Hello, Bluebird Families!
We have had a lot of fun the last 2 weeks playing outside in the snow together! We went sledding down the big back hill! We built snow creatures. We piled snow on the slide to make the ride down faster. We used snow in our imaginative play as cameras, dishes, food, and other props. Thank you for making sure your children have snow gear at school so we could stay warm and dry while playing outside! I truly appreciate you taking care of all the extra laundry coming home from our snow play!
We finished our dog sleds and read Aunt Lulu by Daniel Pinkwater, which is a funny story about a mobile librarian in Alaska who uses a dog sled and 14 huskies to deliver books to goldminers. We also read about the Arctic tundra and many different Arctic animals. Then we focused on polar bears and made our own polar bears. Did you know that adult male polar bears are the largest living land-dwelling carnivores?
We had a fascinating impromtu discussion when a student asked how Antarctica could be cold when it is in the south! We studied the globe and found the north and south poles and the equator, and talked about how the Earth’s shape and location in relation to the sun affects climates, seasons, and night and day.
We have enjoyed a few dance parties recently. The children have loved taking turns with the instruments, scarves, and handbells. We worked together to play some songs with the handbells, like Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Old MacDonald Had a Farm. They are understanding that certain bells should play at certain times and are interested in watching the music for their turn to play.
On Groundhog Day, we read 3 fun books: Grumpy Groundhog, Groundhog Gets a Say, and Go to Sleep, Little Groundhog. We also found a treasure chest in our classroom! We are pretty sure it was left there by nice pirates. We sorted our treasure by coin type and are learning to identify the different coin types and their monetary values. We are beginning to understand how to combine coins to make exact amounts of money. We also started learning about subtraction. Every morning we make number combination to equal the number of the day. We have mostly used addition senteces for this, but in the last two weeks, the children have been interested in understanding how to use subtraction sentences! It is so exciting to see their number sense growing!
Thank you for sharing your children with me!
Anna
Wisdom begins with wonder
