is to help the child develop a sense of visual order.
She is working on the Sandpaper Numbers. The direct purpose of the Sandpaper Numbers is to teach children the symbols that represent each number, allowing them to visually identify any number from 0 – 9. In Montessori education this is specifically taught separately to counting from 0 – 9, where children often fall back on rote memorisation.
He is working on the Teen Board. The traditional Montessori Teen Board is used to show children how tens and ones make teens; it is a visual and physical application of building numbers to enable understanding.
She is working on 5he Ten Board. Montessori Tens Board with Beads, also called Seguin Board B or Seguin Board 2 teaches a child to associate the quantities and symbols from 10 to 90. Using the Tens Boards, the child explores the number names of the tens and the sequence of numbers 11–99.

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Ancient Egypt

Letter Of The Week- U u

Rhyming Word Of The Week- bet

Next Language is Cebuano

Academic Enrichment:
Weekly Theme: Division without borrowing (static)

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Division with borrowing (dynamic)

Synonym Of The Week: Appropriate:  Suitable, fitting, apropos, correct, proper

Sight Words Of The Week:  would about

Peace!

Upcoming Events:
A few days off and other stuff.

DAYS OFF:
-No School: Friday, February 17th (Teacher In Service day)
-No School: Monday, February 20th (President’s Day)

OTHER STUFF:
Akron Art Museum Field Trip:  Thursday, March 9 (from 9am to 12pm)  IT IS FREE! (Details To Follow)

Friends, Frolic, and Fun:

Our little matryoshka doll wearing her babuska.
Tell me boy’s brains are not wired differently than girls. Boys wrestling.
You should have seen the other guy.
Tell me girls brains are not wired the same as boys. Girls doing ballet.

Your Kids say The Darndest Things (Cupcakes):

Did you hear her say Mr. John’s fave cupcake is chocolate? Just saying.

Peak In Our Week +++ Thee Buckeye Class +++ Week Of January 31, 2023

Buckeye Room Bulletin

Line Time:
The class went green for the week learning about recycling, conserving energy, and pollution.  I explained that pollution was anything that made our environment dirty.  We learned there is littering.  Littering can be people throwing trash on the side of the road or dropping a candy wrapper in the woods.  We now know that we need to put trash in an appropriate container.  We learned that air pollution is created by factories’ smokestacks and cars exhaust,  but cars are just one of the factors that produce air pollution, there are also other reasons.  Water Pollution is caused by factories dumping chemicals in the water or people throwing trash in the water instead of putting it in a trash can.  The 3 R’s were introduced and now we all know to reduce, reuse and recycle!  We thought of ways to conserve energy.  We came up with turning off lights in rooms we are not in or turning off the TV if we are not watching it.  We thought of turning off the water while we are brushing our teeth or turning down the heat and wearing a sweater instead.  During the kindergarten lesson a student realized the room was just as light with the lights off as it was if the lights were on.  Now we do our kindergarten lesson without lights.

Did you know? (I Really Don’t Know Clouds, At All)…One of my guilty pleasures. Originally written by Joni Mitchell at age 23 she stated that her lyrics were way beyond her years. Lyrically this is an awesome song. I digress   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPoWpkBzmM
A cloud can weigh more than a million pounds.

Clouds are not as light and fluffy as they appear. In fact, researchers have found that a single clouds weigh more than 1.1 million pounds. How do they know? Well, that number is calculated by taking the water density of a cloud and multiplying it by its volume. Fortunately, the cloud can still “float” at that weight because the air below it is even heavier.

A Message From Mr. John: Audio Only video Not Working

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 22 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish)

Know Your Languages (Polish): Audio Only video Not working

Chinese New Year: ( (新年好) /Mandarin)  |  ( 恭喜发财/Cantonese)

A visit from our favorite Dental Hygenist, Taylor from Dr. Pollock’s office.

Peek In The Classroom:

He is very proud completing the 45 layout. This layout will help your child to visualize and develop an understanding of place value, order of numbers, and concentration. This work is very large and can take some time.
We are practicing exchanging and we exchange at 10. That is why 10 is the magic number!
He is practicing identifying symbols and writing what he found.
Continuing to measure, track, and draw our data.

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Presidents Of The USA

Letter Of The Week- T t

Rhyming Word Of The Week- bed

Next Language is Serbo-Croation

Academic Enrichment:
Weekly Theme: 
Subtraction with borrowing (dynamic)

They are not in the Vogue video but demonstrating the Subtraction sign.

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Division without borrowing (static).

