Week of 3/11

Dear Polar Bear Families,

Reminders:

• There is no school Monday MARCH 16 – APRIL 1ST. School resumes on Monday April 1st.

Theme: 5 Senses- smelling and tasting

Letter of the week: K

Some books we read this week:

• Rookie Read-About Science- Tasting Things, by Allan Fowler
• The Five Senses- Smell, by Maria Rius
• The Five Senses – Taste, by Maria Rius
• K is for Kindness – Sesame Street

 
Classroom Activities

• Our Letter of the Week was “K” and our Scholastic Letter Book this week was “Kangaroo Kazoo”, by Wendy Lewison
•  This week continued learning about our 5 senses by focusing on tasting and smelling. On Monday we had a smelling station set up at our Discovery table. The children smelled 5 different scents that we placed in small containers with holes punched on top. The children then had to guess what they were smelling and match the smells with the corresponding pictures. We used cinnamon, vanilla, garlic, chocolate, and a piece of an orange. 
• Tuesday we also celebrated our March birthdays - Eddie Sargen, and Mira and Nikita’s parents came in with cupcakes to celebrate. After our treat we had a little dance party to finish off our celebration
• In center time on Tuesday we played a flash card game with letters and numbers. First the children had to guess the letter or number on the flashcard. If they did we got to jump up and sing the letter.  After a few rounds we added to the difficulty by asking the kids to tell us what things start with that letter.  And of course… the jumping continued. 
• Wednesday we had a tasting experiment on the rug. We gave each child one cheerio and had them hold their noses tight so they couldn’t smell. Next we had them eat the Cheerio and tell us what it tasted of. Surprise! It had no taste! As soon as we let go of our noses we could taste the cheerio. We then tried the experiment with a piece of Chex cereal, a pretzel, and a raisin. We learned how important the sense of smell is to tasting..
• Thursday we started the morning with assembly upstairs in Gym 2. The whole school came together to sing songs and enjoy the morning. After gym 3 and music, we came back for snack and a final experiment. We used cool whip to have a color mixing experiment. We used food dye to make secondary colors – orange, green, and purple. The kids loved mixing the colors and then of course, eating it up with strawberries. 
• In center time on Thursday we worked on learning to write the letter “K”.  K is a particularly difficult letter to write so we used our etch-a-sketch and play-doh rolling cards from Handwriting without Tears to help us and give us an easier way to practice.

We hope you all have a wonderful spring break and we’ll see you all in April. 

Karen, Rebeccca, and Marvin