Rainbow of Friends

Next week is February vacation, and we wish everyone a fun and restful week off! When we return to school on the 22nd we will be starting a week-long unit based on the story Rainbow of Friends by P.K. Hallinan. This is a book about the importance of differences among people – what people look like; how they dress; what their talents, interests and challenges are; and how these make us special. The illustrations show children engaged in many different activities together. The story will sensitize children to the way we are all alike and different, and emphasize that we all have abilities and challenges.

The activities we will engage in during the week will include opportunities to play, share and cooperate with our friends. We will be sorting ourselves by different attributes (hair color, eye color, types of clothes) to see how we are alike and different. We will be discussing how people around the world (and even in our school!) have different languages to speak, different challenges and different likes or dislikes. We will also focus on how wonderful it is that we are all different and all add something special to our class/school/world!

We will be making rainbows, our earth, and portraits of ourselves. We will also discuss as a class what we like best about each of our friends, and even creating awards for these attributes! This is a great learning opportunity for children of all ages, and we are looking forward to beginning it here!

Next up after Rainbow of Friends is going to be a unit on the story A Porcupine Named Fluffy. Have a wonderful week off!

Three Little Javelinas/Three Billy Goats Gruff

Get ready to play Wild West!  During the next three weeks, we will be focusing on two new story units.  The first is The Three Little Javelinas by Susan Lowell, which is a Southwestern version of “The Three Little Pigs,” with javelinas (wild pigs) and a coyote as the main characters.  The javelinas (two brothers and a sister) are off to seek their fortunes.  They part ways, and one by one build their houses in the Sonoran desert.  The antagonist of the story is the coyote of the Southwest who, in the true tradition of the story, does a lot of huffing and puffing.  The first javelina gets caught in a dust storm and ends up in a pile of tumbleweeds that was once his house.  The second javelina meets a Native American woman who provides him saguaro sticks to build a house.  The third javelina uses bricks from an adobe brickmaker to build his home.  This is a great version of the classic tale, and children will love to huff and puff through it!

 The second story in this unit is going to be The Three Billy Goats Gruff, written by Janet Stevens.  This is a fun version of the old tale of three billy goats who are trying to get across a bridge to the grassy meadow on the other side.  The mean old troll is sitting under the bridge threatening to eat the billy goats as they cross over.  The billy goats are brave and clever, however, and outsmart the troll.  We will be discussing how friends and family help one another, how it’s good to face your fears and how to feel better when afraid. 

During the coming weeks, students will be dressing up in costumes and acting out the stories as well as learning about news kinds of food, plants and animals.  We’ll be learning new words, making great art projects, growing our own grass from seeds and cooking quesadillas! 

We are really looking forward to learning about these favorite fairytales, and hope you will love the artwork and stories your children will be bringing home!  What’s next?  Valentine’s Day and Rainbow of Friends.

Snowy Day

          Time really flies, and it’s already time for our long winter break!  Although it still seems far away, January is right around the corner.  Beginning on January 4 and for two weeks after, our class will be starting a new book unit based on Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  This is a story about a young boy who goes for a walk in the snow, makes snow angels and watches a fun snowball fight.  The boy tries to take a snowball home in his pocket, but sadly, it melts.  Much to his surprise, however, it snows the next day and he has brand new snow to play with!

           This book, along with other favorites such as The Hat and The Mitten by Jan Brett, will help us discuss the changes we see in winter.  We will be learning about how snow is made, what makes ice melt, things to do in the snow, and how to make snow projects such as snow globes, snowmen and snowflakes.  We will also be playing with foods that remind us of snow and ice, such as sugar cubes, Honeycomb cereal and marshmallows. 

           We will also be studying how the change to cold weather affects our bodies.  Since we get very cold without proper clothing outside, we need to dress warmly!  Our class will be sorting summer and winter items, dressing up the boy from the story in warm clothes and even talking about what kinds of warm foods there are to eat, such as soup or hot chocolate.  Weather permitting, we will be playing outside (even if it snows!) so please dress your child warmly! 

          I hope you all have a safe and fun vacation, and a very Happy New Year!  We look forward to our new unit and having a great start to 2010!  Stay tuned for more news after the break!

