Art: Observational Painting

The girls practiced the new skill of observational drawing focused on a jar of daffodils.  They drew with blue or purple paint looking carefully at the shapes of the flowers.  Then, they added color noticing that the more colors, the more realistic the flowers looked.  After two painting sessions the girls looked at all the paintings together.  They noticed the similarities and reflected on the question: Why are all the paintings different if everyone painted the same thing.  Their answers included   awareness of perspective, color, size and personalized mark making.  

French: Ça fait rire les oiseaux

Bonjour tout le monde.  The girls have been busy this spring learning lots of weather vocabulary as well as learning about the seasons.  We have read stories about the changes you can see in spring, acted out a song where poor little bunnies are sick and need to be healed before they can hop around the garden, and created a class tree filled with leaves, apples and flowers drawn by the girls.  They even listened to two songs from the movie Frozen in French and identified words in French that they have learned.  Finally they have been working very hard on learning the French song that they will be singing in the Spring concert.  We can not wait to see you there.  Below are links to the three songs we have watched in class.

Frozen -- Let it Go (in French)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQP9XZc2Y_c
Frozen -- In summer (in French)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjzwpwtJgpM
Ça Fait Rire Les Oiseaux (our concert song)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4GhSxCp9y8

An Extra Exciting Week!

What a busy week! We learned about the traditions of Passover and Easter and were thrilled to find that for both holidays the egg symbolized a new beginning. To celebrate these new beginnings and our new -eg word family, we enjoyed an egg hunt full of word families and popcorn words. The girls worked hard to find as many eggs as they could and they wrote down the words they found on the eggs. After collecting the eggs they were challenged to each read a different word from their list. We were able to read 24 different words! Enjoy some pictures below!

This week we also worked on some new popcorn words and played a fun game to practice reading them. The girls had to guess which cup under which their leader chose to hide the bear. We observed some excellent teamwork!

The girls also worked on sorting the eggs from our egg hunt. It was quite a challenge because there were so many eggs!

Finally, we ended our week with a special lesson with Elia's mom, Sia Kyriakakos. Sia is an art teacher and was so kind to do a Frozen themed art project with the girls. They took pictures of themselves with their iPads and drew self-portraits using the pictures. They then turned those self portraits into Anna or Elsa and added glitter snowflakes and a few sentences about why they chose their character. What a fun morning!

Thank you Ms. Sia!

Technology: Dot

Our Technology Integrator, Lanette Walters, lent me a wonderful book to share with the girls. Dot tells the story of a young girl who loves technology, but discovers that she needs balance in her life. She learns that she is perfectly happy taking a break from her electronics and playing outside. The girls and I discussed how there can be too much of a good thing and one student shared that if she were to use her iPad for too long, her brain would "melt out of her ears." I loved that analogy. The girls then used Draw and Tell to illustrate and record descriptions of two activities that they enjoy doing after school: one involving technology and one not involving technology.

 

Our Daffodils Are Blooming!

                           After observing, measuring, photographing and recording our sprouts 

                                                bloomed and became Daffodils ! 

                                We know that our Daffodils are RESILIENT just as we are

                                because they made it through snow and heavy, heavy rain ! 

                                   

      

         A closer look! 

          The Daffodils were worth waiting for.

       We were surprised they had a lovely smell ! 

           

        Recording our observations using the Draw and Tell app. 

      We learned the parts of the Daffodil.  Ask us what the trumpet is. 

                  Celebrating our Daffodils as we sing and dance. 

         What could be better than Spring, happy Kindergartners and Daffodils?