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Dear Parents,
April 30, 2008
It is nearly May and hard to believe the school year will soon come to a
close.
Division I is in the midst of the lifecycle unit. We finished the Bat Unit
last week. The children enjoyed such math activities as using a Venn
diagram to find similarities and differences between bats and birds,
estimating the size of bat wings with yarn, and graphing how may people are
in our own families after reading Stellaluna. Science was supported with
activities that reinforced the heightened senses of the bat. Students
"sniffed" out their own bat pups, used their nose to find fruit as a fruit
bat (the rotten ones are the best!), and listened for prey in an
echolocation game called "Bat and Moth." For language arts, the theme
encouraged children to discuss the variances between fact and fiction and
predict what happened to Stellaluna after the story ended. The trip to The
Cave of the Winds was a wonderful experience! The children were able to see
many cave formations, and we even went on a bat hunt. They were hard to see
by lantern light, but we enjoyed it none-the-less.
The current lifecycle theme is Arachnids. Division I students have learned
about the lifecycle of an arachnid to include, eggs, egg sack, spiderlings,
ballooning, and adult spider. Ask your student what a male spider does to
attract a female!! It's not your everyday human courting ritual! The
students have also learned how a spider eats its prey. After catching an
insect, the spider bites its prey to kill it and turn its insides to mush,
then the spider "sucks" out the flavorful insides. We demonstrated this
concept with a sugar cube for the insect and water for venom. In the next
two weeks, students will participate in activities that center around
classification of spiders and insects, represent the skills of a trapdoor
spider, and demonstrates the uniqueness of crab spiders. Spiders will be
used to help students one-to-one correlate how many spiderlings belong in an
egg sack and the story and song,"There's a Spider on the Floor," will help
support and reinforce positional words. Balloons will be used to practice
small to large serration in a series of eight and cooperation will be
utilized with a unit ending class web building.
Information regarding the "Unsleepover" scheduled for May 8th went home
Tuesday April 29th. Please return the order form and payment by May 6th.
We need to get an accurate account of how many people will be attending. We
will have pizza here at school from 4:45-5:30 then caravan to the May
Museum. The May Museum has agreed to open in the evening just for us. We
encourage everyone, students and parents alike, to be courteous and polite.
If you have any questions, please contact any DI teacher.
Rhyme-a-Week Update:
During the past school year, Division I East has been enjoying
"Rhyme-a-Week" emergent reading readiness activities. These included
understanding the rhyme, identifying the rhyming words, isolating the
rhyming sounds, and adding different beginning sounds to read new words.
This program has been very successful. Children are naturally hearing the
sounds of language and love reading the new words, especially when they are
silly! We have noticed an increased number of children who can rhyme,
isolate the different parts of words, and merge sounds together to make new
words. By segmenting words in the rhyme and taking turns reading aloud,
children have developed skills needed to read full sentences. These skills
are very important to readers and emergent readers alike.
May will be a very busy month. Here is a list to help you to remember
important dates:
April 30-Cave of the Winds field trip
May 1-Planting Party 2:30-3:30 for DI East. DI West students are invited to
attend.
May 8-Division I "Unsleepover" 4:45-7:00
May 26-NO SCHOOL in observance of Memorial Day
May 28: DI Family Picnic (more information to follow)
May 30-Last Day of School/Carnival
June 3-Optional Parent/Teacher Conferences (These are optional unless a
teacher requests a meeting.
Thanks,
Ms. Baker, Mrs. Horwedel, and Mrs. Priest
Computers
There is a lot of excitement in Division I East and West these days!
Students are being exposed to the brand new iMacs and learning how to
operate OS X for the first time. Our focus is on taking care of the new
equipment and learning how to use the dock and the brand new KidPix!
Division II students are being introduced to the new iMacs as well and are
learning how to operate the new Mavis Beacon Typing suite. Division III is
continuing to work with the Scratch program but are now working individually
and using the new iMacs to take pictures of themselves to create their own
sprite images. Division IV is continuing to work on their PowerPoint book
projects and will soon be getting to work on the 2008-2009 school calendars
using iPhoto and the new iMacs. Division V is continuing to work in their
rotating groups on PowerPoint, Lego robot building and programming, Scratch
programming and stop motion video capturing.
Spanish
Division I Spanish vocabulary work will include the topics of sports and
nature. The students are learning two poems, Las Hojitas and Flores. These
poems help students memorize vocabulary while they practice their accent.
Division II students continue working on their show and tell in Spanish.
This activity will serve as a review of the vocabulary learned such as
greetings, adjectives, verbs and question words. Division III is learning
the vocabulary of city places and will create their dream city. Division IV
students are presenting their session between a psychologist and a patient.
After their presentation D IV will learn the vocabulary words associated
with a fiesta and break a piņata. D V will be presenting their airport play
and create a mosaic based on the Aztecšs Calendar
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