Week of 2/4

Dear Polar Bear Families,
 
Reminders:
 
Valentine’s day is Thursday Feb. 14. We will be having a party for the kids only (We promise to take lots of photos). If you would like you can send your child in with Valentine’s to give out. Please send one Valentine for each child. We have 15 kids, 8 girls and 7 boys. 
 
Mark your calendar. In February we will be closed Monday the 18th, Tuesday the 19th, and Wednesday the 20th for the Presidents Day long weekend. School resumes Thursday February 21st. 
 
Scholastic Book flyers for February when home today. Orders are due Tuesday Feb 12th. Online class code is JGQLZ
 
Theme: World Cultures
Letter of the week: D
 
Some books we read this week:
 

• Bringing in the New Year, by Grace Lin
• Lanterns and Firecrackers, by Jan Barger Cohen
• Dragon Dance, by Joan Halub
• Chinese New Year, a festival of new beginnings, by Terry Sievert

 
Classroom Activities
 

• Our person of the week was Avery and Avery turned 4 this week. Happy Birthday Avery! 
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• This was a busy week filled with special days. We began the week on Monday with a school assembly up in the gym. The whole school came together to sing songs with our music teacher Noel and to show some school spirit. 
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• This week we also learned about the Lunar New Year.  Our art project was coloring a Chinese dragon in traditional New Year colors of red and gold, and then gluing the dragon on to craft sticks to make our own new years puppet. 

 

• Tuesday was the Lunar New Year and Cole’s mom, Eric’s mom and big brother Ryan, and Mischa’s mom, dad and baby brother Sam, all came to help us celebrate and teach us about different New Year Traditions. We couldn’t believe our eyes when the door opened and two Chinese Lions came dancing in!! We had our very own Lion Dance to start the celebration off. After the dance we read a book about the holiday and then got to try sticky rice balls (a new year’s treat). We each got our own pair of children’s chopsticks (topped with the cutest little animal) and got to practice using them on our snack. After snack it was back to the rug for one more story, and finally we each received a special red envelope (specially shaped like a pig for the year of the pig) filled with stickers to take home. Our thanks to all the parents for putting together such an amazing New Years Celebration for us. 

 

• The Letter of the week was “D”. We practiced making the letter “D” with our Handwriting With Out Tears materials and read our scholastic phonics book “Detective Dog and the disappearing donut, by Valerie Garfield.
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• On Wednesday we got to celebrate all of our February birthdays. Avery, Alexa, and Charlotte all turn 4 this month and their parents came in to help us celebrate with stories and treats. Happy Birthday to all!!
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• Friday we learned about another fantastic country. Gaby’s mom Clara came in to help us learn more about her home country, Colombia. Gabu amd her mom wore beautiful Cumbia dresses and taught us all how to dance the Cumbia, a popular dance in Colombia. They brought in colorful skirts for the girls and hats for the boys and we practiced our Cumbia moves . It was so much fun! Finally we had a special treat- “pan de yukas”, which are little round breads made of cassava flour and cheese. So good! Our thanks to Clara for making it such a special visit!

 
 
Enjoy your weekend 
 
Karen, Rebecca, and Marvin