Dear Star Room 3AM Families,
 
What a great week we had in the classroom! Here are some of the fun activities we enjoyed during classroom. Please note that due to an editing accident, the theme last week was incorrectly posted. Included below is the theme from both this week and last week. Sorry for the confusion!
  
Theme this week:

• Last week we continued our unit on Spring. We learned a bit about caterpillars, including where they live and that they eat leaves. Many of us also knew that caterpillars turn into butterflies. We learned that before a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it creates and spends time in a chrysalis; on average 2 weeks. We made a nice cross curricular connection by creating caterpillars at the art table. We used this project as an opportunity to strengthen our 1-1 correspondence, counting each pom pom we added to our caterpillar. 
• This week to finish out the unit, we delved into the world of butterflies. We learned that butterflies move from flower to flower drinking its nectar. They have a special tongue called a proboscis that curls and uncurls to allow them to drink. We watched a video of butterflies drinking to help bring this idea to life. 

 
Books we read:

• Waiting for Wings, by Lois Ehlert
•  Hopper Hunts for Spring, by Marcus Pfister

 
Places we went:

• At Art with Julia and Janae, we use different textured paint rollers to create patterns in brightly colored paints. We also used dry erase crayons on white boards and built structures with colored blocks at the light table. 
• We read Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin and took out books from the library with Lindsay.
• We sang It’s a Small World After All, Do a Deer, Oh Mr. Sun and My Favorite Things with Noel in music.
• We played in 2nd floor indoor gym and the roof!

 
Classroom Activities:
=This week we painted butterfly cutouts by dropping dots of watercolor with an eyedropper. The result was that each butterfly had a unique pattern all of its own. The smaller and larger cutouts were then assembled to create a 3-D butterfly for our bulletin board. Take a peek when you have a moment!
 
Reminders:

• Library books due, Monday 5/13
• Central Park Zoo Trip, Monday 5/20
• No School, Memorial Day, Monday 5/27

 
Enjoy the photos! As always, please feel free to reach out through email with questions or concerns.
 
Warmly,

Sarah and Jill

Dear Star Room 3AM Families,

What a great week we had in the classroom! Here are some of the fun activities we enjoyed during classroom.​

Theme this week:

• This week we continued our unit on Spring with a discussion about clouds and rain. We built upon our knowledge from last week - that flowers need water to grow. But where does the water come from? We displayed photos of nimbus clouds which are the type of clouds that produce rain. We learned that when the cloud is filled up with water and cannot hold any more, the water spills out of the clouds as rain. To illustrate how this works, we conducted a science experiment. After filling a vase with water, we added a layer of shaving cream on top as the “cloud”. We then poured blue watercolor through the cloud, filling the cloud with color. When the shaving cream can no longer hold the watercolor, the blue starts to “rain down” into the vase. The children were fascinated by the process!

 
Books we read:

• 10 Little Caterpillars, by Bill Martin Jr. 
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle
• And the Wind Blew, by Pat Hutchins 

 
Songs we sang:

• “Petals, Leaves, Stems and Roots”
• “Spring Song”

 
Places we went:

• At Art with Julia and Janae, we collaged different materials such as glossy paper, corrugated cardboard and felt onto our paintings that we created last week. We made sure to note how the different textures felt in our hand before we glued them on. 
• We read Press Here, by Herve Tullet, reenacted the book Caps for Sale on the felt board and took out books from the library.
• We sang It’s a Small World After All, Do a Deer, Oh Mr. Sun and My Favorite Things with Noel in music.
• We played in 2nd floor indoor gym and the roof!

 
Classroom Activities:

• This week we used dot dot and circle stickers to decorate rain boots for our classroom door. Many of us remembered that nimbus clouds make the rain that causes us to wear rain boots! We also created caterpillars by painting a popsicle stick brown and later adding colorful pom poms on top. Check out the bulletin board garden for the fun addition!  

