It’s Been A Long Time Since I Rock And Rolled
Ahhhh, Led Zeppelin sums it up nicely. Yes, it has been a long time since I rock and rolled. It seems this all started right around the time my first child was born in October of 1999. Is this a coincidence? Maybe. It just seems that (while driving in a mini van from my cool Sentra) nights out, partying, driving with my music of The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Peter Gabriel, Black Flag, New Order, and Joy Division was quickly replaced urgent care clinic visits, diapers and music by Raffi, Veggy Tales, and Barney sing a longs, . I am not sure if this was a gradual or an immediate thing. All I know it happened leaving me shell shocked and wondering where my carefree days of Ohio State and John’s Life BC (Before Children) disappeared. I recently went to the The Ohio State Spring Game. As we were stuck in traffic going home going through campus I saw many parties. I longing looked upon the revelers hanging out on porches, and downing adult beverages. The person I was with said I was being ridiculous. She said I am an old “29” years old, I have a bad knee, can’t stand loud noises, recreationally drink Pepto Bismol, and got to bed at 8pm. Geeesh, talk about being brutally honest! Recently, I did get a glimpse of that past life(sort of). We went to the downtown restaurant Cilantro because I was craving Thai food and some good wine. The food, the amazing Oddbins Wines offered, the people at the restaurant, and the décor made me, for a very short moment, feel “hip” again. Well, if that’s all it takes…. I will take it because it has been a long time since I rock and rolled.
Line Time Lessons
The Continental Tango, Kookaburra, My Aunt Monica, and What a Small World it is. Those thoughts and music is still ringing in my ears. As you know these were the songs sung at the International Festival. We learned about all the continents and some of the individual countries within the continents. The students had fun learning about the climates, foods, clothes, and differences of how children attend school. I wanted to thank all of those who came in and talked about different countries. This adds so much to International Festival month. All the presentations are fun, informative, and the children and teachers enjoy it.
It never ceases to amaze me how much our students can learn in a short amount of time. They did a fabulous job with their lines and performing the songs. Not to mention how colorful the stage was with their costumes. I cannot give enough thanks to the people who prepared the food! Who didn’t gain ten pounds that night?
We returned to normalcy in the classroom the last week in April. We learned about life cycles and these medical alert reviews. A life cycle is nothing more than the birth of a creature, the creature grows, reproduces, then dies. Wow, this is our life in a nutshell? A humans life cycle is pretty boring compared to the life cycle of frogs/toads and butterflies/moths. The students now know that a butterfly comes from a chrysalis and a moth comes from a cocoon. The children learned a really big word called metamorphosis. This is what happens during the butterfly’s life cycle.
We had three guest readers this month. We had Jade who attends St. Joe’s and is in the second grade.
Taylor who is in the second grade and attends Preston (C.F.).
James who is in first grade and attends Dunbar (Tallmadge).
Kindergarten
In the kindergarten lesson we continued our work with grammar. The students learned the pronoun takes the place of a noun. We looked at the adjective which describes nouns and pronouns, the adverb which describes the verb and usually ends in “ly”, the conjunction which connects two sentences or thoughts and acts like a bridge.
Cultural Subjects
My line time and the kindergarten class count to ten in 25 different languages (English, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Tagalog, Polish, Irish, Welsh, Hebrew, Arabic w/the Lebanese dialect, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Swahili, Korean, Serbo-Croation, Hindi, Flemish/Dutch, Malay, Cebuano),
MUSIC
At our first music class this month Ms. Lisa shared her pictures from her trip to El Salvador. .Ms Lisa traveled there on a medical mission trip entertaining children with her musical skills, while they were waiting in line to see a Doctor.Then she gave each child a Tambourine. They used these while they were dancing in a circle to the Spanish song “I have joy in my heart”, and then to the song “John Jacob Jingle Him-er Smith.” This song was fun for them because they were either singing it real soft or loud,. Our students enjoyed hearing about her trip! This month, Ms Lisa reviewed 4 musical notes with the children. They are the whole note, 1/2 note, 1/4 note,and 1/8 note. The children clapped along to the different speeds the notes make. Next, she gave them rhythm sticks and the used them to march to the song “The Ants Go Marching.” Then they used the rhythm sticks to tap along to fast or slow music. Ms Lisa also taught the children that the musical term for soft is called Staccato. We always have fun a learn in Music class!
SCIENCE
This month is Science Mr. John first did an experiment with an empty clear bottle, Vegetable Oil, Alka-Seltzer and water. He filled up the bottle first with 1/4 water then added red food coloring, filled the rest up with the oil. The oil and water then separate because of the density, then he added the Alka-Seltzer tablets to this it produced carbon dioxide bubbles because of the of the carbon dioxide tablets it brings the bubbles to the top. Oil is lighter and less dense then water. The next class Mr. John filled up two balloon’s. One with air and the other with air and some water. Then he held them both over a lit candle, the balloon filled with only air popped and the one with a small amount of water did not. Why? because water is a substance that soaks up heat therefore the rubber does not get hot and does not pop, the water takes the heat away from the balloon.
This month in Art, Ms. Michele had the children make fish lanterns in celebration of the Children’s Festival in Japan, she told them the different colored lanterns represented or meant different things to the Japanese people. The children really liked picking out their own colored paper for this project. The next art class Ms. Michele did Aborigine pointillism art painting with the students using paint made all from the earth such as clay and dirt.