Bamboo Garden News, March 23-27, 2009

Dear Parents,

First, a few notes:
1. Thanks to all the children for not bringing toys to school.
2. I would like to ask all parents to please pick up your child on time whenever he/she is supposed to be picked up. The pickup time for half-day is 11:30am and for full-day is 3:00pm. If you are late to pick up your child for some reason, please have your pre-paid card ready for teachers. If you don’t have one, please ask Ping or Jie for one. Thank you!
3. Because of the licensing law, please remind your child not to share food in school to prevent any personal health problems.
4. According to an announcement earlier from the head of school, there is a NO Nuts Policy in the school. Thanks!
5. (For Full-Day Children) If your child has an Easter story, you can ask them if they feel like sharing the book with others this week. Thanks.

Our week’s theme was: How we express ourselves when tasting food, such as spicy, sour, sweet, and bitter.

Language: We continued our three signal actions. Each time we had a different child play the glass bottle to remind the class it was cleaning time. We played a tambourine to signal going to the playground and coming back to the classroom. When we played woodblock, we were quiet. This week, we had a fun tasting activity and we saw different expressions on children’s faces when they tasted sugar, coffee mixed with water, and vinegar, and when PeiPei tasted chili powder. They expressed sweet-甜, bitter-苦, sour-酸, spicy-辣.

Music and body movement: Another four different sounds!
We had four more different materials to put in four plastic bottles (push pins, paperclips, pastas, and straws). They made different sounds from the last four plastic bottles. Eight different bottles with different materials could express the basic emotions. We continued singing our signals song. It helped children with their rhythm when we needed to applaud at the certain time. Children needed to pay attention to when they needed to applaud.

Art:
We had two groups decorate bottles. The first day, group A pierced through straws and pearls to make an outline of the bottle. Group B decorated the outlined bottle with colored straws on paper. The second day, group A made a outline of a bottle with pierced string. The children tried to fill it with beans. Group B tried to fill it with different kinds of straws.

Science: Is it tasty or not?
We had sugar, chili powder, vinegar, coffee powder, and salt. We tasted all of them and PeiPei tasted chili powder. We saw the different expressions on our faces.

On Tuesday, we had the children plant Kohlrabi and carrots in pairs. The children are responsible for their vegetables with their partners. We always water them in the morning.

Thanks
Pei Pei
03-29-09