Dear Blue Room Parents,

We had a great week in the Blue Room learning all about The Nutcracker Ballet. Here are some highlights of our week together. 
 
Dates to Remember

• Wednesday, December 11th- American Ballet Theatre Trip (each child must have one adult in attendance)
• Thursday, December 20th- Holiday Breakfast and last day of classes before Winter Break

 
Books we read:

• The Nutcracker Ballet, retold by Carol Thompson
• The Nutcracker, by Alison Jay
• The Nutcracker Ballet, by Deborah Hautzig

 
 
Places we went:

• Music with Noel

​Classroom Activities:. 

• We talked about ballet and the way the dancers use their bodies and music to tell a story.
• We also discussed the stage and set’s role in helping to tell the audience the story.
• We listened to several different versions of the Nutcracker story and compared and contrasted them.
• In science we explored vibration and sound. We tested out the sounds that different classroom materials make and even played a guessing game with them. It was a blast and sparked a conversation about how different instruments work. 
• We listened to the music of the Nutcracker and thought about the different sounds and what part of the story they may be from. We even used our dancing skills to act out the many characters in the Nutcracker. There where marching Nutcrackers, playing Claras and scurrying mice. 
• In Math, the children measured Nutcracker characters using gumdrops. We documented this using our iPad because we learned that the gumdrops would surely roll away if we tried to hand them up on the wall. 
• In Art we drew our favorite Nutcracker character using a step by step guide.
• The children illustrated and wrote about their favorite parts of the story in their journals. They loved discussing their scenes with classmates and comparing their highlights.
• As a class we decided to turn our farmers market into a puppet theater. We began by creating our own puppets reusing letter bags to represent the many different characters in the ballet. We also created a plan to make tickets and signs so that the audience would be able to learn about the show and gain admittance.

      
Theme this week:

•   The Nutcracker Ballet

Have a wonderful weekend.

The Blue Room Teachers

Dear Blue Room Parents,
 
We had another exciting week!  Below is an update on what the Blue Room children learned this week at Montclare.
 
 
Books we read:
Mossy, By Jan Brett
The Three Dasies, By Jan Brett
The Mermaid, By Jan Brett
 
 
Places we went:

• Music with Noel (picture included of our performance at last weeks assembly)
• Library with Lindsay

​Classroom Activities:. 

• We continued our study of Jan Brett Stories.

• We practiced measuring each other using mittens like the one’s in the story The Mitten.

• We read Brett’s Mossy , The Three Daises, The Mermaid, The Turnip and Berlioz the Bear.

• In science we continued our hedgehog research. We were amazed to see that hedgehogs get bathed in a sink and washed with a toothbrush.

• As a culmination of our study of Jan Brett’s stories we graphed to find out which story was our favorite and we also wrote letters to Jan Brett to share what we thought about her stories. 
• This week also brought our discussion of the holiday Diwali. We learned about the holiday, had a Diwali Dance party, and made our own rangoli patterns. It was so much fun learning about this holiday.

 
Theme this week:

• The author Jan Brett

 
Upcoming dates to remember-
 

• Monday, November 12th & Tuesday, November 13th- Parent Teacher Conferences

• Thursday, November 15th- Blue Room Picture Day

• Tuesday, November 22nd- Native American Festival (each child must have one adult in attendance)
• Wednesday, December 7th- American Ballet Theatre Trip (each child must have one adult in attendance)

Sincerely,

The Blue Room Teachers

Dear Blue Room Parents,
 
We had another exciting week!  Below is an update on what the Blue Room children learned this week at Montclare.
 
Books we read:

•  Hedgie’s Surprise, By Jan Brett
• The Mitten, By Jan Brett
• The Hat, By Jan Brett

 
Places we went:

• Trick or Treating in Montclare
• Yoga with Noel

​Classroom Activities:. 

• On Halloween we shared our costumes and went trick or treating.
• In Math we practiced our graphing with Halloween Candies.
• We made delicious chocolate banana ghosts and danced to If Your a Kid, Halloween Remix.
• We also had two Halloween challenges-  a coding challenge-walk the spider web maze to get the spider and a STEM challenge- build a haunted house for a spooky ghost using building materials.
• We learned about the job of an author and illustrator and learned that Jan Brett does both of these jobs in most of her books.
• We read several Jan Brett’s stories.
• We learned that Hedgie the hedgehog is a character that Jan Brett features in a lot of her stories.
• In science we learned some hedgehog facts.

 
Theme this week:

•  Halloween and the author Jan Brett

 
Upcoming dates to remember-
 

• Monday, November 12th & Tuesday, November 13th- Parent Teacher Conferences

• Thursday, November 15th- Blue Room Picture Day

• Tuesday, November 22nd- Native American Festival (each child must have one adult in attendance)
• Wednesday, December 7th- American Ballet Theatre Trip (each child must have one adult in attendance)

Sincerely,

The Blue Room Teachers