It's only Wednesday, and we've already had a busy and productive week! You probably heard about our visit to "Germ City" yesterday afternoon. We had the opportunity to meet with Nurse Shelley and her intern, Nurse Amanda, and learn all about germs and what we can do about them. The children got to use Glitterbug Potion to simulate germs and then went into "Germ City" to look at where the germs were on their hands (inside the blackened room in the photo
below there were black lights and the "potion" would glow in the dark.) We then learned about proper hand-washing techniques. Your child knows to:
1.) Wet their hands.
2.) Get some soap and scrub!
3.) Rinse their hands.
4.) Dry their hands.
5.) Turn off the water with a paper towel.
We then went back into Germ City to see if they successfully removed all of the germs. Most of us were surprised to see that, even after washing, there were spots that we had missed, including our fingernails, our wrists, and the backs of our hands! We washed our hands again to make sure they were extra-clean. I think this small workshop came at a great time of year and we will continue to practice this important skill multiple times a day in the classroom! Check your child's homework folder for some activity sheets and a magnet from the workshop.
During math, we continue to enjoy our workstations, including
"Pattern Block Designs," "Beat You to Ten," "Bucket of Frogs," "Geoboard Shapes," "Hungry Caterpillars," and our newest,
"Count and Compare Butterflies." We are practicing all kinds of skills, including shape recognition, patterning, counting, comparing, and more! We completed a second quilt this week, as well. We call it our "Star Quilt" and it looks absolutely stunning on the wall outside of our classroom. Take a look at this picture!
I asked children to take a look at the quilt and tell me what they noticed. Here are some of their responses:
"We're doing a pattern: squares, stars, squares, stars."
"The blue squares are going diagonally."
"It looks like stairs."
"There's yellow and blue."
"There are 25 quilt squares. 13 patchwork squares and 12 stars."
"There are more patchwork squares in the top row than there are stars."
If you get a chance, stop by and see your child's great work!
This morning, we made dreamcatchers with our Reading Buddies. Each child did a super job of weaving yarn around their dreamcatcher and decorating it with beads and feathers. Native Americans made dreamcatchers to "catch" the bad dreams of children and allow the good dreams to reach them. I will be sending these home before Thanksgiving so your child can decorate your house with his or her dreamcatcher!
We continue to learn about Native Americans and will wrap this unit up this week. Next week we will discuss Pilgrims and Thanksgiving. I look forward to seeing you at our conference over the next week!
We have been asked by the cafeteria supervisors to encourage you to check your child's backpack for lunch leftovers. We are finding that there is an EXTREME amount of food being wasted and they have started bagging any leftover sandwiches. This will also be a nice way for you to get an idea of how much your child is eating at lunchtime. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Reminders: Book Orders are due Friday, November 20th!Monday and Tuesday of next week are
HALF DAYS (11:30 Dismissal)NO SCHOOL Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
