At the same time we continued in-class mailing and checking, and now teacher Rashida and Teacher Thaovy also have their personal mail boxes and have received welcome letters :-)
This week sports like hockey, foosball, and running (laps) were an ongoing interest. They loved running, completing laps one after the other, and asking me to add how many laps they did, getting excited with each growing number. Some even counted in their minds as they finished each lap. Memory in action! The record was 34 laps!
D was wearing a t-shirt with number five on his back. That led us in the discussing about some players whose jerseys have number '5' (I don't recollect all the names now. Perhaps will have to revisit those names by asking them again :))
They even tried to trace it on D's back and tickles ran down his spine ;-)
Letter L was a fun letter and by the end of the week we had so many words on the List. The word they liked the most was 'Love' and they thought of showing Lots of Love. They stayed with their words and showed their love by hugging, caring, helping, and playing with each other.
Letter L collage...
During the week, Teacher Richa suggested that they collect Leaves to fill the big tire. They were super excited to begin. Some stared at the tire after it was a little filled and said, "Hey that still needs a lot more leaves." (Great estimation!)
Talking about the different colors, size, and shape of the leaves...
Jumping and hearing them crush...
Making Lemonade was a fun way of incorporating math and science. We also put our tasting skills at work :-)
Fresh lemon juice...
Measuring with one cup and half cup..
When we put granulated sugar in the 2 cups water, the water rose. They called it magic! Well as soon as they found out with a little discussion how sugar took the bottom space, then we called it science :-)!
Stirring and mixing sugar and water. We closely observed how sugar disappeared. I asked them - magic? They said, 'nooooo'. I tell you, they are a bunch of smart kids! I am so proud of them.
We also spoke about basic things that dissolve and don't dissolve in water.
The most famous that they now knew was sugar disappearing in water.
Mixing all the ingredients...
Tasting and voting for modifications...
9 said more sugar and 7 said more water. It was a little confusing to decide if 9 was more than 7 or visa versa. We used our bodies to settle this out and saw how the group of 9 children was more than the group of 7. Based on this, we chose to add more sugar first.
We observed the sugar settling on the bottom again, making two layers until we mixed again...
Our friend D had made some fun science crafts at home with spinning objects. He spoke a little about it during circle time and we all got a chance to try then out.
He also showed us a new way of picking up little finger food - using suction through a straw. We later practiced this in trying to pick goldfish crackers, but not all could get it. Some were upset by not being able to do so. Others were motivated to keep trying and cheered even if they picked it up for a few seconds. Some friends suggested to keep trying even at home to eventually get better at it.
D was talking about vitamins in our body and wanted to see what vitamins were present in certain foods. Other friends around started questioning about the vitamins with different letters, like is there vitamin Z, L, A, R, T, H ? etc. (possibly all the letters that they could think of). We voted in class and I suggested to them that we pick only two vitamins per week and discuss them. Almost 90% of them voted to know more about Vitamin Z and Vitamin A as first on the list. Later they want to do vitamin B and C, vitamin E and D, iron and calcium, vitamin R and N, vitamin T and K, respectively every week. Wow, this will be fun! :-)
Parents can help send pictures or clean wrappers of food that have certain vitamins (its Z and A this week). We will make a food chart for each vitamin and put it to display on our lunch tables.
Please note: We have a Thanksgiving Potluck for kids this Wednesday during lunch time. The sign-up for the potluck is attached to the sign-in binder.
See you next week.
Warmly,
Rashida.
