Week of 11/26

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