December 5-9th
Beaumont/Alameda Newsletter
For the week of December 5-9, 2011
*Hello Pre-K Families! We finished our unit on Space this week! The students thoroughly enjoyed decorating the pretend area as a space station. In the gym, the middle school students taught the class how to sing the song “Climb Aboard the Spaceship.” We played the game pin the rings on Saturn. Dave was our special guest who taught us more space facts and answered questions from the students; such as “how where the planets born?” “how does the sun rise and set?” “how does the sun stay in the sky?” and so forth. He shared many books about astronomy and an awesome telescope for the students to look at and view through. We made Dave a thank you card with planets and stars on it!
On Friday we also had another guest, “Magical Mir”. Mir put on a wonderful magic show for the students. Thank you again Mir for your tricks. We also reviewed all we learned about during the past two weeks. The students each had a chance to share their favorite thing about Space. Some of the highlights for projects this week were: tin foil streamer comets (which the students were able to play with in the gym), toilet paper tin foil telescopes, Saturn beaded bracelets, watercolor crayon resist solar system paintings and of course our glitter Space bottles!!!
*Coco Ord was person of the week! Through her poster we learned that she is four years old. She thinks she weighs 60 pounds. She has blue eyes and brown hair. When she grows up she wants to be a vet that takes care of animals. Some of her favorite foods are: pepperoni pizza, ice cream and cake. CoCo likes cats, dogs, horses, spiders, TV shows and rocks. She does not like getting hurt or when her sister yells at her. If she could have three wishes they would be to have a dog, a cat and a stuffed animal Care Bear. CoCo’s favorite color is blue.
Thanks and Reminders
*Thank you to Davis and his family for providing fruits and vegetables this week for snack.
*Thank you all the families who provided plastic bottles and toilet/paper towel rolls. It was very much appreciated.
*There is NO SCHOOL from December 19th until January 3rd. The students return to school on January 3rd. Hope everyone has a wonderful Winter break.
*Next week our unit will be on the season Winter. The letter of the week will be Jj. Throughout the week we will do lots of fun activities pertaining to the winter season. Several students have already taken notice of the change in weather as they have said “there was frost on my car this morning and outside on the grass.”
The Week in Review
Monday: Today we kicked off our second week of learning about Space, with a focus on the planet Jupiter. We learned that Jupiter has a huge storm (covering an area larger than our entire planet) that has been raging for at least 300 years, and that looks like an eye shaped red spot on the surface of the planet. We decorated a miniature paper version of the storm with mixed media. Our person of the week was chosen this morning, and it’s Coco! We worked on her Person of the Week pages, and she helped us with our morning duties. Today we read a very interesting book about liquids, solids, and gases, called What Is the World Made Of? Our new letter of the week is ‘I,’ and we had some cool sharing today. Daphne shared a whole bunch of letter ‘I’ words that she had written down, including Ice, Irish, Island, and Igloo, Lola showed us a harmonica that her nanny gave her, and Leo shared his ‘lovey,’ a very cool stuffed animal lion. We wrapped up the day by playing the ever popular space tag game, Man on Mars (Will You Take Us to the Stars).
Tuesday: Today we started off our day by reading Stars, Stars, Stars. Students who shared today were: Ella, who shared an ice pack. Henry shared an iguana. Gabriel shared an ice cream cone. Coco shared a dog named Laika. Margaret shared an insect. Gus shared an igloo. We learned about the sixth planet from the sun called Saturn. We found out that Saturn has at least 56 moons. It has rings that are made of rock and ice. It is a very cold planet. During choice time we played a game called pin the rings on Saturn. We made beaded colorful bracelets to represent the rings for our art project. In the gym the students went on an alien mission. The students were very creative and on their own they have started to make their own books with drawings and some words.
Wednesday: Today in Pre-K we learned about the planet Uranus! We had Dave, an astronomer, come in as a special guest. He had lots of fun information to share with us about the planets and the comets. Dave also brought in a really cool telescope that we all got to look into, as well as many space books and a constellation projector. It was really fun to have him. For our special project, we made comets out of crepe paper and aluminum foil. Today the following friends shared for the letter Ii: Deacon shared the book Find the Constellation and Hudson shared Icicles. In the gym today, we played “Four Corners” with planet teams. We read the books Harold and the Purple Crayon and The Little Little House.
Thursday: Today we started our day off by reading Roaring, Rockets. Students that shared items today were: Chase, who shared a book called Lewis and Clark with a section about Native Americans. He also shared puzzle pieces from these three states: Indiana, Iowa and Illinois. Benton shared a book he made about animals. Simone shared icky orange peels. Tess shared an ice tray. Dominik shared an ice pack and a space book. Vincent shared a space quilt his grandma made. Dani shared icicles. We learned about our eighth planet from the sun: Neptune. It is a blue planet with 8 moons and 6 rings. Our special project today was making space bottles. The students were able to choose their water color and a sparkly color. We learned a new song which we sang in the gym called: Climb Aboard a Spaceship.
Friday: Today was a super fun day, and our last day learning about Space. Some students this morning discussed what they had learned this week: Chase learned that Jupiter has storms every day, Boone learned that he likes the Earth because it has water to swim in, Hudson learned that Pluto is tiny and quiet, Quincy learned that Saturn floats in water, Beck learned that Venus is hot, Kate learned that Earth has plenty of water for us, Lucy learned that she loves the Earth because it has life on it, Maggie learned that Earth gives us lots of food in grocery stores and restaurants, Daphne learned all about Mars, Leo learned about astronauts and Mars, and Henry learned that there are no Martians on Mars. We had two different project choices today: We used the “crayon resist” method to make space scenes, with watercolor paint, and salt for stars. Our other project was reusing toilet paper rolls and tinfoil that we poked holes in to create our very own telescopes to view the “stars.” Today in the gym our middle school helpers led a game called Moonwalk with our parachute, it was super fun! Teacher Mir (or Magic Mir as we sometimes call him!) came in today twice, morning and afternoon, to perform for us his famous magic show. Thanks, Mir! We wrapped up our letter ‘I’ sharing today. Beckett brought in some real Ice, Lucy brought in her very cool toy Ice cream cone, Maggie showed us two pictures that had the color Indigo in them, and Quincy shared her special Ink pen, an Ink pad, and demonstrated both. Thanks for a great week, friends!
Have a great weekend!
Teacher Sarah, Katie, Shelley, Lacey and Mir
