CHIHNESE NEW YEAR CONTINUES

February 7, 2013

Dear Parents,

We continued our Chinese New Year Celebration this week by reading Max Celebrates Chinese New Year, by Adria Klein and Lion Dancer, by Kate Waters. We then created red collages.  Red is a popular color for Chinese New Year.  Homes and businesses are dressed with red decorations and flowers.  Children are given money for good luck in red envelopes.

The children worked hard on their cutting skills by cutting many slits in various colored paper to create lanterns. They had the best time decorating them with stickers and glitter glue.  We then attached yarn to them and hung them up in the creative dramatic play area of our classroom.

The children also water-colored Happy New Year signs (Gung Hay Fat Choy) and made  Chinese Flags, which they decorated with  red tissue paper and  gold stars.

Notes from Lisa:
In music class we have been exploring how to write simple rhythms.  We use fruit names and Popsicle sticks to make quarter, eighth, triplet, and sixteenth note rhythms.  They love it and are really quick at picking it up.  All the children continue to sing and dance and generally have a great time!  I'm always please when students are finally comfortable enough to sing short solos in class.

I'm also excited that so many are starting lessons on instruments!  Preschool is a great time to start lessons because kids usually have fewer demands on their time. I find that it is good to establish a practice routine before kids start Kindergarten.  I am currently trying to start an early beginners violin class on Mondays at noon and need one more student.  If anyone is interested in starting violin lessons, or just has questions about it, please let me know ASAP!  I also have afternoon times open if that time doesn't work.

We look forward to celebrating Valentine's Day  next Friday.  Please send your child to school with valentines for each child in the class.  We have 10 children in the class. It is not necessary to write each child's name on the valentines.  Please send them in by Thursday. 

Making new friends at school

Note:  We need someone to volunteer to take Nori, the fish home next Friday for a week. 

Love, 

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara. 

PENGUINS

Dear Parents,

Last week we went on an amazing "journey" to the Antarctica to visit the penguins. The children learned several facts about penguins such as: Penguins  can't fly but are excellent swimmers.  They are the only bird in the world that can't fly but can swim under water.  There are 17 different species of penguins.  The largest penguin is 4 feet tall (emperor penguin)  and the smallest is 16 inches tall (the little blue penguin).  The children enjoyed listening to the "Penguin Story" by Jane Arlington and Sharon Langon. 

Ella's penguin visited our class

, After reading about penguins, the children created their own.  First they painted egg cartons, then cut out wings, feet, and a beak and finally glued them all together to make an adorable penguin colony, which even included snow and icicles.

The children also created the most adorable snow people by gluing a Styrofoam ball on top of a Styrofoam cup and then dressed him/her with scarves, hats, buttons, and yarn.

     

We created 3-D horses in honor of the Chinese New Year. The horse is part of a 12-year-cycle of animals that make up the Chinese zodiac.

On Thursday we celebrated the Chinese New Year by having a party with the Half Note Class.  Emma, Serena, and Clara's moms came in to the class to talk about the Chinese New Year.  They read the children a story and talked about all the different animals in the zodiac.   They also brought in materials for the children to make lanterns.  The children glued together red colorful strips of paper together to form their lantern and then added string and a Popsicle stick to put it all together.  After the craft, the children had some rice crackers and other Chinese New Year treats.  We then moved on to the parade, where the children marched up and down the hallways with their dragon masks, lanterns, and music.  The children had such a great time.  They were very excited about all the activities and of course the parade.  To top of the whole day, Emma's mom handed out envelops with treats inside for each of the children.  

Emma's dad helping the children make lanterns

 

                                  Dressed in red for the Chinese New Year

We ended our week by making ground hog puppets.  We hope that the ground hog does not see his shadow.  If he does, we will have six more weeks of winter.

Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

WINTER UNIT

Dear Parents, 

This week we continued our winter theme by making snow globes. The children were given three pieces of clay which they rolled into ball and pushed them together to make a snowman.  After baking the clay, the children decorated the snowmen with markers and them put them in a clear container filled with water, white glitter, and plastic beads.  The children were s surprised when they realized that after shaking the jar it actually looked like a snow storm.  They were so excited with them, they did not want to put them down all day.

After listening  to the Mitten Story, by Jan Brett the children traced, cut and decorated their own matching mittens.  They then played a mitten matching game with lots of different colored mittens. It was a lot fun watching the children smile with delight after they found a matching pair.  They also listed to The Hat, by Jan Brett and water-colored a hat to match their mittens.

On Thursday we had a magician come as the special guest.  The children seemed to really enjoy him and were laughing the whole time.  He asked a lot of the children from the audience to help him which made it interactive and more enjoyable for them.  He did a lot of magic tricks that left the children wondering how he had done them and laughing very hard.  Some of the tricks he did were making  a penny and an American flag get bigger and bigger.  He also added colors to his coloring book and then made them disappear.

We concluded our week by doing a science experiment.  The children poured vinegar into a water bottle, then poured baking soda into a balloon, using a funnel and then stretched the mouth of the balloon over the bottle;.  It was a great learning experience for the children.  They learned that when mixing two chemicals together you get a chemical reaction which caused the balloon to blow up.

Next week we will be learning about penguins and other animals that live in cold environments.


Love,

Ms. Bonne and Ms. Barbara

WINTER IS HERE4 Newsletter

Dear Parents,

It was so great to get back to school and see all our friends.  We are please to welcome our new classmates, Catie and Iker. 







We introduced our winter unit by reading Snowflakes, by Lois Elhert.  The children then creating their own snow people.  Some of the children made snow girls, snow moms, snow dads, and even a snow dog.  Each child traced and cut out three circles, then added eyes, hair, legs, arms, and hats.  They all looked so adorable on our classroom bulletin board.  They also made snowflakes  by cutting tissue paper circles and decorating them with bingo daubers.

We also would like to wish Hattie a Happy 3rd Birthday!  Thank you to her family for the delicious treats.  

The children enjoyed listening to Jean, the Newton librarian, read some winter books such as:  Touch the Sky, My Little Bear, by David Bedford, Pete the Cat, by James Dean, and First Snow, by Bernette Ford.

In music this week with Lisa and Christine, the Children sang "Roll Over" while acting out the motions in the song.  They also sang "I am Freezing," "Snowman Song" and "She'll be Coming Around the Mountain.

We concluded our week by baking delicious snow ball cookies. The children loved eating them almost as much as baking them. 

Casual Friday

We look forward to continuing our snow theme next week.

 Please remember to leaves a pair of snow pants in your child's cubby.  The children really enjoy playing in the snow in our playground.