Night Tree

          With December quickly coming up, our class is going to spend the month learning about the beginning of winter, two holiday celebrations, and we will be starting a new book theme.  We will be discussing the changing seasons and how winter brings with it cold weather, ice and snow. 

          Without delving into the religious aspects of these holidays, we will be learning about Christmas and Chanukah, and what they mean for many people.  We will be making some projects for each holiday, such as a Christmas tree, ornaments and a menorah.  We will also be cooking potato latkes and a gingerbread house!  If you feel comfortable doing so, please let me know if and how you celebrate during the month of December, so that I may facilitate discussions about family traditions in our classroom.

          The first week of December we will also be starting a new book unit!  Our class will begin reading Night Tree, written by Eve Bunting.  This book is set at Christmastime, but there are no religious references or mentions of Christmas activities.  Instead, the story focuses on a family who places food on a pine tree in the forest for the animals to eat.  It is a great book to assist in teaching sharing and being kind to other people and animals.  We will be learning about what kinds of animals live in the forest, what they eat, and how we may help them this winter. 

          We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a restful long weekend, and we are looking forward to these December activities!  The next story we will be working on is A Snowy Day.

Upcoming Events

Here is a list of upcoming events to look forward to:

Tuesday, November 24: Thanksgiving Party at noon – all are welcome!

Wednesday, November 25: Early Dismissal at 11:15

Thursday, November 26: No School, Happy Thanksgiving!

December 7-10: Early Dismissal at 11:15 for Conferences.  Please see schedule in post below.

Wednesday, December 23: Early Dismissal at 11:15

December 24 – January 3: No School, Happy Holidays!

Parent Conference Schedule

Monday, December 7^th:

11:45 David

12:15 Sarah

1:00 Jack

2:15 Anthony

Tuesday, December 8^th:

12:30 Nicholas

2:00 Wells

Wednesday, December 9^th:

11:30 Colin

2:00 Owen

Thursday, December 10^th:

11:30 Sophie

Somebody and the Three Blairs

For the next three weeks, our reading unit will be based on the story of Somebody and the Three Blairs by Marilyn Tolhurst. This is a humorous reversal on the classic tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In this version, the Blairs (a mother, father and baby) leave their house to go to the park. While they are out, “Somebody” (a bear) comes into their house. He tries the breakfast food, which is “too dry” or “too noisy” except the honey, which is “just right”. Next, Somebody tries the chairs and toys in the house, finding things that are just right for him. Lastly, Somebody tries the beds, finding the just right size for a bear cub. At the end of the story, baby Blair sees “Somebody” leaving their home and the family finds a big mess.

This story not only invites comparison to the original story of three bears, but also provides an opportunity to build new vocabulary, uses recurrent memorable phrases, and provides a fun storyline to prompt role-playing of action sequences. We will be reading both versions of this story in order to compare and contrast the plots as well as playing with many of the same things that Somebody did. We will be learning about different kinds of bears, hibernation, and families (right in time for Thanksgiving!). Some activities will include playing with oatmeal, graphing and sorting bears, making bear projects, eating yummy bear snacks and creating class books about bears.

On Monday 11/19 we will be participating in a “Bear Share”. Please send your child to school with a teddy bear from home and we will discuss things we do with our teddy bear friends. We will also be making “just right” beds for our teddy bears, so if you have empty shoeboxes at home, we would love to use them! Also, we will be discussing our families and favorite activities to do at home with them. If you feel comfortable doing so, please send in a picture of your family to include with the project.

We will be learning through Somebody and the Three Blairs for the next three weeks, then moving on to Thanksgiving before the holiday. After that, we look forward to learning about the December holidays and reading Night Tree.

Picking Apples and Pumpkins

During the next two weeks, we will be reading Picking Apples and Pumpkins by Amy and Richard Hutchings.  This fall story involves a family that goes out to a farm to pick apples and pumpkins.  While on the farm, they ride the hay wagon, climb trees, use an apple picker, have a picnic, and buy their apples and pumpkins.  At home, they bake an apple pie and carve pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns.         

