This was a special week because we were very eager to learn new things now that we are back to our regular routines in school.

We are starting a new project for International Studies, in which we will learn about the cultural heritage of each of us. This is a great way to connect what we cover in school with the children’s lives and create a sense of pride in their backgrounds.

 

 

 

 

Next week we will learn about and celebrate the Chinese New Year with different activities and stories.

In science, we learned about the life cycle of all living beings. As the children said, everyone has a beginning, middle, and end.

In history, we kept discussing the importance of treating everyone equally by learning about Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, and President Lincoln.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two weeks we will be reviewing what we have been learning since the beginning such as numbers, letters and counting for our evaluations next week.

For this week’s theme we talked about winter animals such as foca marina (seal), pingüino (penguin), reno (reindeer) and oso polar (polar bear).

To kick off our activities we explored and made artificial snow using 2 ingredients : 1/2 cup of conditioner and 3 cups of baking soda. We mixed the two together and VOILÁ cold snow and what an easy clean-up too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week math activities consisted of one to one correspondence and matching. Each igloo had different numbers from 1-5, we had to count how many pingüinos (penguins) corresponded to each iglú (igloo). The children also matched the colored hats to the scarves of the penguins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week we learned about the life of many animals that inhabit cold regions of the world, such as polar bears, reindeer, Arctic seals, and penguins. Also, the children learned what are igloos. The children counted penguins from 1 to 10 and worked on their one-to-one correspondence skills by gluing the penguins to the correct igloo. We also decorated our own penguins by adding details to their faces and adding wings. The children enjoyed playing memory games with pictures of animals that live in the cold weather. We even made our own ‘snow’ with baking soda and hair conditioner.

 

Mr. Alfonso, our music teacher, taught us new songs and played the guitar for us. We learned that guitars have six strings and, to play this instrument, you need to stroke the strings.

 

 

 

 

We read a wonderful book Cole brought to school called Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick. It is a story about a pet bear who returns to the zoo.

 

This week we reviewed different concepts we have been learning since September as a way to complete the Progress Reports of this trimester

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a very short week this week which was dedicated to reviewing and doing evaluations for the first semester. 

In mathematics the children traced the numbers one and two on dotted lines and then attempted to write the number free-hand. They also worked on complex patterns with our ‘osos’ (bears) according to their colors. 

To exercise their fine motor skills the Ardillas practiced cutting paper into long strips and little bits.  They also worked with clothes  pins to pick up small objects and also pinned them to foam strips. We also made bracelets by lacing small beads onto yarn to work on our pincer grasp.

 

 

 


 

 

 

This week Ardilla Pilla came out to greet us after a month of hibernation to talk about when we are angry (enfadados). To end the week, Isabella allowed me to borrow her ukelele to read ‘Percy se enoja’, a wonderful story about a giraffe named Percy who learns how to express himself when he is upset and learns some techniques to help him feel better.