This month, we have been talking about the ways our families celebrate! It is a special way to bond with your family and bring everyone closer together. We were given a task by our teachers--we had to plan a party for our parents to show them how we care about them. After sharing our family celebration posters, we noticed some things were common among many of the family celebrations. First, we noticed that there are often decorations at celebrations. We made colorful paper chains and snowflakes to decorate for the party. Also, we noticed that gifts are often given or exchanged. We made a special watercolor painting inspired by the artist Wassily Kandinsky. His paintings were influenced by music, so we listened to a variety of music while painting to inspire us. After the gifts were finished and framed, we made wrapping paper so the present would be a surprise. We noticed that wrapping paper is often patterned, so we designed our own wrapping paper with patterns. Additionally, we wrote cards to our parents. We used our letter sound knowledge to do this and wrote using the many lowercase letters that we have learned to write. Next, noticed that many celebrations had feasts, so we asked parents to bring a special family dish to share. We decided we would take care of the plates, bowls, utensils, napkins and drinks for the party, so we went shopping at a nearby grocery store. We had to do a lot of math before hand...we estimated how many people would come to the party (46), counted the materials we already had and made a shopping list so we wouldn't forget what to buy. When we were at the store, items were packaged in varying quantities, so sometimes we had to skip count by ten. Other times, we had to compare numbers to make sure we had purchased enough supplies. For instance, we bought a package of 50 napkins and knew that would be enough because 50 is greater than 46. Sometimes, we couldn't find what we needed, so some of our Japanese speakers politely asked the store workers for assistance. It was a lot of work to carry all the items back. We were EXHAUSTED after! Additionally, we noticed that there was entertainment at celebrations, so we selected some family and holiday songs to sing. We practiced ALOT and even watched a performance of ourselves so we could reflect on what we did well and what we wanted to change for the performance in front of parents. On the day of the event, we practiced using all the lowercase letters we learned to make labels for the food items being brought for the feast. Finally, the parents arrived for our celebration! We greeted them, showed them the family posters, took photos in our photobooth (another important element of celebrations) and showed them how to expertly cut snowflake decorations! We performed our songs and presented the gifts and cards to our parents. We ended with the feast! It was a wonderful celebration. Finally, after all the parents left, we enjoyed taking photos in our origami photobooth!
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Bee-Bots are here! Recently we were introduced to our six fantastic Bee-Bots. Bee-Bots are mini-robots that need to be programed by us! They move forward, backward, and turn left or right at the programmers command. We have loved playing with our Bee-Bots! We've used the grid-mats that came with our Bee-Bots, but also discovered that we could build mazes for them using the blocks in the construction center. Check out the mazes we have built so far! After exploring with Bee-Bots, we were ready to practice building our own robots. In small groups, we built the lego robot "MIlo, The Science Rover" with the instructor for STEAM builders, which is an afterschool program that will be piloted at the ELC in January. In pairs or trios, we followed directions to build the robots, then used the iPad to program the robot to move. Some more robots will be coming to our classroom soon, and we are excited to program them as well!
If you'd like to know more about Bee-Bots, visit https://www.bee-bot.us !!! We have a recent addition to our room--mailboxes! Since the beginning of the school year, we have been making cards for friends in our class and now we have mailboxes to deliver and recieve letters and cards. We are learning to read our friends' names to deliver the letters and we are learning to decode some of the words our friends have written in the letters! Additionally, we've learned that it is important to write who the letter is for by writing "to" or "dear" and that is important to sign a letter using "from" or "love" so the reader knows who the letter is from. We are also learning that it is important to respond to a letter if the writer asks a question. We've even invited some parents in to write or deliver letters. Please stop by and deliver a note if you have the chance. The teachers can also help deliver notes if they come in folders. We're excited about building our writing skills through letter and card making!
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