Fall is.....

With the change in the weather, comes a change in bulletin boards :-)  We were thinking is was about time to change our summer board over to the fall.  To celebrate the season of fall, we read the story It's Fall, which gives wonderful examples of the changing colors and textures of the new season.

The girls brainstormed different phrases and words that reminded them of fall.  Then the girls copied the phrases we brainstormed--or came up with ideas on their own--and wrote them onto apple sheets.

To complete our fall bulletin board project, the girls stenciled and decorated pumpkins.  Our fall bulletin board is almost complete!

Special Visitors

We had some special visitors in our room today.  In the morning, Mike Rosenbaum and Rick Kurland came in to teach the girls about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  The girls loved hearing all of the facts about each holiday and especially loved eating the apples and honey, challah bread and pomegranate seeds.  Thanks so much to the dads for the great presentation!

The dads and our girls!

We also had our first Mystery Read--Steven White!  The girls loved hearing The Little Mermaid, 101 Dalmatians, and Oh, the Places You'll Go.  Thanks so much for coming in, Steven--the girls loved you!

Compassion plays

We spent some time today talking about our fourth Bryn Mawr value--compassion.  The girls discussed what the word "compassion" meant and how one shows compassion throughout their day.  We then read Hooway for Wodney the Wat, a story about a rodent who has a bit of trouble pronouncing his r's.  After we read the story, the girls were broken into two groups.  Both groups were given a situation where they had to show compassion.  They acted out their skit for the other group, who in turn, had to guess who was being compassionate and how they were showing this value.  Let us just say, your daughters are quite the actresses :-)

Group 1--Reed, Tatyana, Celia, Georgia, Olivia, Emma, Samari

Group 2--Annabella, Zoe, Palmer, Colette, Violet, Harper

French: Venez voir ma ferme!

Bonjour parents et bienvenue à la classe de français! We have been learning about farm animals in French class. The girls enjoy pulling stuffed animals from "le sac de mystères" and identifying them in French (sometimes with a little help from Madame Shepley). We have been acting out the animals and making the sounds they make in French. For example, the duck (le canard) says coin coin and the rooster (le coq) says cocorico. On Tuesday, we listened to Venez Voir Ma Ferme. When the song sang about a stuffed animal we were holding, we stood up and showed it to the class!

Parent Night Video

We would like to thank everyone who attended Parent Night--it was wonderful to see you all again and we hope you walked away with a better understanding of how your daughters spend their day. 

Here is the link to our video from that night:  http://vimeo.com/75016891  The password is parentnight2013.  Please let us know if you have any problems accessing it!

D.E.A.R.

The girls are learning how to choose an appropriate book for their D.E.A.R. time.  We reviewed the three different ways to read a book (ask your daughter) and which of those ways were their favorite.  Then we discussed choosing a "just right" book for independent reading.  After the girls were in D.E.A.R. for 9 minutes--we are working our way to the Coffee House--we congregated on our rug.  Each girl had to bring one example of a "just right" book and one example of a not-good-for-me book. The girls shared their books with each other and even gave their friends tips on where they could find books that are "just right" for them.

Art: Cloud formation

We went on another sky watch, but there were no clouds today. So, we looked at other images of various cloud formations.  They girls invented ripping techniques that made the cloud shape and texture they desired. 

Art: Cloud colors

The girls went on another field trip to study the sky.  They considered the question: Are the clouds just plain white?  They began to notice the yellows, the grays, the blues, the pinks in the clouds making them look puffy and rounded. The girls again painted sheets of paper mixing colors into their whites. They will used these painted papers to construct clouds of their own formation. 

Art: Painting the sky

After a field trip to the lower field to study the sky, the girls painted papers blue.  They added white because they noticed the sky gets lighter in some areas.  Adding white is called tinting a color or making it lighter.  The girls learned to drag a little paint at a time to control the change of color they are mixing. 

Art: Imagination

Pre-First explores the theme IMAGINATION in art throughout the year.  They use new materials and learn new techniques to express their ideas about the world - a world where what could be is still as real and compelling as what is.  They explore light and shadows, create stories with imagined imagery, draw dramatic landscapes and and sculpt little worlds.  

Music: Welcome

Hello from Ms. Wilbur and welcome to our Pre- First music class.

We are moving to different rhythms and doing partner activities with our songs. We have a special song that we sing in the beginning of class called Start Every Day With a Song. The girls are singing it enthusiastically!

Sequencing

We have been focusing on sequencing in our classroom.  We started by having the girls arrange themselves in number order.  They could not be stumped!  Ask them how we tried to fool them.  You would be surprised how resourceful they can be without using words.  The girls then worked in pairs to sequence number cards in ascending and descending order.

Author of the Month

The girls were introduced to their first author of the month--Donald Crews!  We gave the girls some background on Mr. Crews and showed them many of his books, including Night at the Fair, Freight Train and Flying.  Their favorite fact was that he called his beloved grandmother "Bigmama"!  We read School Bus and the girls had to describe what they see as they travel to school each day.  They drew these images onto bus windows and are hanging in our classroom!