This story offers us an opportunity to explore the changes that occur in the fall, such as the changing colors of the leaves, the planting and harvesting of apples and pumpkins, the variety of textures and flavors of foods made from apples and pumpkins, and the equipment on a farm.  We will be acting out a trip to a farm to pick apples and pumpkins and will be making art projects with trees, leaves, acorns, pinecones, sticks, and apples.  We will also be studying weighing, measuring, cooking, and the differences between fruits and vegetables.  We will be graphing our favorite apples, too, and that will give us a chance to try eating different kinds!

To begin our fall unit, we will be learning about the different colors of fall.   To incorporate these colors, we will play with a water table dyed to match our themes, make collages with colored materials, string dyed pastas, and paint beautiful fall tree scenes. 

We will also be starting a year-long unit of study about letters.  Each week we will learn a new letter of the alphabet (in order).  Some activities we will be doing are: “walking the letters” (literally walking on a poster-board sized letter to get a feel for how it is formed); reading poems with the letter’s sounds; discussing what words begin with that letter; and tracing/writing our letter of the week.  We’ll start with “A” next week just in time to read our Apples and Pumpkins book!

We are really looking forward to learning about fall, and hope you will love the artwork and stories your children will be bringing home!  What’s next?  Halloween and The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.

Open House information

Thanks again to all who came to Open House last night!  Some helpful information that was mentioned…

• In your folders you will find our updated ELP calendar, contact list, weekly schedule, early dismissal/snow delay information and class list.
• Please see the ELP Handbook for information regarding hours, conferences, school lunch program and descriptions of therapists who work in ELP.
• School Lunch: please send in a check payable to DPSL (Darien Public School Lunch) if you’d like your son/daughter to buy lunch.  You may email/write a note informing us what your child wants or we can ask them!  You will receive a letter from our cafeteria when your child needs more funds.
• Regarding illness: when your child is sick, please email/call me and Joann Eckstein, school nurse (jeckstein@darienps.org and ex. 4103).  If you forget to include Joann, I will pass along your message.  Please see the ELP Handbook for information regarding when students can return to school after an illness.
• Curriculum: we use Toni Linder’s Trans-Disciplinary Play-Based Curriculum.  I will send you a letter (you’ll get one today!) to give you some information on our next story unit.  Conferences will be held in December and June to discuss progress.
• To subscribe to Ed Alert (which sends information important to DPS such as early snow dismissals): go to http://www.darienps.org/boe/ and click the Ed Alert button about halfway down on the right side.
• To subscribe to the Tokeneke Wire (which sends weekly emails about school and community events): email Kathy Barett at Tokeneke.Wire@gmail.com and ask to be added to her distribution list.
• Our class room moms have the sign up sheet for volunteering.  They will email you reminders for your turn!  Please feel free to reschedule if needed.

Please feel free to email/call me with questions as needed!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

           Thank you to all those who came to last night’s Open House – it was great seeing you again!  I am also so grateful to our wonderful room moms for their work so far and the commitment they’ve made to help us throughout the year!

           Today in school we concluded our unit of The Kissing Hand.  Beginning next week, we are starting a new unit to learn letters through Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault.  This wonderful alphabet story has a catchy rhythm, and before long, your child will be reciting the book to you!  The premise of this story is how the lower case letters of the alphabet come out to play by climbing a coconut tree.  However, as more and more letters climb up, the tree slumps and eventually… chicka chicka boom boom!  Down all the letters fall, skinning knees and bumping heads along the way.  The mama’s and papa’s – or the uppercase letters – come to rescue, until the lower case letters choose to begin their climb once again. 

           Throughout next week, we will be listening to the story, acting it out, and learning our letters.  Our projects will include making coconut trees, decorating letters and making coconuts.  We will even be making a fun coconut tree snack using graham crackers, bananas and grapes!  We will also play games like counting coconuts on a tree, Chicka Chicka letter Bingo and “Barrels of Monkeys”!

           We are all looking forward to next week’s letter learning and the fun activities that go along with it!  Just a quick peek to the future… after Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, we will be learning about fall through the story Picking Apples and Pumpkins.