Hello Red Room Families,
 

• We’ve had a wonderful year in the Red Room! The days spent with you children have been filled with fun, laughter, and magic. Though it is hard to see them move on, we are so proud of the young people they’ve become and know they will continue to share their light wherever they go.
• Thank you for your constant support. It has been a pleasure working with all of you as we watched your children grow together.

Have a wonderful summer, and don’t forget to come back and visit!
 
Ms. Brenna, Ms. Nicole, and Mr. Alex

Dear Red Room Families,

This week in the Red Room was out of this world! Here are some of our intergalactic activities:
 
Theme:

• Space

Books We Read:

• Mae Among The Stars, by Roda Ahmed
• I want to Be an Astronaut, by Byron Barton
• Stars, by Steve Tomecek

Centers:

• We used yellow paint and Q-tips to build constellations in the art Center.
• We sequenced the planets in the solar system and made space rocket patterns in the math center.
• We mixed flour and baby oil to make malleable moon sand in the science center.
• The class built a sturdy space station in the Block Center.
• We had a pasta party in the cooking center!

Something Fun We Did:

• Estelle’s dad visited the room and taught us all about construction and bridges!
• We celebrated May Birthday Day!

Letters of the Week:

• T, I, and J

Dates to Remember:

• 5/27 Memorial day
• 5/31 Field day 10am-1pm. We will be meeting and dismissing from Central Park
• 6/7 Last Day of School. Party 8:30am-9:15am.

 
Have a lovely long weekend!

Ms. Brenna, Ms. Nicole, and Mr. Alex

Dear Red Room Families,

What a busy week in the Red Room! Here are some of our activities:
 
Theme:

• New York City

​Books We Read:

• A Walk In New York City, by Salvatore Rubbino
• New York City, by Paula Hannigan
• Subway Story, by Julia Sarcome-Roach

Centers:

• The children used a variety of materials to build different types of bridges in the building center.
• We drew our favorite New York City sights and made a large collage with our Brooklyn Bridge pictures in the art center.
• In the math center, the children glued windows onto tall paper skyscrapers and counted how many they had total.

Letter of the Week:

• A

Something Fun We Did:

• Brooklyn Bridge Trip! Thank you to all of our chaperones who helped the kids complete the photo scavenger hunt. It was a wonderful day with a wonderful class!

Dates to Remember:

• 5/24 Pasta Party! No need to send lunch  that day!
• 5/27 No School-Memorial Day
• 5/31 Field Day!

Have a great weekend!

Ms. Brenna, Ms. Nicole, Mr. Alex

Dear Red Room Families,

It was a lovely week in the Red Room. Here are some of our activities:
 
Theme:

• Math and Measurement

Centers:

• In the Math center, we discussed different ways to measure an object. The students then drew a picture of a bug and chose a material from the classroom to use as their unit of measurement. The children chose lego pieces, unifix cubes, and even pasta to figure out the measurements of their bugs!
• In the Art center, the children worked on special gifts for their grown-ups.
• In the building center, the children used cardboard, boxes, and paint to build our very own addition robot! The children would place one amount of objects in one tube and a different amount in the other. The two tubes would empty together into a basket which allowed us to count how many we had all together.
• We made and decorated butterfly shaped cookies in the Cooking center.

Something Fun We Did:

• We set our butterflies and ladybugs free on Tuesday! After enjoying watching our ladybugs and butterflies grown from larvae and caterpillars to full grown adult bugs, we knew it was time to set them free. We put on our newly made butterfly wings and took the habitats up to the roof to let the bugs go. However, we think they just may come back to enjoy our freshly planted garden!

Letter of the Week:

• S

Who Was In The Barn?

• Willa!

Dates to Remember:

• 5/15: Brooklyn Bridge Trip. Early dismissal on this day.

 
Have a great weekend!

Ms. Brenna, Ms. Nicole, and Mr. Alex

Dear Red Room Families,

We’re learning all about cycles this week in the Red Room. Here are some of our activities:
 
Theme: 

• Life Cycles

Books We Read:

• The Life Cycle of a Butterfly, by Robin Bernard
• From Tadpole to Frog, by Jan Kottke
• The Life Cycle of a Chicken, by Lisa Trumbauer

 
Centers:

• In the math center, we measured how many ladybugs could fit across the length of a leaf.
• In the writing center, we drew the different parts of the life cycle of a ladybug.
• In the art center, we made large symmetrical butterfly wings to wear when we release our butterflies when they hatch from their chrysalis’. 
• We also created and labeled the parts of a butterfly life cycle using different types of pasta.

Something Fun:

• Our butterflies or in their chrysalis’ and the ladybugs are in their pupa phase. Soon they will be in the adult phase of their cycle and we will release them next week!

Letter of the Week:

• G

Who Was In The Barn?

• Willa!

Dates to remember:

• 5/15 Brooklyn Bridge Trip
• 5/31 Field Day

 
Have a nice weekend!

Ms. Brenna, Ms. Nicole, and Mr. Alex

Dear Red Room Families,

The Red Room turned green this week! Here are some of our Earth Day activities:
 
Theme:

• Earth Day
• The Red Room learned all about the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! If we try to do these things every day we can have a healthier more beautiful Earth.

Books We Read:

• Recycling Day, by Edward Miller
• The Three R’s: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle, by Nurica Roca
• Arthur Turns Green, by Marc Brown

 
Centers:

• After learning about the 3 R’s, the Red Room decided to recycle and reuse the cardboard Gingerbread House we had decorated in the winter. We painted the house green, cut out windows and added plastic to them to make a greenhouse!
• We wrote about different ways we can help the earth in the Writing Center.
• The students made beautiful planet Earths in the Art Center by reusing old newspaper and watercolor paint.

