PET WEEK

Dear Parents,

We had quite a busy week making pet houses, birds, and aquariums.  We introduced our pet theme with a discussion about the different needs of pets versus human beings.  Some of the similarities that the children came up with were: Animals and people both need food, water, sunshine, exercise, and friends.  The differences were: dogs and cats walk on four legs and people walk on two.  People talk and sing and dogs bark.

After our discussion the children created their own pet houses by painting coffee boxes and decorating them with animal stickers. Finally, they added shingles to the roof of their house and placed a carpet inside.  

Then the children  put on a wonderful talent show with their pets. Each child demonstrated how talented their animals were.  Tima's giraffe caught a ball. Ava's hippo threw a dog bone.  Justin's dog caught a bone.  Conrad's pig rolled over. Antonio's monkey climbed up a chair.  Luisa's dog played with a ball.  Giselle's dog rolled a ball.  Emma's dog jumped up into the air.  Gaurav's dog slid on the ice. Devika's moose jumped up into the sky.  Helene's dog climbed on the wall and Izzie's dog ate a bone and played with a ball.

One of the highlights of the week was when Geddy (parrot) visited our classroom.  He sang, barked, laughed, meowed, said "peek-a-boo",  "come here" and  "Hello Geddy."   We also had a discussion about birds.  We learned that parrots come for the rain forest, where it is hot and humid.  We also talked about what birds eat.  They mainly eat fruit, vegetables, seeds, and occasionally nuts.


I think Geddy had almost as much fun performing for the children
as they did watching him.  Did you know, according to bird experts, some parrots have the reasoning skills of a three year old child?  I am not sure if that is true but, it only took Geddy two weeks to 
learn how to put a basketball in a net.  Geddy is twenty-three years old and is expected to live another seventy years or more.

After seeing what a parrot looks like, the children made their own version of a bird.  They decorated it with markers, feathers and added eyes to it.  The birds look adorable displayed on our classroom bulletin board.

We celebrated Helene's 4th birthday this week.  Thank to her family for the delicious treats.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY HELENE!

We ended our week by making aquariums.  We decorated them by using fish cutouts, paper reinforcements (for the bubbles), and painted on a mixture of corn syrup and blue food coloring, which represented the water. 

Other fun areas in the classroom:

We look forward to preparing for our Valentine's Day class celebration.

Love,
Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

GUNG HAY FAT CHOY!

Dear Parents,

We had a great time celebrating the Chinese New Year.  We started the unit by listening to stories about how New Years is celebrated in China.  We also learned about their customs and traditions.  Some of the stories we read were:  The Dancing Dragon, by Marcia Vaughan, and My First Chinese New Year, by Karen Katz.

According to the Chinese Zodiac,  2017 is the year of the Red Fire Rooster which is celebrated starting from January 28, 2017 to February 15, 2017.  Roosters rank 10th position in the Chinese Zodiac.  People born in a year of the rooster are very observant, hardworking, resourceful, courageous, and talented.  Roosters are very confident in themselves. 

Chinese New Year is a time when families get together to celebrate. In the days coming up to the New Year every family buys presents, decorations, food, new clothes, and have their hair cut.  Houses are cleaned from top to bottom.  The aim is to sweep out any bad luck from the old year and clear the way for good luck.  People greet each other by saying " Gung Hay Fat Choy"!,  which means Happy New Year.

We prepared for the New Year's celebration by making red glittery fans.  We also made red drums.  The children painted plates and decorated them with Chinese stickers, gold glitter and bells.  We added a dowel to each one of them to use as the handle.  The drum was made to re-create a traditional Chinese instrument called Bolang Gu, or a pellet drum.  The instrument is used in Chinese ritual music and is a child's toy as well. 

On Friday, we had a fabulous school-wide celebration.  Yuting read the children a story called Bringing in the New Year, by Grace Lin,  and sang and danced to a New Year song. She also brought in lanterns, a traditional girl's outfit, and a Chinese calligraphy kit for the children to experience the Chinese culture. 

Dressed in red for the Chinese New Year

Annie, Eleanor's mother, made made delicious vegetable dumplings and brought in tangerines and apples, which the children enjoyed at snack time.

The children learned how to say "Congratulations" and "Happy New Year" in Mandarin (gon chi) before receiving a red envelope with an ancient Chinese coin inside.

Thank you to Yuting and Annie for making the Chinese New Year celebration a wonderful fun and learning experience for the children.

Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

WINTER WONDERLAND!

Dear Parents,
We continued our winter theme by cutting out snowflakes and creating the most adorable styrofoam snow people.  First the children glued a styrofoam ball on top of a cup and then dressed him/her with scarves, hats, buttons, and yarn. The children had so much fun creating their snow people that the other children could hardly wait their turn.

The highlight of the week was a visit from Lucky Bob, the magician.  He put on a phenomenal show.  The children were giggling through out the 45 minute performance, and that is quite an accomplishment for a group of 3-5 year old children!  I am not sure who laughed more, the teachers or the children.

We ended our week by making snow globes,  The children were given three pieces of clay which they rolled into balls and pushed them together to make a snowman.  After baking the clay, the children then decorated them with markers and finally put them into a clear container filled with water, white glitter, and plastic beads. The children were so surprised when they realized after shaking the jar that it actually looked like a snow storm.  They were so excited with them, they didn't want to put them down all day.

Other fun areas in class:

Next week we look forward to celebrating the Chinese New Year.

Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara