Plum Garden / 梅园书栈

Mitten making

梅园报晓 Plum Garden News—No.18
February 9 – February 13
Kindergarten / First grade

Important dates
2/13               Plum Garden Valentines Party at 2:00PM.
2/16               President’s day. School Closed.
2/17-2/20    Winter Camp. Extended day care provided. Sign-up to the Camp is needed at the Administrative     Office.

Dear Parents,

Thank you children and parents for participating the 2nd annual Albany Solano Lunar New Year Parade. Thank you for all of your support again.

Parents, don’t put away your winter clothes yet. Last Monday, the groundhog saw it’s own shadow. That means that we will still have six weeks of winter. Last week, we have learned about how we keep our bodies warm. Also, we have done this weeks; Bay Area forecast predictions. Now, our little reporters from the Plum Garden would like to present you with the weekly weather reports!

Here is the Plum Garden forecast news reporters’ prediction for February 10 to February 13. Please turn on the Plum Garden Channel for the weather report for the next few days’.

Ethan’s report:
Tuesday, Feb 10 will be a cloudy day. Morning temperatures will be at the 90 degree mark, but cooling down as we near noontime, to around 80 degrees.
Oscar’s report:
Wednesday, Feb 11 will be rainy with morning temperatures around 50 degrees, but warming up later towards noon to 69 degrees.
Julian’s report:
Thursday, Feb 12 will be a gusty day with very heavy winds. We will have a cold-front coming in due to the rain on the 11th. The morning temperature will be at 61 degrees and at noon, the temperature will stay the same.
Maya’s report:
Friday, Feb 13 will be a sunny day. Morning temperatures will be at 80 degrees and at noon, the temperature will rise to 90 degrees, being a nice day if you’re planning to head off to the beach

Regarding the weekly inquiry, we are learning about how we keep our bodies warm. This week, we will have a fun dress up activity. I would like to ask each child to bring one set of their summer clothes and one set of their winter clothes to school on Wednesday, 2/11.
- Summer clothes include T-shirts, short pants, skirts, summer hats, and sandals.
- Winter clothes include sweaters, coats or jackets, long pants, vests, scarves, mittens, earmuffs, gloves, winter hats, and  boots.

This coming Saturday is Valentines Day. We will have a valentine’s party on Friday afternoon at 2:00pm. Please let me know if you would like to send some treats for the class. If your child plans to send valentine’s presents and cards to his / her classmates, please help your child prepare enough presents and/ or cards for every child.

Our inquiry for this week is “冬眠 / Hibernation.” We will inquire about:
•    What kind of animals asleep in the winter?
•    What kinds of animals migrate in the winter?
•    How do animals prepare for hibernation?

The Plum Garden weekly subject planners are listed below.

Language: Building sentences are our current morning warm up exercise. Every morning, the children try hard to build their sentences. They will learn how to stretch a sentence and add more words into their sentences, such as classification words, conjunctions, and adjectives. The children will learn new vocabularies from our weekly inquiry: “冬眠 / Hibernation.” In this inquiry, the children also will know how to use correct classification words in animal measuring. We will learn 只条头匹. We will continue to recite Tang poems (游子吟 and 风) to prepare for the 5th Chinese Language Bridge Cup Contests. The pinyin poem versions will be sent home with your child. Due to very tight class schedules, I will try my best to help your child, but since this is the taking part in this contest is voluntarily, I would like to let the parents take responsibility for your child’s practice. Please help your child to recite their poems.

Math: We will continue to learn “排顺序, 比多少 / Number order and compare the numbers.” We have learned how to skip two numbers (even and odd numbers) through the exercises and play the “Grass-Hopper” game. The skip two numbers homework had already been sent home with last Wednesdays’ homework package. We will continue to play the “Fill the spoon” game to estimate a spoonful of beans’ amount to see who gets the closest guess and compare this to each other’s estimate. We will continue to do our math listening exercises.

Science and Life Science: During this week, our science subject is focusing on animals’ hibernation. We will make a project about what kinds of animals hibernate in the winter. The children will learn about mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds how to change their life cycles in the wintertime. We will continue to observe the daily temperature. This week, the children will pretend to be TV forecast reporters to make a weather report on each day. I will have our classroom set up as a News station. Please turn on your forecast report channel on time.

Art: We will make valentine’s cards and valentine’s bags to hold the children’s cards and presents.

Social Studies and PSE: Today is the Lantern Festival. It is the last day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Our Lunar New Year inquiry has come to an end. This month is Black history month. Teacher Lisa Jean has taught the children about the story of Rosa Parks. This week, we will teach about an African-American folk hero, John Henry. We will also learn the story about President Lincoln and Washington. Also, we will use the clothes that children bring from home to learn how to put on their clothes in the summer and winter. Even though, Bay Area’s four seasons do not have very dramatic changes like the other places, it will still be fun to play dress up.

谢谢! Thank you!
Kai