Growing together!: March 2013

I always forget how busy March is. I LOVE the month of March. So much has been going on.
We started March with Community Night which I spoke of last post. It was awesome to be part of the program where we were able to mingle with the big kids and see their projects.

Seuss Week took place the 1st week of March. Of coarse the snow came and we lost a day, but we did a lot of learning revolving Theodore Geisel's work. Oh who is that? Ask your child. Hopefully not too much time has passed. We ate pretend green eggs and ham, but sent home a recipe for real green eggs and ham. A couple of students sent me photos of them eating at home! Way to try new things. We graphed our favorite books, we made hats, we talked about the significance of the Lorax and how we can really think about that movie in the real world. The children painted their own Truffula forests. We talked about not only rhyming all week, but tongue twisters. Fox in Sox and Oh Say Can you Say are great for twisting up your tongues. We also found ipad apps that read Dr. Seuss stories and had some games on them. All of our centers revolved around Dr. S and his books all week.

Our 4 year olds presented "A Soup Opera". It was amazing. I will post the link with the next post of photos. I am very proud of them. Again, it goes to prove that if little ones are engaged and interested, they really can do so much more than many people think!!

We started to really talk a lot about Jesus and his Disciples followed by Jesus' Miracles. The children learned how the disciples were Jesus' special friends that helped him spread the word. They also learned that miracles are not magic and not something you and I can do. They were in awe of the short clips that I showed to help explain these. You can look on youtube for examples if you want to explore these with your child further. This week we will talk about Palm Sunday, followed up by our singing appearance in church at St. Paul on Sunday and next week we will celebrate Easter. We will have a small celebration on Wednesday before school lets out. Small treat bags or goodies are fine to share.

This week is International Week. We will be visited by people from Norway, Poland, Ireland, Korea and Puerto Rico and Mexico. The children did great today when they learned about Norway from TS's grandma and GREAT grandma. They brought in goodies to eat and books and little trinkets to view. It was great. We are looking forward to the rest of the week. Our centers and work will revolve around maps, globes, flags etc.

Finally, the children have been doing amazingly well in all aspects of letter and number practice. We are up to letter Qq as of today. We are using many different ways of practicing learning to ID and also to sound out these letters and numbers. Some awesome ideas are to roll dice, play with dominoes, buy foam dice and write letters on them. They should always say the number or letter and then write. I am trying to tell them that it is great to write it, but they also need to know it's name. They really love it. Please encourage this at home.

I will post photos tonight. There are so many I just have to sit down and choose! My next post will be after Easter, so enjoy your break with your child. Praise God!

TBoyle