Week of 12/3

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:
 

• Tuesday, December 11th- American Ballet Theatre Trip (each child must have one adult in attendance)
• Thursday, December 20th- Holiday Breakfast following the Sing a long with Noel in the gym. (Sing-a-long- 8:15-8:45 and Breakfast 8:45-9:30 approximately)

Books we read:

• The Nutcracker Ballet, by Susan Jeffers
• The Nutcracker, by Mary Engelbreit
• The Magic Dreidels, By Eric A. Kimmel

 Places we went:

• Practiced our holiday songs with Noel using Jingle Bells
• Ballet with our Ballet Teacher from ABT


Classroom Activities:. 

• We continued our study of the Nutcracker.
• We expanded our puppet theater with new signs and tickets to hand out.
• We explored the art center and thought of alternate ways to make puppets including tape, magic noodles, and paper bags.
• We used STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art and Math) to contract candy homes like the Land of the Sweets using toothpicks and gumdrops and marshmallows. These allowed the children to collaborate and problem-solve to create three-dimensional buildings.  We discussed what shape would make the strongest base to create the most stable building.
• In conjunction with The Hour Of Code, the Blue room children had a chance at some programming and coding of their own with Nutcracker story. Each friend had a chance to program and direct a character through a maze using arrow commands. The programmers had to steer clear of the many obstacles the nutcracker and Clara had to defeat in the battle (I.e.- the Mouse King, the toy soldiers, and the mice) Who knew coding could be so fun!
• In Math we created a probability and counting game called the Land of The Sweets. This game was modeled after our Wampanoag game Kansish!
• In writing we wrote signs, play bills, and our own versions of The Nutcracker Story.

Have a great weekend.

The Blue Room Teachers