News for the week of 5-12-08

This week was so much fun! We were so busy with everything, but it was really great. We got back into our center routine, which I think the kids really appreciated.
Our ABC center was a vowel book we’ve been working on and adding to, the kids cut out pictures from magazines and put them into their vowel book, it was so fun and a creative way to get them involved in listening to the vowel sounds. The writing center was creating sentences with magnets, they got very creative. In the science center the kids worked with magnets and different objects. They had to not only determine which objects worked with the magnet, but why. In the math center this week the kids worked with telling time; digital and analog. They have really done a great job with telling time and all seem to grasp the concept to the half hour. In the listening center they listened to a book called Feast For Ten it talks about planning a menu for a meal along with number words. In the overhead center the kids got to use clear tiles with words in them to create sentences again.
We worked on writing through our senses this week. I introduced the 5 W’s of listening to a story and then writing about them. It’s in the very early stages and we will continue to expand on this skill. To really get the kids involved we did a writing involving something we all love…eating ice cream! They had to write what it tasted, smelled, looked, felt and even sounded like. It was so creative and even a little tough. I think this is so important for kids to be able to stop and really “listen” to themselves and what they are sensing. It is so useful for so many other things, not just writing.
We read a great book called The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. It’s a beautiful book about relatives coming to visit and just being together as a family. It’s old fashioned and led to a wonderful discussion about the importance of being with family. We also talked about the fact that in the book there were no TV’s or computers and that the family just sat together and enjoyed each other’s company. One of my favorite lines from the book is: “we were to busy hugging and eating and breathing together”. The writing is posted in the hall of the lower school, please read your child’s “house” if you come by. I highly recommend the book, as you can probably tell.
Our end of year celebration is June 5th, at 6pm in the classroom. We have changed the name from “graduation” to follow the other grades use of the term “end of year celebration” we feel like this is more descriptive of what we’re really here to enjoy; all of their successes this year!
We’ll start new centers next week before our year comes to an end. We’re also going to be doing projects like more mosaic art!
We really need comic strips for centers next week, if you take the paper please save them for us and send them in, THANKS!!

Dear parents,
This week we went back to our routine and the children are better then ever.
They are very comfortable with speaking simple Hebrew phrases and pick up on new words much faster.
We finished the letter “Raish” that means we only have two more letters and we will finish with the whole Alfa Bet.
The Israeli project was very nice, I hope you all got to see the exhibit, I am waiting for the combined presentation from Israel and then I will forward it to you all.
New Hebrew wards
gadol/gdolah – big (boy/girl)

tov /tovah – good (boy/girl)

sefer/sfarim – book/books

racavet- train

rosh- head

Shabbat Shalom
Morah Leah