Synonym Of The Week: FAT: overweight, big, bulky, heavy, plump

Sight Words Of The Week:  more these

Upcoming Events:
A few days off and other stuff.

DAYS OFF:
-No School:
Friday, February 17th (Teacher In Service day)
-No School: Monday, February 20th (President’s Day)

OTHER STUFF:
Akron Art Museum Field Trip:  Thursday, March 9 (from 9am to 12pm)  IT IS FREE! (Details To Follow)

Friends, Frolic, and Fun:

These past few weeks we’ve experienced the faces of sickness.
Happy Ground Hog’s Day.
He is ready for summer.
I have no idea how you get food on your forehead. It is probably in my best interest not to ask.

Your Kids say The Darndest Things (The Boy Who Loved Cheesecake):
reminds me of this…… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9inOtq0Ayek


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

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 In Our Week {} {} Thee Buckeye Room {} {} Week Of January 23, 2023

Thee Buckeye Room Bulletin

Line Time:
This week we learned a bit about the internal organs.  We started with the brain which is like the computer of the body.  It tells our body how fast to breathe and how fast our heart should beat.  We discovered the lungs help us breathe and puts oxygen in our blood. Our stomach digests food, the small intestine take nutrients out of our food and large intestine gets the remaining water from indigestible food and creates waste (poop)(that word produced laughter) or as I referred to a bowel movement.  The kidneys process excess water and creates pee (more laughter) or urine.  The liver removes toxins from the body. We found out that the largest organ of the human body is the epidermis.  The liver is my fave internal organ.  What is yours?

A Message From Mr. John (Perception of time): AUDIO ONLY VIDEO NOT WORKING

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 21 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish) 

Know your Languages (Dutch/Flemmish): AUDIO ONLY VIDEO NOT WORKING

Did You Know?:
Dead skin cells are the main ingredient for household dust.
Here’s an interesting science fact for you: According to researchers at Imperial College London, humans shed around 200 million skin cells each hour—and they have to go somewhere when we’re indoors and it becomes dust.

Grandparents Day:

Scenes with grandparents in the classroom.
Science!!!!!!!! a well cleaned out Mr. John, lol

Enrichments (Sign Language):

Our Sign Language mascot is the Rainbow Raccoon.

Peek In The Classroom:

This boy is alphabetizing name tags.
He is working on the Constructive Triangles. The constructive triangles are used to demonstrate that all plane geometric figures can be constructed from triangles. There are five boxes: 2 rectangular, 1 triangular, and 1 large and 1 small hexagonal. Each box contains triangles of different sizes, shapes, and colors.
These students are comparing the Bead Cubes with the Pink Tower.
In a Montessori classroom seasoned students guide younger students.

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Pollution and Recycling

Letter Of The Week- S s

Rhyming Word Of The Week- bup

Next Language is Polish

Academic Enrichment:
Subtraction without borrowing (Static). We also learned the terms of subtraction.
9 (minuend) – 4 (subtrahend) = 5 (difference)

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Subtraction with borrowing (Dynamic).

Synonym Of The Week: skinny

Sight Words Of The Week:  other some

I think they are being silly but don’t quote me on this.

Upcoming Events:
A few days off and other stuff.

DAYS OFF:
-No School:
Friday, February 17th (Teacher In Service day)
-No School: Monday, February 20th (President’s Day)

OTHER STUFF:
-Readiness Conferences (Incoming Kindergarten Students/Incoming First Graders):
(Details To Follow)

Akron Art Museum Field Trip:  Thursday, March 9 (from 9am to 12pm)  IT IS FREE! (Details To Follow)

Frolic, Friends, and Fun:

I thought he was a Kansas City Chiefs fan but he said he represents ketchup/catsup and mustard. Then I realized he dressed like Winnie the Pooh.
This is not an optical illusion. Look at the height difference.
BFFs
She says it is a racoon. I’ll take what I can get. Actually, it is a Rainbow Racoon!

Your Kids say The Darndest Things (My sister Lydia):


A Peek At Our Week – Aspen – 01/16/23-01/20/23 And 01/23/23 – 01/27/23

The past couple of weeks, Aspen has been learning all about the Arctic and Antarctic while exploring the concepts of adaptation, hibernation, and migration! We have made many interesting discoveries and learned some really amazing facts! Last week we explored the North and South Poles, focusing on their location, similarities and differences between the North and South Poles, and wildlife inhabiting these biomes. We discussed the Arctic and Antarctic ecosystems and learned how the animals living there have adapted to living in a harsh environment with temperatures below freezing. We learned all about blubber and the specialized feathers penguins have (they fit together keeping water out like a wetsuit, keeping the penguins skin dry). At the same time, we discovered an interesting fun fact: did you know that the polar bear’s skin is black and its fur is actually translucent? Their fur only appears white because it reflects the visible light. Your child is now an Arctic and Antarctic expert!

