Tuesday News

April 30th, 2013

We started our morning with a short choice time today.   Short, but productive including an impressive new building style on the magnet tile rug, and beautiful pictures drawn in journals.

Our choice time was put on pause when our friend Alicia came to our door for Spanish. With their Spanish knowledge steadily growing, the children had no problems with the number game she brought with her which involved rolling a large cube with numbers on each side and then counting up to that number in Spanish.

The children then were treated to a story read by Alicia, all in Spanish about waiting for the bus, or Autobus. While the characters in the story waited, they observed many different vehicles driving by their bus stop and through their observations we learned several names of different types of vehicles in Spanish! Our Spanish lesson rolled along with a song we all knew, The Wheels on the Bus, but with the new challenge of singing the words we all knew in Spanish!

We thanked Alicia with our Kindness Song before she left and the Cardinals returned to their choice work. A new activity the Cardinal teachers introduced today was book making.

The Cardinals  have been so immersed in story dictations at journal time,  writing of signs for various block creations, and  sounding out of words around the classroom. The teachers suggested that the children begin writing themselves and suggested making own books.  Having the opportunity to create personal books of things that they area interested in facilitates writing and reading readiness skills. Some of the children are beginning to sound out words and are able to identify and write the initial consonant sound of words for  their drawings.  We refer to this as 'kid  writing' and we will be encouraging children to begin to explore this skill. One of the important parts of kid writing is that the children begin to auditorily   discriminate different letter sounds and make those connections with words.

The class took on this new endeavor with enthusiasm and we are thrilled to see the children begin to take even more ownership of their beginning literacy quest as they not only imagine the stories and illustrate their thoughts, but also do the physical writing of their own thoughts.

After stretching our minds in new and exciting ways, the Cardinals moved outdoors for some time in the magnificent sunshine. 

We started out having our snack around the stage outside. 

Soon everyone was off exploring the outdoor classroom and small groups of classmates were banding together...

Finding friends from other classes!

Creating additions to the climbing structure... 

Or forming families of Cardinal birds and acting out everyday events and problem solving together!

Monday

April 29th, 2013

This morning the children came to school determined not to let the grey drizzle that was happening outside dampen their enthusiasm for learning. The children wrote journal entries about their weekends and filled the pages with colorful depictions of their thoughts.

They also worked on some longterm projects like self portraits in the art studio, and our wire basket sculpture which has somehow become even more colorful!

After a busy early morning choice time, the whole class came together for a morning meeting. In meeting our friend Xander shared with us a book called Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares. Xander was excited to share this book with the class and we enjoyed reading it together and learning about this very famous man.

Then we talked about the month we are in right now, April. We discussed how we are at the end of this month and that soon we will be in a completely new month of May. With this in mind, we thought about beginning a new study based on things we as a class are interested in right now. And so it is with plenty of excitement that we begin looking at how April showers might bring May flowers!

Our wonderful science teacher heard of our interest and invited us to her resource room for a special science class to look more closely at flower. She was amazed at what the Cardinals already knew and showed us a model and diagram of a flower so we could start to identify the different parts. The Cardinals were very interested in the pollination process and how this helps in the formation of new flowers. After our discussion, Roseanne invited us to explore the Science Room and the Cardinals immediately looked at books, began asking questions about the tanks and animals inside and examined some starter plants created by another class. During this free time, great questions were asked and the Cardinals displayed their wealth of knowledge and how curious they are in our environment and the living things that are a part of it.

We returned to our classroom to finish up our choice time work before lunch. Around lunch time the children felt they'd like to stretch their legs before sitting down to eat so we walked to the front of the Lower School as a group and escorted our half day friends out, waving to them as they walked to their cars. At the front door we ran into the half day friends from the Owl classroom who had just finished reading a book about a young mouse who wants to join her school chorus. We had never heard of this book, so the Owls let us borrow it to read before lunch. After reading the story, we talked about what a chorus is and how someone can learn how to sing for a chorus and Christina shared with us that she has been teaching voice lessons this past week to kids who want to learn to sing, like the main character in the story. The Cardinals were interested in the singing process so we did a quick singing lesson explaining what some of the exercises a vocal student might practice that can help someone learn how to warm up their voices for singing experiences like what happen in the story.

Searching for Empty Paint Cans

 

Empty Paint Cans Needed

LS Music Room

 

Empty paint cans are needed for a piece in our upcoming spring program,"I Dream A World Of Blue."  If your family or a neighbor have any empty paint cans, please bring them to Jason in the Lower School Music Room.  Thank you for the support! 

Photogenic Friday

April 26th, 2013

With light streaming through our Cardinal classroom windows, this morning felt fresh and bright filled with friends building upon this week's productivity in all areas. We continued our Spring inspired activities with a fun art project that used some of our left over seeds from our plantings.

Then our middle school friends stopped by to join us for the morning. The joy in the children's faces showed how much they appreciate the relationships that they have developed with our older peers.

A few minutes after their arrival we headed over to Gwen's library to read a story about a happy little chipmunk who explores a backyard. As the weather gets warmer Gwen shared with us that there are sometimes chipmunks near the entrance to Lower School and to keep an eye out to spot these furry friends.

Back in the classroom the block area was bursting with added sections of buildings, so much so we nearly ran out of blocks to use!

So they took out the Legos too.

Other friends revisited our collaborative sculpture, adding new beads and using different materials.

Friends also found a teacher or a middle school friend to read with in a comfy spot. Snack was a wonderful social experience today as children enjoyed eating together and having conversations spread throughout the classroom. Numbers were also running through our minds as the children initiated math games with each other and their middle school friends.

The rest of our morning was spent in the outdoor space soaking up the sun! Please take a walk through our day as the pictures tell the story:

Have a weekend full of warmth (hopefully in weather and spirit!).