Letter of the Week:

• Q

Some Fun Things We Did:

• Our ladybug and butterfly larvae arrived! We are keeping them in special habitats and will be watching them grow and transform over the next few weeks.
• We started a new Book Club book! After finishing Judy Moody Was In A Mood we decided to read a story about her little brother, Stink. Our new book is called Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid.

Dates to Remember:

• 4/25-4/26 Parent/Teacher Conferences. School is closed on these days.

 
Have a Green Weekend!

The Red Room Teachers

Dear Red Room Families,

It’s finally starting to feel like Spring! Here are some of our seasonal activities:
 
Theme:

• Plant Life Cycles

Centers:

• We made patterns using lime beans, sunflower seeds, and corn kernels in the Math Center
• The children used collage materials to create a diagram of a flower’s life cycle in the Art Center, and then labeled each part of the cycle in the Writing Center.
• In the Science Center, the children learned about “Osmosis”, the process where plant root systems absorb water and transport it through tiny tubes to the leaves of the plant. Once there, the sun helps to convert the water into food through the process called “Photosyntheis”. We demonstrated how flowers take in water by observing these tubes in celery stalks. We then placed a celery stalk in a pitcher of blue water and one in a pitcher of red water. The next morning the children observed that the leaves on the celery had changed to blue and red, and the water level in the pitchers had lowered, showing that the celery had absorbed the water and the tubes had carried it up to the leaves!

Letter of the Week:

• O

Who was in the barn?

• Roarke!

Dates to Remember:

• 4/19 School Closed for Good Friday
• 4/25-4/26 School Closed for Parent/Teacher Conferences

 
Have a great weekend!

Ms. Brenna, Ms. Nicole, and Mr. Alex

Dear Red Room Families,

​Welcome back! The children were excited to get back into the swing of things! Here are some of our activities:
 
Theme: 

• Spring

 
Books We Read:

• The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle
• Freddy the Frogcaster, by Janice Dean

Centers:

• In the Math Center, we worked on simple addition. The children made a flower with two different colored petals. They counted how many of each color they had and then counted the amount of total petals. We also made flowers out of paper plates and then glued on seeds into the middle of the plate and counted how many we had altogether.
• In the Art Center, the children drew portraits of themselves holding an umbrella. They then used blue watercolor and brushes to splatter paint a rainy day scene.
• In the Writing Center, the children described and wrote about what they enjoy doing on a rainy day.

Letter of the Week:

• C
• In the Cooking Center we celebrated the letter “C” by making carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting!

Who was in the barn?

• Matthew!

Dates to Remember:

• 4/10 Writopia Film Festival 1:30 pm. Every child should have one adult.
• 4/19 Good Friday-School Closed
• 4/25-4/26 Parent/Teacher Conferences

Have a great weekend!

The Red Room Teachers

Dear Red Room Families,

We had MANY surprises in the Red Room this week. Here are just a few of our activities:
 
Theme:

• Magic, Mazes, and St. Patrick’s Day!

Books We Read:

• The Littlest Leprechaun, by Brandi Dougherty
• The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, by Dan Santat
• Bartholomew and the Oobleck, by Dr. Seuss

Centers:

• We were given rainbows labeled with different numerals and then placed that amount of beads on a pipe cleaner in the Math Center.
• After reading the story The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, the children drew and wrote about imaginary friends in the writing center.
• We did a couple of experiments in the Science center that answered the question: Is this science, or is this magic? When we mixed cornstarch and water together, we made a substance that was hard like a solid in the container but felt like a liquid when we put our hands in it. Then, we mixed nail polish and water and dipped paper in it to make a magical looking rainbow print!

Some tricky leprechaun fun:

• Maze Day! After learning about making and solving mazes, the leprechauns decided to make a maze challenge of their own! They taped out a huge maze on the floor of gym 2 and the Red Room had to navigate the many twists and turns to get to a pot of surprises at the very end!
• For a design thinking challenge, the Red Room constructed leprechaun traps using cardboard boxes and other materials found in the classroom. 
• After turning the room upside down on Friday, the leprechauns put a spell on Mr. Alex that was slowly turning him into a leprechaun! Don’t worry, they left clues all over the school to help us find the ingredients to make a potion to turn him back. The class went on a scavenger hunt to different classrooms to find the different parts of the potion and Mr. Alex was back to normal by the end of the day.

Letter of the Week:

• Z

Who Was in the Barn?

• Lucas!

 
Dates to Remember:

• 4/1 School Resumes
• 4/19 School Closed for Good Friday
• 4/25-4/26 Parent/Teacher Conferences

 
Have a wonderful vacation!

The Red Room Teachers

Dear Red Room,

It was a cold but productive week in the Red Room. Here are some of our activities:
 
Theme:

• 100 Days and A-Maze-ing Mazes!

Centers:

• During snack, the kids were given special placemats with ten circles on them. They were then given ten different snack options. The children took ten pieces of each snack and placed them in different circles on the mat. When they were finished, they had 100 snack pieces!
• In the building center, the children worked with the teachers to construct a maze using blocks. They then took turns walking through the maze.
• The class used toy cars to navigate a maze made out of tape on a table.
• After watching a short video about drawing mazes, the children practiced creating their own on dry erase boards and challenged a classmate to get through their maze.
• We made our own marble run mazes using a paper plate, plastic straws, and glue.

Something Fun We Did:

• March Birthday Day!

​Who was in the barn?

• Luca!

Letter of the Week:

• Y

Dates to Remember:

• 3/13 Please return library card application if you would like your child to receive a library card.
• 3/15 Last day of school before spring break

 
Have a fun, restful weekend!
​
Ms. Brenna, Ms. Nicole, and Mr. Alex