This week Aspen discussed the concepts of adaptation, hibernation, and migration. We discovered that animals are absolutely amazing and have developed interesting ways to survive the cold harsh winters. We took a look at what adaptations animals make, which animals hibernate, and how animals migrate and where they migrate to! We also took the opportunity to look at the different footprints animals leave. We can often observe these footprints in the snow this time of year! It has been a fun two weeks in the Aspen Room

The kindergarteners have focused on Multiplication (last week) and Subtraction (this week). They have learned the mathematical terms multiplicand, multiplier, and product (multiplication) and the terms minuend, subtrahend, and difference (subtraction). After learning the proper terminology, the kindergarteners practiced multiplying and subtracting with the Stamp Game! In Reader’s Workshop the Cardinals have focused on phonograms, received phonogram reading lists, and practiced their reading comprehension skills by reading short story paragraphs containing phonograms. They then answered questions on a worksheet for follow up work. The Chickadees received a new phonetic reader, practiced reading comprehension with high frequency words while engaging in follow-up activities relating to their phonetic readers. The Chickadees have also focused on the ending sounds in phonetic words. A good “Sound Detective” looks at each sound in a word! We practiced not getting tricked by words with similar sounds! In Writers Workshop, the Cardinals have focused on transition words for the beginning of a book, such as one day, one time, or everyday when writing their individual books. The Chickadees have focused on Word Wall words: went, and, the, and for. We also worked on stretching out their words (sounding them out, and completing the whole word). They also focused on writing a full sentences! Our Kindergarteners have worked so hard and have made amazing progress in both Readers and Writers Workshop!

Next week our thematic topic will be the Five Senses. We will explore how we use our senses through various follow-up activities and apply them during the classroom work period. Aspen will also discuss Groundhog Day while engaging in groundhog related fun!

Fun with the South America Puzzle Map.

Tracing Fun with our Puzzle Maps. These awesome ladies recreated our Continent Puzzle Map!

More continent tracing fun! They even added the Equator after this photo was taken.

Classification work with the Life Cycle of a Penguin!

Phonetic Object Box fun with CVC words!

Cylinder Block Extensions for Sensorial fun! All four blocks!!


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

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#/


Peek In Our Week ::: Thee Buckeye Room ::: Week Of January 23, 2023

Thee Buckeye Room Bulletin

Line Time:
Skeletal System- 
This week we looked at the skeletal system and if we didn’t have a skeleton we would be one messy blob on the ground (insert a flagellant sound).  We learned the skull protects our brain, the rib cage protects our lungs, and the spine keeps us sitting and standing straight.  We learned technical terms for our arms, leg and our digits which is a funny name called phalanges. We brought our life sized foam puzzle into our room.  His name is Elvis because we learned about the pelvis and it was a cool rhyming name.

A Message From Mr. John (The Food Thief):

Did You Know?
If you chill your onions you won’t cry when you cut them…..

There’s nothing worse than chopping and onion and bursting into tears. Not because you’re sad for the onion, but because your eyes sting from a chemical reaction. A simple solution is to stick your onion in the freezer for about 15 minutes beforehand. This will prevent the acid enzymes working properly and stop you from tears! ***** P.S. It doesn’t work. I tried it and still felt like I got pepper sprayed *****

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 19 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh) 

Know Your Languages (Welsh):

Enrichments (Science):

1) Preparing for the inevitable. 2) Took off his glasses to prepare more. 3) Getting wet. 4) Recooperating with much laughter in the background.

Peek In Our Week:

Kindergarten students measuring a sprout and recording the data. We will track the progression of this flower’s growth.
When a new work is introduced it causes quite a stir. A warm welcome for Elvis the Pelvis. Also, the students having Elvis chillaxing.
Comparing Elvis to themselves.
Playing memory games is not only fun for children of all ages in the Montessori classroom, they also provide an opportunity for developmental growth. Memory games can improve brain functions and lead to better retention, attention, and concentration, all while lengthening focus. I show her a number and she walks across the room, counts the appropriate number of popsicle sticks, and returns to me. We do this for numbers from 0 to 10.

