We took a trip back in time this week to a cave in France 30,000 years ago. After reading a story called “The First Drawing,” we pretended to be cave children who saw something outside and wanted to share it with our families. Each child drew what they observed in order to “show” the others as the young child did in the book. We discussed how pictures can tell a story without even using words, and we also related this to our use of American Sign Language. There are so many methods to communicate!
The children engaged their gross motor muscles this week while drawing on a vertical surface. We taped butcher paper to the wall to simulate the inside of the cave and let the children draw and write while standing. They used plain black art pencils at first, similar to the cave child using a burnt stick from the fire. Next week we will be making other colors that cave people might have used in their communications. We enjoyed our first two swim lessons this week! If you would like to watch your child, please ask their teacher what time their group goes as the classes are split into three. We are planning a walking field trip to the Sands next Tuesday, weather permitting, to research for our class story. The children have decided to write about a sea turtle, so we need to experience the beach as a turtle might. Please make sure your child is wearing comfortable walking shoes on Tuesday!! Have a great weekend!
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Week of March 2-6
We had a great “Reading Across America” Week! Each day was devoted to a different author, whom we were already familiar with, and introduced us to new books. We enjoyed Mo Monday reading about Gerald and Piggie, the Pigeon, and Cat the Cat characters of Mo Willems. Tuesday we studied the work of Eric Carle and practiced his techniques during Studio. We have read multiple Carle books in class but enjoyed some that were new to us. “The Mixed Up Chameleon” allowed us to use our imaginations and strategic thinking to plan our animal bodies. Wacky Wednesday is always a kid-favorite day, and the students were so happy to be so silly at school. We started our own LBS Wacky Wednesday book with illustrations and ideas for what could be wacky at our school. Thursday we celebrated the work of Sandra Boynton, including “The Going to Bed Book” and “Pajama Time,” while on Friday we pretended to be characters from Laura Numeroff’s series about giving animals a treat or taking them somewhere. The children had a great time being creative! Due to the weather we will be going to the YMCA twice this week for swim lessons- Wednesday and Thursday. Thank you! We spent a good deal of time learning about the writing process this week. We reviewed the literary elements and created our story sandwiches for Hansel and Gretel. The book “The Princesses Have a Ball” illustrated how important the title and front cover/illustrations can be to give us information. We are slowly but surely getting our thoughts together to write a class book! During morning meetings we “brainstormed” and had some chatting sessions about what we want to write. While it’s fun to make up a quick, silly story, we are taking our time to develop the elements and vote on options. I won’t tell you what we’ve decided yet, but stay tuned for updates about our process.
We had a local journalist come to school on Wednesday to tell us about being a writer! Mr. Stephen brought some newspapers and books to explain the writing and publishing processes. We impressed him with all we already know and will be able to ask him questions about our class story. Ms. Erin and Ms. Michelle both helped us with balance this week, and we also played freeze dance with Yoga poses! Our schedule changes a little bit next week as we start swim lessons on Thursday morning. Next week is Read Across America Week, and we will be celebrating by spending each day reading books by specific authors. There will be an email with more information about that! Have a great weekend! We enjoyed celebrating Khanakh this week! Happy fifth birthday, Khanakh!
