In Literacy, we will be working on our understanding of print concepts using the rhyme "Who Ate the Cookies From the Cookie Jar?" The children will be asked to recognize their friends' printed names during snack.  As an extension at the Writing Table, we will be using magnetic letters to spell our names, our family's names, our street address, etc.

In Math, now that our inventions have come to an end, the building will return back to its original state...THE MATH CENTER!

At the Nature Table, despite the rainy weather, we were able to get some gardening done on the outside planters. We also started looking at different plant structures by placing celery and carnations in water and then observing the colorful results! We will start our gardening "How To" book and continue with our garden observations!

In Music, we will continue singing a new hello song called "Jambo, Jambo Bwana." The song is in Swahili and the children are learning how to control the volume of their drumming and shaking so they can hear all the instruments, not just theirs. Students will practice trading instruments and sharing. The children will also sing, "Plant a Seed in My Garden" (song of the month) again, but now they will have the chance to decide what they want to be in the garden (flowers, caterpillars, etc...) Also, we will sing a song about colors called "Red is Best" (blue is best, pink is best, etc...) and look at the flowers that have changed color at the Nature Table.

In Drama, we will reenact the story of  "Where the Wild Things Are." We will go with Max on his quest to find who loves him best. Let the wild rumpus begin!

In Art, we are still working on decorative frames for our self-portraits!  Stay tuned!

In ASL, we are reinforcing the ABC's, the phrase "My name is____, and the "Good Morning" song.

In Literacy and Math,the building of inventions is now coming to a close. All our graduates and any other child interested in participating are in their final stages of completing their ideas. We will be setting up a final photo shoot for the creations and any invention that didn't already go home, will now. 

In Drama, the children will become sanitation workers with Mr. Gilly from Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman. We will chant the rhythmic musical rhyme during our pickup rounds:

I dump it in. I smash it down.
I drive around the trashy town.

Children will also revisit what we have learned from past machine activities. Incorporating large motor activities and sounds, we will open the hopper (a lever) to load trash, and rev our engines to power the crusher blade and compact the trash like the garbage truck in I Stink by Kate and Jim McMullan. Smash! Mash! Crash! There goes the Trash!

In Art, we will continue to work on a self-portrait created with markers and watercolors. Every student will have the opportunity to participate. When the portrait is completed, each child will be given the opportunity to create a decorative frame.

At the Nature Table, a-planting we will go, a-planting we will go, hi-ho-the-dairy-o, a-planting we will go!! We removed almost all the old soil and plant matter from the wooden planters and started planting our sprouted seeds. How long until we see a flower? We will observe their growing process (plant life cycle) and record our data. We will create a "How To" book about growing plants from seed to flower! As always, we are always checking in on our hermit crabs and we added two more, a snail and an slug!

In Music,the students have been singing Five Little Peas in a Pea Pod Pressed to go along with the Nature Table's planting experiments. Next week I will create a song puzzle like we did for Mr. Golden Sun and the students will sing the song with the matching cards for each phrase. We can even choose instruments for each phrase of the song!

We'll be reading a book called Charlie Parker Played Be Pop and we'll listen to a jazz tune called A Night in Tunisia-written by Dizzy Gillespie but made famous by Parker. The students will hold hands in partners and practice following each other's movements to the music. As always, we'll finish with a roll of our song cube of spring songs!

In ASL, we will continue to sing the "Good Morning" and "Good Afternoon" songs and we will sign along with them.

In Literacy, the creating and building of our inventions will continue.

At the Nature Table we will continue replanting the wooden planters located outside of our school. We started germinating some flower seeds and took some cuttings of Carol's office plant and put them in water to see if they would grow roots! Next we will dig out the dirt in the planters and refill them planters with fresh soil. As always, lots to do!

In Drama, the children will continue to "invent" other creatures who undergo metamorphosis. We will concentrate on the physical characterizations of the transformed creatures. They could be part animal, part human, and part machine. In addition to The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle, we will also read Imogene's Antlers. Based on these stories, we will begin to create some of our own scenarios.

In Music, we'll read the book Over in the Meadow by John Langstaff in honor of all mothers, for Mother's Day!  We'll sing the song that goes along with the book, and the children will have the chance to be different animals and explore the instrument they would like to play for each animal. We will also play a game for the song, Love Somebody Yes I Do, which the children can play at home with mom, dad, and siblings.
In this game, one child will sit next to me while we sing and clap. The rest of the children will accompany on instruments of their choice. 
 

We Sing:
Love Somebody
Yes I do (3x)
And I think it's you!

After we sing the song I will tap the child's knees and sing "Who do you love? Who do you love?"  That child gets up and chooses someone else to come forward and sing with me, and then he will sit and play the instruments. Everyone will get a turn! 

In Art, we will continue to work on our special projects.