Really, it's ridiculous how long Rowan and I have waited for this week to arrive! Yes space is exciting and they children will learn an amazing amount of science but letters must also continue and our favorite letter was missing from our list. I pulled out our letter box yesterday. Rowan's eyes met mine and we knew the moment had come. It was - R WEEK!
Our letter box had a red rectangle, a ring-tailed raccoon, a rooster resplendent with color, raw rice, a rake and Rowan's picture. Immediately the children knew the letter was R and Rowan yelled out "Ruth Ann starts with R too!". Sometimes the wait is worth the moment. When asked to name some R words they came up with rainbow, rain, road, robe, rat, ran and race.
I would have been remiss in my duties if I hadn't tied our Space unit to our letter so yesterday we went outside to learn how the planets "revolve" around the sun in their orbital paths. Sofia, as our leader was the sun and each of the other children was a planet. I was Neptune so I could be next to Logan. He was Pluto which is no longer considered a planet but still in the the orbital path. Neptune and Pluto occasionally cross into each others orbital paths and actually switch places in their order from the sun. Logan and I had a great time switching back and forth.
Today we talked about the rotation of the planets which gives us night and day. Since we had talked a great deal about the sun, I pulled out my "magic" beads. We talked about what we wear when playing in the sun until we got to the idea that we needed to wear sunscreen to protect us from the sun's rays. My little detectives arrived at this conclusion by sharing the facts they knew and turned to me for confirmation. I told them the dangerous rays were called UVA and UVB. The UV stands for Ultra-Violet but the A and B were just too complicated for this age. I then had them string 10 "magic" beads on a hemp bracelet. The beads are almost clear and rather dull looking but I promised them a surprise when the sun's rays touched them. They were concerned that the clouds would prevent the surprise but I finally convinced them the rays could get through the clouds (ask any fair-skinned beach lover) and do their damage. As soon as they walked out the door the magic began to happen. Suddenly their bracelets were a lovely array of bright colors. They have worn them all day to watch the reaction as they enter and exit buildings. These beads will work for quite awhile so you may want to help your child remove them and keep them to WOW! all the relatives.
Our buddies stopped by today to help us tear paper. We have collected colored and white paper from around the campus. The Middle School used one of their Friday groups to shred the white paper for us. We will be making recycled paper in different colors. We'll tell you more as our project progresses.
Here's a thank you for the coat hangers. We now have enough for our mobiles which we will take about a week to complete.
Reminders:
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Conferences are Monday, April 19
Scholastic Book orders are due Tuesday, April 20
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