Week of 2/25

Dear Polar Bear Families
 
Reminders:
 

• Believe it our not there is only 2 weeks of school in March. We are closed for spring break from March 18th through April 1st.

 

• Scholastic orders for March are due Monday March 4th. I’m sorry for the quick turnaround but I want to make sure those of you who order get the books before break so your child will have their new books while they are on vacation.

 
 
Theme: 5 Senses - touch
Letter of the week: B
 
Some books we read this week:
 

• Look, Listen, Taste, Touch, and Smell by Pamela Nettleton
• My 5 senses, by Aliki
• Feeling Things,  by Allen Fower
• There is a bird on my head,  by Mo Willems

 
Classroom Activities
 

• Our person of the week was Mischa. Thanks to her mom and dad for coming in this week and sharing all of Icy’s adventures with Mischa

 

• This week we started to explore our 5 senses. We are focusing this week on the sense of touch. We explained that any where you have skin you can feel something to help you know more about the world. Then we touched lots of things in the classroom to build our vocabularies. So instead of answering the question, “How does it feel?” by saying “Good”, we practiced using words like hard, smooth, soft, silky, rough, and bumpy.

 
 

• Our letter of the week was “B” and on Tuesday we read our Scholastic phonics book “Bubble Bear” by Maxwell Higgings and practiced writing the letter with our Handwriting without Tears materials.

 
 

• During free time on Tuesday the children also had the opportunity to make a button collage in honor of the letter “B”

 
 

• Wednesday we played a very special game on the rug. We brought out a box that we had cut a hole into and placed various small objects. The lesson was to show that we can know actually know what an object is even if we can see or hear it. We can use our sense of touch. The children, one at a time, put their hand in the box and found an object. Then they had to describe it to us and tell us all what they thought it was. It was almost like a magic trick! The children all could tell us what they were holding (crayons, buttons, pipe cleaners, a little car, a spoon, etc) without looking at it. They were amazed and learned how powerful the sense of touch can be.

 

• Thursday Rebecca gave us a wonderful treat for snack. She made us Banana and Blueberry pancakes in honor of the letter “B”. They were delicious and we ate them with some Blackberries too.

 

• Friday we had another big treat. Charlottes’ mom and grandmother came to our classroom to share the Bulgarian tradition of “Baba Marta” which is celebrated on March 1st. We learned that in Bulgaria they celebrate the holiday by wearing a special red and white bracelet. The bracelet is worn until they see the first stork in spring and then they tie the bracelet onto a branch of the tree for good luck.
  
  We not only got our own bracelets but we also learned how to make our own from red and white yarn. We also got our very own Bulgarian folk outfits – beautiful red aprons for the girls and belts for the boys. We wore them and waved our Bulgarian flags as we listened and danced to Bulgarian folk music with Charlotte’s grandmother.
  
  ​Last but not least we got to try the most delicious Bulgarian treat… a kind of filo and feta cheese pie. YUM!!!  Thank you so much to Charlotte and her family for providing us with such a wonderful experience.

 
Have a great weekend everyone!
 
Karen, Rebecca, and Marvin