Reminders:

• Library books due, Monday 5/6
• No School, Memorial Day, Monday 5/27

Enjoy the photos! As always, please feel free to reach out through email with questions or concerns

Warmly,
Sarah and Jill

Dear Star Room 3AM Families,

What a great week we had in the classroom! Here are some of the fun activities we enjoyed during classroom.​

Theme this week:

• This week we continued our unit on Spring with a discussion about flowers. We learned the parts of the plant: flower, leaves, stem, roots and that flowers need water to grow. The roots of a flower “drink” the water for the flower and we noted that we drink water with our mouths, not roots. We created picture cards that the children can velcro in sequence to demonstrate the order of the parts of a flower. To demonstrate how flowers drink water, we placed a white carnation in a glass of water with food coloring.
• We made predictions about whether or not the flower will change color. Our scientists will monitor the color of the flower in the coming days. Be sure to ask them if the flower turned a different color! We will continue to explore these topics in the coming weeks.

 
Books we read:

• My Garden, by Kevin Henkes
• Planting a Rainbow, by Lois Ehlert

 
Songs we sang:

• “Plants”
• “Spring Song”

 
Places we went:

• At Art with Julia and Janae, we used our watercolor drawings from last week as a background . We also sifted pink sand with blue glitter at the light table. 
• We read I Know a Rhino by Charles Fuge and took out books from the library with Lindsay.
• We sang It’s a Small World After All, Do a Deer, Wide Mouthed Frog and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt with Noel in Music.
• We played in 2nd floor indoor gym and the roof!

 
Classroom Activities:

• We finished our new placemats by gluing on patterned paper eggs. They finished their paper plate flower by adding a ruffled paper circle and a button in the middle. They will be displayed in a garden theme on our bulletin board. Keep your eyes peeled for the display coming soon!

​Reminders:

• Library Books Due, Monday 4/15
• No School, Good Friday, 4/19
• No School, P/T Conferences, Friday 4/26

Enjoy the photos! As always, please feel free to reach out through email with questions or concerns.

Warmly,
Sarah and Jill

Dear Star Room 2AM Families,

What a great week we had in the classroom! Here are some of the fun activities we enjoyed during classroom.

Theme this week:

•  This week we continued our unit about nursery rhymes. We read a few nursery rhymes, sang and acted out Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Humpty Dumpty, I’m a Little Teapot and the Itsy, Bitsy Spider during circle time and charted which nursery rhyme we liked best. We practiced one to one correspondence by counting the names in each column.​ 

Books we read:

•  Humpty, Dumpty
• I’m a Little Teapot
• Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star 

 
Songs we sang:

•  “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”
•  “Humpty, Dumpty”
•  “Itsy, Bitsy Spider”
•  “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”

 
Places we went:

•  At Art with Julia and Janae, we explored the properties of clay. We squished it, rolled it into snakes and balls and pushed a variety of items into it when rolled. We also examined shapes and colors at the light table and created drawing masterpieces with dry erase markers & white boards.
•  We read The Crayon Box That Talks by Shane DeWolf and used a variety of crayon colors to decorate white paper. Lindsay will use the sheets to create decorations for the Montclare book fair!
• We sang Baby Beluga, Do A Deer and Oh Mr. Sun with Noel in Music.
•  We played in 2nd floor indoor gym.

 
Classroom Activities:

• In keeping with our theme, we made an Itsy, Bitsy Spider creation. The children glued on a yellow circle for the sun, using a yellow crayon to draw rays of sunshine. They glued cotton balls on for clouds and dipped their fingers in blue ink to create fingerprint raindrops. Once dry they painted a small foam ball black for the spider and glued in a bendy straw as the rainspout. They very much enjoyed making “a rainstorm” in their pictures.

 
Reminders:

•  School Closed, Spring Break, 3/18/19 - 3/31/19

 
Enjoy the photos! As always, please feel free to reach out through email with questions or concerns. We wish everyone a happy and healthy Spring Break!
 
Warmly,

Sarah and Jill