Dear Families,

 

At the beginning of the week we took out clay to continue working with the idea of radiating shapes begun with last week’s ‘spiderwebs.’ We were amazed to find that some plants had sprouted in our bag of clay.  We carefully dug out the little sprouts and saw them attached to little black beans that had been buried in the clay.  It made us wonder about what was happening to our bulbs under the earth in the garden. We noticed that the clay got very dry and hard outside its bag and although we tried to keep it watered, it didn’t work very well.  Next week we may bring it to the compost pile and check on our pumpkin and the patch of soil where our bulbs are buried.

We went into the hall outside our classroom and noticed stars everywhere in the wooden walls. When we went back into the class we recreated stars with blocks and began folding paper to make our own stars for the windows. Several children noticed the shapes in the stars – rectangles, triangles and the shape in the middle. Over the course of the week we made many radiating shapes from blocks and practiced folding paper into pointed arms.  When everyone had five we worked on the puzzle of how to attach them to make a star.  This was very difficult for the children!  Even after observing me put a star together, when confronted with five separate pieces it was really difficult to arrange the pieces with points all aiming away from the center.  We looked at the way our own bodies are like stars.  The children were really proud of the finished products glowing beautifully in the window. “That one’s mine – one, two three, four, five.” “Mine is purple, purple, purple, purple, purple.”  “This me!”

 

The stars in the wall in the entrance to Albright Hall. “They’re holding hands.”

 

Looking at radiating shapes.

 

The pentagon inside the star.

Examining sheets of beeswax with magnifying glass and finding a similar shape repeated here. One more side though!

 

Our first window star made by Stella. “Mine’s got two pinks and three reds.”

 

Figuring out how to attach arms to make a star.

 

Zora’s purple star.

 

Four stars for four radiant children.

We also worked very hard on rolling beeswax candles and decorating them with tiny pieces of melted wax.  Each child spent time carefully warming the wax in their hands and melting it onto their tapers. We noticed that the wax  sheets got soft after resting on the radiator and smelled like honey.  Suleman looked through a magnifying glass and we saw that the bees made a shape in the wax like the shape in the star, but it had one more side.  We will look at these shapes some more with pattern blocks next week.

 

Handmade by the B3s!

 

We borrowed a book from the book fair and as sometimes happens, it captured the children’s imaginations.  Every day they requested this story about a black cat who is cheeky and cheerful by day but at night heeds the call of “wicked whispers” and becomes a thief!  We practiced closing eyes and imagining the pictures before we looked at them.  “I saw myself in the picture,” said Stella.  “I saw the pictures in my brain in my imagination,” said Reese.  The children wondered if Slinky Malinki could come out of the book and scratch them or steal precious food items from their homes: Croutons, Caesar salad, challah bread, peanut butter, sandwiches, salami and cookies were some of the things the children did not want the cat to take.  They each asked to pet the cat on the page of the book and decided he could not come out and they were safe. Shortly after, however, they shared with me that their stuffed animals were afraid of Slinky and had to hide their faces while we read the book so they wouldn’t get scared. Except Suleman who said, “My monkey,  he no scared.  No way!”

Our new favorite story, “Slinky Malinki.”

 

Getting ready to read in the sunny book nook.

 

Closing eyes to imagine the pictures while listening to a story.

 

Another fun thing we like to do is play together while singing and wearing different hats.  We sang about a pirate ship and tried to really listen to each other and follow a pattern with our percussion instruments. When we come to a new verse we pass our instruments to the next person and everyone gets a turn with every noise maker we have.

Playing in the band.

 

Cymbalist.

 

Rhythm sticks.

 

Pirate hatted drummer.

 

The children are learning and growing so much! I am really proud of them for all the ways they continually stretch themselves, take risks and try again and again to master a huge myriad of skills.

Reese made a label for, “Button.”

 

Our alphabet continues to grow!

 

Thank you to Zora’s family for contributing a wonderful new book to our class, “Bear Gets a Visitor.” We loved reading this humorous tale about friendship.  Next week we will have pizza on friday.  The following week we will celebrate the solstice on Tuesday with a small party.

 

All the best!

 

Sarah

 

Hot chocolate in snowman mugs! Life is good.

PS – We missed you, Beck!  See you next week.