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Internal Organs

Letter Of The Week- R r

Rhyming Word Of The Week- but

Next Language is Dutch/Flemmish

Academic Enrichment aka Kindergarten:
This Week’s Theme: Multiplication, stamp game with and without carrying overs (including 0).

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Subtraction (without borrowing)

Synonym Of The Week: NICE: kind, pleasant, delightful, good, helpful

Sight Words Of The Week: first  than

I had some chippy Kinders this day.

Upcoming Events:
Grandparent’s Day:
January 26, 2023

No School: Friday, February 17 (Teacher In Service day)
No School: Monday, February 20 (President’s Day)

Fun, Frolic, And Friends:

3 dapper boys
Where did his arms go?
Ya…… I can not tell them apart.
We have a cape wearing super hero doing math.

Your Kids Say The Darndest Things (My brother Theo):


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

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

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 At Our Week- Aspen- 01/02/23- 01/06/23 – Snowflakes and the States Of Matter!

Welcome back Aspen families!! We hope you had an amazing winter vacation full of fun and relaxation! Ms. Lindsey and I were so happy to see everyone this week! We missed all of you! The Aspen children seemed happy to return to school and their daily classroom activities! The classroom was bustling with academic energy, enthusiasm, and smiles as everyone missed their friends and favorite activities! This week our topic was Snow and Snowflakes! Before we could investigate Snowflakes, we had to discuss the States of Matter; therefore, Aspen learned all about Solids, Liquids, and Gases. We learned that things/objects are made up of matter and matter is made up of small particles called Molecules. We further learned that Molecules behave differently in different States Of Matter! For example, the Molecules in a solid are arranged tightly packed close together allowing Solids to hold their shape. The Molecules in a liquid are packed close together but not tightly; therefore, liquids are free flowing and change shape depending on the container the occupy. The Molecules in a Gas are moving rapidly in all directions and are not packed close together. A Gas does not have a defined shape and we cannot typically see them! After discussing the above, we engaged in a follow up Practical Life Solid, Liquid, and Gas activity. The Aspen students got to use beads pretending they were Molecules and arranged them tightly, free flowing, or bouncing all over the place (this activity is pictured below). After learning about Molecules it was time to talk snow! What is Snow? How Does it form? The Aspen students are now snow experts! They learned that snow is frozen ice crystals made up of water, discovering ice is the solid form of water! Water is a liquid, and when it freezes it becomes ice! Aspen then asked the question can water be a gas? We further discovered that water can be a gas called water vapor, and there is something called a Water Cycle. The Water Cycle and temperature play a role in the formation of snow! Aspen then had to research the Water Cycle and made the realization that clouds are condensed Water Vapor and when the water vapor condenses and becomes too heavy the cloud releases the water in a liquid state. We call this liquid state rain; however, if the temperature is cold enough the liquid will turn to ice crystals and the ice crystals will stick to pollen or dust in our atmosphere. They will then form larger crystals by combining together to create a snowflake! It was at this point that Aspen realized that when we catch snowflakes on our tongue to eat, we are actually eating dust or pollen! Wow! It was a very busy week in Aspen!! To illustrate the Water Cycle, we read the book The Drop Goes Plop by Sam Godwin and then did a very special “Make It Rain” science experiment using water, shaving cream, and food coloring. Ask your child about their busy week in Aspen!

In Kindergarten Workshop, the kindergarteners explored the concept of Multiplication using the Multiplication Bead Bars. They practiced combining multiples of a number while visually experiencing this process through the manipulation of numbered beads. In Readers Workshop, the Cardinals focused on reviewing phonograms they learned prior to Winter Vacation and then learned two new phonograms: ou and ow. Cardinals then engaged in follow-up work with ou and ow. They played “What’s The Word” and “Name that Phonogram ” where we took turns figuring out how to read various words and then located phonograms within them. The Chickadees reviewed phonics and then focused on the ending sounds within a word. The Chickadees then played “What’s the Word ” by changing only the ending sounds of phonetic words. They also reviewed the sh and th phonograms! In Writers Workshop the Cardinals focused on handwriting skills of cursive lowercase letters and Chickadees focused on vowels, vowel sounds, and how to write them.

For the week of January 9, 2023 our thematic lesson for the week will be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and diversity. We will also explore concepts regarding this topic by doing our Rosa Parks play during line time.

Fun with the PinkTower and Brown Stair Extensions!

Solid, Liquid, Gas Practical Life activity!

Focusing and concentrating to make sure no drops are spilled with the eyedropper activity!

Exploring the Knobless Cylinder Extensions!