Art_Marble Run Prototypes

This spring the girls are going to make marble runs in collaborative pairs using a collection of 3D materials like plastic tubes, paper towel rolls, yogurt cups, etc. The following videos show their individually made prototypes made of paper and tape. The challenge was to have a start and a finish and a path. The process was fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, SUCCEED! 

Empty Bowls

The pre-first girls are glazing their bowls for Empty Bowls. The Empty Bowls Dinner event is Thursday, February 15th from 5-7pm. It is a very popular community event, so sign up today! 

Hour of Code

This week, your daughter participated in the Hour of Code.  “The Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries” (hourofcode.com).  We use this as an introduction to the programming your daughter will be doing throughout the year.  Learning the basics of programming reinforces problem solving and logic skills.

In Pre-First, we learned how to use basic directions (forward, turn left, turn right, jump, and light) to control Light Bot.  Next, we will learn how to use the Kodable app to learn more about programming and in the spring, we will use path to control the Dash robots!

If you would like your daughter to explore more at home, use this link.  Please note, different activities run on different devices and are appropriate for various ages.

Spanish: Fruits

The girls have been learning how to name fruits in Spanish.  Here they are playing a partner game where they have to find the fruit their partner names.

From the Library

Pre-first started off the year in library with an old favorite Good as New by Barbara Douglass, a story in which the wise, resourceful and patient grandparent helps skeptical young Grady fix his teddy bear after a run-in with a young cousin. In fact, Grady thinks the bear ends up better than new. Next up was Leslie Muir's C.R. Mudgeon, the story of a hedgehog who is a sensible creature of habit and his new neighbor, Paprika, who spices things up. We then read Kevin Henkes' Penny series. The third installment, Penny and her Marble, sparked an interesting discussion about finding, keeping and giving.

Next we read a couple of books in which part of the story is told in one half of the book, and then the reader flips the book over to get the rest of the story. Pre-first girls called these flip books. Crescent Dragonwagon's And then it Rained, tells the story of how all the inhabitants of an apartment building adjust to very hot weather, at first enjoying it and then wishing for rain and cooler weather. "To find out what happens next", we read half way through the book, "turn the book over". There we find And then the Sun Came Out, in which the same neighbors enjoy and then grow tired of the rain and wish for the sun to return. At the end of this section, we are again instructed to turn the book over to find out what happens next...

We followed this with Aliki's Marianthe's Story One: Painted Words. Marianthe moves to a new country and a new school with new children and a different language. She tells her story and her feelings through painting. When we turn the book over we find Story Two: Spoken Memories, in which Mari has learned a lot about her new world and can tell her life stories to her classmates in words.

The girls are now checking books out (they love to swipe the bar codes themselves) and taking them home. They agree to read to their goldfish, siblings, grandparents and friends. We've talked about how to take care of library books, how to remember to bring them back to school after they've read the book a few times. Thank you for encouraging your daughters to read.

Night at the Far, Spirit Day and Pecos Bill

This week we read another story by Donald Crews, our author of the month, and discussed the setting element of a story.  As they listened to Night at the Fair, the girls had to identify the setting of the story. I then paired the girls up and told them that they would be making setting dioramas based on Night at the Fair.  The girls were given a shoebox and a table full of supplies (sequins, mini pom-poms, construction paper, foam shapes, craft glue, etc.) and told to recreate a scene from the book. They were AMAZING--without specific directions, the girls used their creativity and own initiative to work cohesively to create their own setting. I was so impressed with their cooperation and imagination! Be sure to ask your daughters which setting they chose to recreate.

In Language Arts earlier this week the girls reviewed the short i sound.  As a group, we matched words with corresponding pictures. The girls then drew a pig (very similar to our beloved Wilbur in our current class read aloud, Charlotte's Web) and wrote 5 short i words inside of their pigs.

We'd like to send a big Pre First "THANK YOU!" to our Mystery Reader that came in on Wednesday! One PF girl was especially happy to see her :)

During Spirit Day yesterday we spent some time stenciling and decorating pumpkins to add to our Fall bulletin board. Please stop into the classroom if you can to check out the finishing touches!

We had a GREAT time welcoming the Morgan State University Band to campus for the Spirit Day Parade and I think it is safe to say that this was the highlight of yesterdays festivities! GO BRYN MAWR!

In math this week we have been discussing ordinal numbers and the difference between ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers. The girls are becoming very comfortable using the correct ordinal numbers for 1-10. Today the girls made daisies with ordinal numbers as the petals to practice what they've learned.

This week's engineering project was based on the tall tale of Pecos Bill.  The girls read several versions of his story this week, including this Steven Kellogg  book. Then your daughters were challenged to make a lasso out of 5 plastic bags. Once they created their lasso, they had to rope a "steer" (i.e. chair with an attached yard stick).  Again, I emphasized the importance of planning ahead and working together. Once they developed a plan as a group, they got right to work.

The end result consisted of plenty of lasso-ing! We've got some serious cowgirls on our hands!

Finally, please be sure to ask your daughters about our awesome assembly today with Uno, Dos, Tres Andres! Even Ms. Brooks got to be apart of the singing, dancing and Spanish speaking good time. I encourage you all to visit his Youtube channel so that your daughters can share all of the songs we learned today :)

123 Andres Visits Bryn Mawr

Happy Friday!  We started today with a fabulous assembly by 123 Andres, last year's winner of the Latin Grammy for Best Children's Album.  His albums are bilingual with songs in both English and Spanish and today the girls had a blast singing, dancing, and playing instruments with this dynamic performer.  We have already learned several of his songs in Spanish class and the girls love singing along.  If your daughter wants to see more of his videos, you can find them here.