News from Miss Gloria's Class: 04/23/10

Friday, April 23, 2010 Letter of the Week: E

On Monday, we read Elmer by David McKee. Elmer, the elephant, stands out amongst the other elephants with his brightly colored patchwork body. He only wants to be gray like his elephant friends. Elmer tries to change his color by rolling in berry juice. When that doesn't work, his friends decide to decorate themselves in honor of Elmer. We learned these letter E words: elephant, egg, eight, eleven, envelope, exit, excellent, elbow, easel, easy, exercise, ears, eyes, eat, and earth. For our art project, the boys and girls made elephants decorated in patchwork.

On Tuesday, we read The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper. This book is about a little blue engine that pulls a train full of toys and food over a mountain. As the little blue engine pulls and tugs the train, it keeps repeating, "I think I can-- I think I can". For our art project, the boys and girls decorated their letter E with an eagle and eggs on an emerald-colored background. On

Wednesday, we read Close Your Eyes by Kate Banks. In this book, a mother tiger tells little tiger to close his eyes and go to sleep so that he will have wonderful dreams of magical places. The journal group put a picture of an umbrella and flowers on their page for "April showers, Bring May flowers". In yoga, it was "kid's choice". As the children practiced yoga breathing, it was their choice as to what they wanted to tell Miss Kim. We played "Red Light, Yoga Light" and posed as a circle, square, and a straight line.

On Thursday, we read I Love Our Earth by Bill Martin Jr. and Michael Sampson. This book is filled with beautiful photographs of the wonderful things that we have on earth, like the green grass, gray mountains, blue oceans, and brown deserts. We also read Michael Recycle Meets Litterbug Doug by Ellie Bethel. For Earth Day, the boys and girls made the earth by using an eye dropper to drip blue paint, for the ocean, and green paint, for the land, onto a coffee filter. As the paint touched the coffee filter, the blue and green paint blended to form the colors of the earth. We talked about the ways that children can keep the earth clean, too.

On Friday, we read The Littlest Candlesticks by Sylvia Rouss. Abby loves Shabbat so much that she wants to have her own candlesticks. In school, her teacher gives the children their own glass candlesticks. Abby surprises her family with the candlesticks, on which she has painted the sun, daisies, a rainbow, and a heart for the love that she feels for Shabbat. For our art project, the boys and girls made birds to decorate our classroom for spring.

*Thank you to Leila, Simrin, Lily, Jake M., and Sydney for being our super "kids of the day" this week.
*Summer camp applications are now available. Camp begins on Monday, June 7. Please let us know if your child will be attending.

*Here are some other important dates to mark on your calendars:
Picture Day - Monday, April 26 - MWF 2 year old class and the 3 - 4 year old class. All children
should attend. On Tuesday, April 27 - T TH 2 year old class and the Pre-K
Wednesday, May 5 and Thursday, May 6 - Parent Teacher Conferences. No classes for the children.
Tuesday, May 11 - Art Museum trip
Wednesday, May 19 and Thursday, May 20 - The Playschool will be closed for Shavuot.
Friday, May 21 - Last day of Afterschool Arts Clubs
Thursday, May 27 - Playschool Graduation for the 2 year old Tuesday/Thursday class 11 AM
Friday, May 28 - Playschool Graduation for the 2 year old MWF class at 11 AM, the Pre-K
Graduation at 11:30 AM, and the 3 - 4 year old Graduation at 12 PM.
More information will be coming soon!
*Have a great weekend! Monday is Picture Day!

Miss Gloria, Miss Allison, Miss Sophie, Miss Mindy and Mr. Noah