For a short week, we certainly have accomplished a great deal! We began our art projects (hoops and loops) and started a weather unit.
I mentioned the other day that the children learned about the use of a thermometer. Since then we have been talking about the daily weather prediction, keeping track of the temperature's change during the school day and checking the accuracy of the daily forecast. So far, the local weather channels have been off by only 3 degrees on one day. Perhaps we could get them to forecast the stock market for us.
Since a chance of storms loomed this week, we talked about clouds, rain, thunder, lightning and hurricanes. The children learned about the water cycle and and the effect of the proximity to bodies of water have on it. We discussed the make up of clouds and how the electricity forms in them to create lightning. They also learned lightning strikes to the ground add much needed nitrogen to the soil.
We did a class experiment and made our own clouds. We put about an inch of hot water in a jar and placed an ice cube over the top. As the ice begins to melt and the cooler air mixes with the hot rising air from the water, a misty cloud forms and rises from the jar. Try this at home. It's so simple and yet has a big "Cool!" factor to it.
Today we had a little Easter, literacy fun. I filled large, plastic jelly beans with letters and spread them on the lawn in front of our room. The children each gathered 4 and we sat together. They took turns opening jelly beans and thinking of words beginning with each letter. There were 2 jellybeans with the letter B in them. The second jelly bean had an uppercase B in it so they had to think of a word which HAD to begin with an uppercase letter. Bryan 's name finally came to mind when they remembered people's names always begin with an uppercase letter. Five of the jellybeans were green so each time one was opened we sang a verse to the "Green Jelly Bean"song. Since the song only has 4 verses we had to improvise a bit.
You may have heard some talk this week about monkey bars. Last week I took the children outside for a lesson on how to cross the monkey bars. I read an article recently about a teacher who decided to finally learned and remembered the sheer thrill of hanging and playing from bars. It does require upper body strength but many 4 and 5 year olds have the strength even if they don't yet have the know how. One lesson was all it took for this group to be challenged. On Monday they went straight to the bars and on the second try, Logan became our first accomplished bar crosser. Xan followed quickly behind with the others gaining a new bar (or courage) with subsequent tries. I've noticed many other monkeys joining them on the bars as the week progressed. Perhaps you and your child can have some quality "hanging out" time on this long weekend!
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