Even though it was a short week, we packed a lot into it. During morning meeting on Tuesday we contemplated the idea that stories are like sandwiches. The top piece of bread is like the beginning- the first thing you taste, the introduction to the characters and setting; the bottom bread is the ending- the piece that holds everything up, the resolution of the conflict. The middle part of the sandwich, or cheeseburger, is the “meat,” the conflict, where the interesting stuff happens! Two plain pieces of bread wouldn’t make a good sandwich, so we need to fill it with yummy food. The story’s middle needs to have details and descriptions to make it interesting! The children had fun making connections between the two and will have more practice identifying these concepts of a story and then creating their own. We got hungry pretty early in the day this week! Next week we are going to focus on the stories of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood. Using fairy tales that most of them are already familiar with allows the children to make connections quickly and not get too frustrated if they can’t identify a concept right away. We are continuing to read other books that we checked out from the library’s Bookmobile. We also have a writer scheduled to visit and talk about the writing process. We will be using strategies we’ve already learned deconstructing stories in order to construct our own. The children asked that we tell/write an original story as a class before we split up into partners. I’m excited to see what they come up with over the next couple of weeks! Please turn in your swim forms and payment if you haven’t already. Have a great weekend! https://lbs29935.smugmug.com/Weekly-2017-2018/2020/4E We’ve been immersed in our story studies this week now that we’re getting more comfortable with some of the terms used to analyze the books. In addition to those traditional terms, we looked for love. We talked about different kinds of love- moms and dads for their kids, parents for each other, friends for their friends, and more. We also concluded that you can “love” things in addition to people. One book we read this week tried to quantify love, as in “I love you more than” this or that. The children had a fun time picking an animal and something that animal loves, and this is posted on our classroom door for you to enjoy.
I’ve spent a great deal of time listening and observing this week, and I’ve noticed some great conversations and suggestions. I watched a child who doesn’t usually get excited about workbook spend extra time there and then rush to the writing center to keep working. I overheard a group of boys reenacting the story of the three pigs and big bad wolf in blocks. One child attempted to knock the others’ structures down while huffing and puffing. Ms. Erin helped us with our listening and gross motor skills this week as she led us in a game of “Red Light, Green Light.” She tried to trick us by throwing in different methods of travel! In Yoga Ms. Michelle demonstrated and coached us in how to complete a headstand. We were so excited to try it ourselves and cheered for our classmates. Next week we will be taking the next step to writing our own books by discussing the “story sandwich” and why books are written with a beginning, middle, and end. We will also have a guest speaker come talk to us about being a writer. We are CLOSED Monday for Presidents Day. Have a great long weekend! Welcome back! We hope everyone enjoyed their time off over the holidays, but we’re glad to be resuming our routine. We are underway with our preK parent-teacher conferences; please let us know if you didn’t sign up but would like to schedule one!
This week we have been asking questions about marine (ocean) life and were introduced to the term “estuary.” We are lucky enough to have an estuary just down the road from us at the Sands, so we are going to explore this type of habitat. Our salt-water tank in the hallway has provided us an opportunity to study marine life without leaving the school! The crab in our tank has been more active lately, and we’re wondering why. We have already have thought-provoking discussions about the animals that live in water and how to classify them. We will continue to make observations and discoveries next week. Have a great weekend! We will be closed for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, January 20. We hope you enjoyed your holidays. Our regular photos and newsletters will resume at the end of the week of January 6-10.
We’ve had a great week getting ready for the upcoming holidays! We’ve tied our animal engineering into a special surprise for our families. Thank you for all the grandfriend gifts- we appreciate your generosity and know that your children recognize the importance of thinking of others, especially at this time of year.
We are so excited that our holiday performance is next week! The children really have been working so hard on all that we’ve asked them to do and learn, and we know you’ll be as proud of them as we are. Please let me know if you have any questions! We will be walking to the Shed to practice on the stage several days next week to help the children get more comfortable with the concept. The performance is Friday December 20 at 4:30, and we will walk as a class to the Shed. Have a great weekend! Thank you again for coming out to the Port Royal tree lighting on Wednesday evening. We loved representing our school in this community event, and it was a great opportunity to practice some of our upcoming holiday performance.
We are rehearsing daily for our big play- the children decided what they wanted to perform and assisted writing the script. We will be making costumes next week, but we do ask that you send a specific color shirt/bottom with your child the day of the show. Please let me know if you have a question or comment about what your child needs. We are using our animal engineering knowledge to make something special for our families for Christmas, and this activity sparked a wonderful discussion about the sun, shadows, and the earth. The children will be encouraged to explore these topics and concepts further, so we’ll see where this takes us! |
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Molly Fastenau (7-3:30) Archives
March 2020
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