Houses

In a recent blog we told you that the Whole Notes were learning about the artist Frida Kahlo for the art show.  To refresh your memory, Frida loved flowers, using symbols like the shape of a heart for love, had a monkey for a pet and thought herself beautiful with her one long eyebrow and bright colored clothing.

Frida always lived in blue houses with red and green trim.  There are photos on the blog of the artist and her house which is now a museum in Mexico.  The children are shown making their own replicas of this special place.  They are painting their homes, tracing and cutting doors and windows, trimming roofs and gluing the respective pieces.  Some friends are featured have a great time coloring pictures of Frida with her flowers and monkey put out at the art/writing area during free choice time.

Our discussions and stories centered around our homes-how they are constructed, decorated, what rooms are in them, etc.  Animal homes were explored.  Our journal subject was titled "My Home".  Emily is holding up her journal in a blog picture so you can admire her work.  A teacher read us the book "The Little House" by Virginia Lee Burton.  In this story we had a history lesson about a  small house built in an earlier century.  The house remains on the lot while all around it roads are dug and paved, cities are built with houses, apartment buildings, sky scrapers street lights and more.  We watched all of these changes over the seasons and phases of the moon.  Finally a great great grandchild of the builder of this dwelling recognizes it, as shabby as it has become, and has it moved to a new country setting.  The process of moving a house was very interesting to our audience.

JJ had the letter box for "X".  His parents were good sports about this tough letter and helped him to find a picture of a dinosaur called an xiaosaurus, construct an x-ray of a hand and copied a picture of a xylophone for him to color.  All these are seen on the blog with JJ.

Finally you will see our Easter egg hunt which your youngsters will probably say was the highlight of the week. The teachers made up some clues for an egg hunt.  Each child was assigned a clue.  For example one clue was where authors are (library), another clue was where artists can work (easel), another was at a place where you can have dinner (housekeeping), and still a different clue was where months and days may change (calendar).  Emily found a clue "where houses are blue' which was the drying rack where are projects were drying.  The final clue was for the whole class so everyone could find their eggs at the same time.  The clue was as follows: "they can't be seen, hiding in blue, where there is something musical too.  Look down near the floor, the magic number is four."  There were four eggs in a blue bucket that each child has at the bottom of his/her cubby.  A box violin is also kept in this bucket.  Ask your preschooler about this fun if you have not as yet seen the candy filled eggs.

We have now completed the work for the art show.  This upcoming week we will focus a little on spring and do something special with our names.

Rolene and Jackie

 

  

 

 

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