ALL ABOUT LITERATURE!

Dear Parents,

We had so much fun this week working on our literature unit.  First we looked at the cover of the book Sammy Spider's New Friend, by Sylvia Rouss.  Then I read the story without showing the children the pictures.  I instructed the children to imagine what the characters in the story might look like.  Finally, the children wrote about parts of the story they remembered and then drew pictures of them. It was amazing how the children's language skills have grown in such a short time.
                                          

 

We celebrated Gaurav's 4th birthday with his family.  Thank you for the delicious treats!

In music this week with Lisa, the children sang "Five Little Pumpkins," "The Ghosts Go flying," and "Halloween is Here." They danced with egg shakers, crawled like spiders, and danced like witches. The children are learning to keep the beat with the shakers.  They also learned that "tutti" means everyone sings together and "solo" means singing by yourself.  

We completed our week by doing science experiments.  We made an ocean in a bottle,  a geyser in a bottle, and a bottle tornado.  It was so exciting watching the children faces light up when they saw the water swirling around into a tornado.

Other fun areas in the class:

                                                                 

                    

We look forward to seeing you next Wednesday at our Parent/Teacher conferences.

Love, 

Ms.  Bonne and Ms. Barbara

Notes:  
~Please send your child to school with mittens, sweaters,  hats and a warm jacket.  It is very cold in the playground.
~Please make sure your child has a couple of changes of clothes in their cubby that are suitable for cooler weather.
~We will be having a Halloween party on Monday.  Please dress your child in a costume.  The costume parade will be at 11:45.

Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

HALLOWEEN IS ALMOST HERE!

Dear Parents,

We had so much fun this week getting ready for Halloween.  We read Sammy Spider's New Friend, by Sylvia A. Rouss.  We then created spider webs by weaving different colored yarn through popsicle sticks and then added a plastic spider.  The results were spectacular.  We then read "The Curious Little Witch," by Lieve Baeten. We made "good" witches by painting each child's foot purple and green, stepped on a piece of paper, added a face, and then traced and cut a witch's hat. Finally, we added a broomstick using a popsicle stick and hay.

Notes from Lisa:
In music class, I use the Suzuki Early Childhood Education Curriculum to build a solid repertoire of songs. In Suzuki music education, learning music is like learning language and the success of the students depends on hearing that “language” as much as possible. This curriculum is available on CD, so I would encourage parents to purchase the CD from the school and listen to the songs at home. Your child will enjoy singing along and will quickly learn the words to the songs because they hear them more often. Simply singing the songs in class isn’t enough for thorough mastery to occur. 

In addition to the Suzuki early childhood songs, we are currently learning some fun Halloween songs that the kids really enjoy. Check out the album Wee Sing Halloween on iTunes and you can join in the fun - ask them about the poem “5 Little Pumpkins” at home!

We are also having lots of fun playing Music Mind Games in class. Using games, the basics of music notation are taught in a fun, engaging manner. We learn solfege (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do), the music alphabet, the grand staff, line and space notes, and practice reading rhythms, The games are so much fun that the kids don’t want to stop playing!

For any parents interested in learning more about individual music lessons for your child, the music school has a meeting on Monday, October 24th at 7:30 at the United Parish of Auburndale. 

For preschoolers with younger siblings the music school holds early childhood music classes three times a week - Mondays at 5:30 (UPA), Wednesdays at 9:00 (Temple Reyim), and Saturdays at 9:00 (UPA). Studies show that children’s brains are the most receptive to learning music between birth and age 3, so these early years are critical! Come and try a class for free!

In Mandarin Class this week with Yuting, the children sang a Chinese greeting song while playing the triangle.  They then reviewed the numbers and then learned how to write the Chinese character for number one.

The children have been practicing writing and sounding out the alphabet letters.  The letters we have learned are L, F, E, H, T and I.

We have also been learning to recognize and write our numbers.

Other fun areas in class:

Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

Reminder:

If you haven't already signed up for a Conference please do so. Conferences will be held on Wednesday, November 2nd.  If this time does work for you, please let me know and we can schedule a mutually convenient time

FALL IS HERE!

Dear Parents,

We accomplished so much this week despite it being such a short week.  We introduced our fall unit by reading several books.  Some of favorites were:  Apples and Pumpkins, by Anne Rockwell, When Autumn Comes, by Robert Maas, and Fall, by Tanya Thayer.  The children then decorated pumpkins by gluing on eyes, a nose, confetti hair and even some jewels. 

In music this week with Yuting, the children reviewed/ learned how to read numbers 1-6 in Chinese.  Yuting brought in pictures of trees with a Chinese number beneath each tree. The children were then instructed to put the correct amount of fruit on top of each tree, according to the number below them. 

The highlight of the week was when the Newton Fire Department visited our school.  The children were so excited, especially when they were able to go inside the fire truck.  Chris (firefighter) demonstrated what to do in case of a fire, such as stop, drop, and roll.  He also dressed up in his fire fighter's gear and explained the purpose of each piece of equipment.  It was a wonderful learning experience for the children.

                               

  

Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

Note:

Parent/teacher Conferences will be held on Wednesday, 

November 6, 2016.  A sign up sheet will be posted in our classroom.