Bamboo Garden News, March 30-April 3rd, 2009

Upcoming event:
April 10th: Easter egg hunt in the school yard.

Important dates:
04/13-04/17 Spring Camp. Extended day care provided. If needed, please visit the head of school.
5/25 Memorial Day. School closed.

Dear parents,

A few things I would like to remind parents:
1. The head of school puts hard copies of information to share with parents or a bill in children’s cubbies. Please pay attention to your child’s cubby often so as not to miss any information from school.

2. Spring break, April 13th-17th, is coming. If you need extended care, please contact the head of school.

3. (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. If you have any questions about bringing a book, please let me know.
Here is the schedule again:

Monday: Luca, Jaden
Tuesday: Kai, Kieran
Wednesday: Evelyn, Charles
Thursday: Deja, Mia
Friday: Nikolas, Miles

Thanks.

This week’s theme, 还有什么是酸甜苦辣咸? What else is sour, sweet, spicy, bitter, or salty?

Language, 春天来了 (Spring is coming)，玛莉的辣椒 (Mary’s chili)
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 continued discovering what other foods are sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. We had more than 10 foods we tasted. We also discovered the different parts of our tongue that we use to taste.

As Easter is coming, spring is coming. We shared a book with class and we discovered what might change, such as the plants and vegetables in the yard, how the weather changes in spring, what do we see in the spring when you go out with our parents? We had the children plant Kohlrabi and carrots in pairs. They realized that spring is a good time for people to grow vegetables.

Music and body movement, new song: 酸,甜,苦,辣,咸
We have been having body movement with our face expressing what emotions you might have when you taste different kinds of food. We continued singing our previous songs. We added a new song, 酸,甜,苦,辣,咸 (酸,甜,苦,辣,还有咸，看我的表情是什么。酸 x(having a sour face), 甜 x (having a sweet face), 苦 x (having a bitter face), 辣 x (having a spicy face), 咸 x (having a salty face)，我通通喜欢。 )

Science: Wow!! What do they taste like?
We had a chart shaped like a tongue and we had four parts (sour- green, salty- black, sweet-white, bitter- brown) on the chart. We had almost 13 foods. We had all children try different foods without looking. We had yogurt, blueberry muffins, raspberry jam, dry plums, coffee, kiwi, lime, lemon, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and so on. After children tried it, we sorted all the different tastes by different colors on the chart.

Math:
We practiced sorting skills. Children knew if the food they tried was sour, they needed to put green tape on the chart. If it was salty, they needed to put black tape on the chart. If the food they tried was bitter, they needed to put brown tape on the chart. If the food was sweet, they needed to put white tape on the chart.

Art:
The first day, Group A children had a sweet strawberry outlined on paper. They tried to use red tissue torn in big pieces to color the whole area. Group B children had sour kiwi outlined on the paper. They tried to use green tissue torn in small pieces to color the whole area. On the second day, Group A tried to look at the color of a strawberry cut in half. We had another half strawberry outlined and we had children use light pink to color the center and red tissue to color the rest.
Group B also looked at the kiwi cut in half. We found out there is a white part, green part and the seeds of the kiwi are black. So, we had different color tissue for children to color them. (Peipei has posted them on the board, please enjoy their artwork.)

Next week, We will have our Easter week.

Thanks,
Peipei
April 5th, 2009