Artists

This week the Whole Notes began our first project for the annual art show.  Hopefully this event will take place in the spring.  Deb will keep you posted.  Our first artist work was to create a piece similar in style to those of Dale Chihuly.  For those who do not recognize the famous name, Chihuly is best known for his glass blowing.  He made pieces with unusual shapes and bright colors.  Some of his most notable ones are gorgeous glass chandeliers and beautiful ceilings.  Our group focused on his macchia bowls.  The class was fortunate to be able to watch a short video featuring Chihuly at work, along with a view of the more than 300 colors he chose to work with.  On the blog are photos of friends painting with water colors on coffee filters to create our own bowls in the style of those of Chihuly.  You might ask your preschooler to tell you about him.  They will certainly mention the eye patch worn on one of his eyes.

It is most interesting to see how much 4 and 5 year olds absorb about artists when taught a little art history.  From Chihuly the Whole Notes went back in time to learn about Frida Kahlo.  She was a painter who loved to wear fancy earrings and Mexican style dresses with lots of colors.  Frida loved flowers and therefore wore them in her hair.  Remember the facts taught have to appeal to children!  Monkeys were also a favorite, so she had one for a pet.  Her paintings sometimes included this species, but were mostly self-portraits.  Unfortunately Frida was not a well woman and learned to do these paintings while recuperating from surgeries.  As a group project, the class is creating a large portrait of her.  This includes making flowers for her hair, the process being shown on the blog.  You will see others creating facial features.  More to come on her at the art show.

Not shown on the blog was a fun game played at circle in preparation for our journal writing on artists.  Ask your son/daughter about it.  All eyes were shut as each child reached into a bag to take out one item.  Some of these included a paint brush, scissors, paper, marker, shaving cream, colored pencil, oil pastel and more.  The idea was to brain storm and figure out why the teachers would put these all together.  What did these things have in common?  Did you guess correctly?  Ada was the first one who did.  These are all materials an artist might use when creating his/her work.  The journal topic was to choose from word cards showing many tools related to artists, draw pictures and write matching words.  The class loved the idea of both the game and journal topic.

Emily was our letter person with "P".  Here she is with the letter box along with a plane and a wonderful drawing of a princess on a piece of paper (3 P's).  Emily loves to make pictures at our art/writing center.  A few friends built a fantastic castle out of magnatiles by using team work.  Noah, Brigitte and Margot asked to have it put on the blog.  Great work with planning, sharing and cooperating skills.

Tomorrow Ruby Diecidue  will become part of our Whole Notes, making us 13.  Some of your youngsters were with Ruby in the half notes last year.  The children were very excited when learning of her arrival.  Margot said Ruby was very nice and Brigitte told us she was excited to play with her.  The teachers have no doubt that Ruby will receive a warm welcome.

Rolene and Jackie 

Numbers

Our focus this week was mainly on numbers 1-10.  We did touch upon numbers 11-20 and counting by 10's to 100.  Both of the latter will become a part of our curriculum as the year continues.  At circle time we played games with identifying number names and the value of each number.  We calculated which of 2 numbers was smaller or which of 2 was larger.  The class could be heard counting forwards and backwards  We sang songs with numbers in them and recited rhymes containing numbers..  As children love numbers, there was a tremendous amount of enthusiasm over this week's curriculum.

One project involved creating number books for 1-10.  Each youngster chose whether to write the numbers or glue commercially printed ones, before drawing his/her own items to match the number values.  Pictures in the blog represent this project. The books went home in your child's bag.  Another achievement was identifying numerals and putting them in the correct order to create a number line.  This is not an easy task for four and five year olds, no matter how bright they are academically.  You can view the children working on this project also.

Our discussions included naming anywhere numbers are seen.  With our help, the group worked hard and thought of cell phones, addresses, zip codes, rulers, money, thermometers, book page numbers, clocks, calendars, microwaves and so many more.  The class found out the necessity for numbers.  We had not shown you photos of our journal work for awhile.  But the teachers were so impressed with the culmination of our work that we decided to share with you.  Takuma has word cards to choose from spread around his journal.  Riya drew a birthday cake to show age.  She also wore her watch which she drew because it had numbers.  Mira drew a TV remote and cell phone.  Ada is holding her journal in which she created a house with a number on it.  Margot chose to make a calendar.  Also pictured here are Zayden's journal drawing of a clock and JJ's ruler complete with numbers.  Literacy is tied to everything we do here so Emily, Noah and Martina are holding books we listened to:  "Fenway Park 1-2-3", "Chicka Chicka 1-3" and " Ten Black Dots".  You might encourage your preschoolers to look for numbers everywhere.  Read them, talk about the values and decide why they are needed.

Some friends featured are having fun with magnetic dolls.  These had not been used in awhile and were well received on a day too cold to go out to play.   It was Brigitte's turn to do the letter box for "O" which she is holding.  She is also displaying oreos and oat cereal for her letter "O".  Her presentation was very creative.  Please note that  Lucas is not on the blog this week as he was absent on camera days.

Finally we were treated  to a visit from half-note teacher Bonne with her parrot Geddy.  Everyone was full of laughter as Geddy talked to us.  Obviously that is Geddy in the cage.

It is so hard to believe that next week is the last one in January.  We are moving right along and learning many new things!

Rolene and Jackie

 

Science, English and History

As teachers, we try to bring different kinds of curriculum to our classroom.  Whereas last week we visited the Arctic to learn about Eskimos and polar bears, this week the class trip was to Antarctica to become scientists and focus on the penguins there.  Again the animals' habits were presented.  The Whole Notes had a chance to see for example how the penguins form their own group called a rookery or how the emperor penguin guards the egg  between his feet before it hatches.  Children usually think that penguins are covered in fur but learn that is not true.  New vocabulary was introduced again.  Our fine motor skills of cutting, gluing and writing enabled us to make the adorable penguins which you took home.  Our addition of the words "BRRR IT IS COLD OUTSIDE" on our penguins obviously tied in literacy.  This whole scientific learning experience is featured on the blog  .

The English language has so many words for little ones to learn.  This week we introduced the word symmetry, very appropriate as we are all wearing mittens and gloves.  We played a game using many pairs of mittens cut from patterned wallpaper.  With our cognitive skills the children found which friends had matching mittens.  You can see our fun on the blog, along with a view of a teacher demonstrating how to draw with symmetry.  Each preschooler traced and cut his/her own pair of mittens to design by using symmetry.  The lesson was very successful as you can see by the project that went home.  Writing skills were practiced.  The class listened to two popular older stories.  One was titled "The Mitten Mystery" and the other "Too Many Mittens".

Finally our history lesson here was in preparation for Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.  Actually the lesson here is one that we reinforce all year long which is that of respect and kindness to each other.  The group had a chance to join in a discussion about how it does not matter what you look like, where you live, what color your skin is, and more.  People everywhere share the same feelings such as love and happiness.  They heard about MLK's speech "I have a dream" and a little of the stories of Rosa Parks on the bus and Ruby Bridges going to school.  You might want to expand on these two.  Everyone listened to "The Colors of Us" and "Whoever You Are".  Both books are about the similarity of children all over the world.  There are pictures of our doves, the bird of peace, being created.

Ada presented the letter box for "N".  You see her with the box and also a print out of musical notes.  This was terrific as Miss Lisa teaches the value of the notes and how to draw them.

Emily turned five and proudly wore her crown.  She shared her beautiful cupcakes and goody bags with us.  You can again see another successful party!  

This week was extremely busy with a few zigzags in our schedule.  However the youngsters handled the changes with ease and managed to have another terrific week!

Rolene and Jackie