Bamboo Garden, April 27-May 01, 2009

Important date:
May 14th: Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons at Julia Morgan Theater (Pre-K children, please be at Shu Ren by 8:45am)

Important message from the head of school:

“Dear Shu Ren Parents,
I am writing to tell you how we are responding the advent of the swine flu virus in Mexico in the past weeks and its spread to the United States and elsewhere. As you are likely aware, the Federal Government and the Centers for Disease Control this Monday declared a national health emergency. The CDC notes that there is a possibility of the swine flu outbreak becoming a pandemic.Our School’s response to this health emergency is guided by guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control. Here are the CDC’s recommended tips for limiting the risk of catching the swine flu virus:
• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective.
• Try to avoid close contact with sick people.
• If you get sick, stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth. Germs spread that way.

We will monitor this situation closely, and should further steps be required, we will be in touch. If you should have any questions, please feel free to call Ping or me.

Sincerely,

Jie Moore, Head of School ”
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Dear Parents:

I have a few important announcements:

1. For our next theme, animals, I would like to ask if you would like to participate to share your story about how you raise your pet(s). You can bring pictures OR if your pet is small, you can try to bring it to show all the children. You will be greatly appreciated if you would like to participate, I will arrange the time for you.
2. (only for full-day children): You may suggest your child to bring a book about animals to share with the class. Thanks,
2. To protect childrens’ health, we have asked children to wash hands first thing when they arrive in the classroom every morning.
3. Please bring an empty bottle for your child to drink water during the school day. Please wash the bottle every day.

Last week, we talked about how we make friends. This week, we talked about how you praise your friends, why you like your friends, and how we work with our friends to finish tasks.

Language: 亮亮的朋友，小康的生日会
Everyone had a heart that we tried to give to our friend. We also tried to take turns and tell our friend why he/ she is my friend and what is good about our friend. “Help”- We learned how can we help our friends when they get hurt. From the story of 亮亮的朋友, we learned to help when our friends fall which is so important. When we have conflicts with friends or whenever we are not happy with friends, it is important to say “停-stop” instead of anything else.

Art: Reuse = magic
To care for our important friend, the earth, we tried to reuse things as much as possible. We had so many materials that people recycled. We used plastic bottles, cardboard, cups, straws and so on to make an airplane.

Music:
We continued having fun with our previous songs.
找朋友zhao peng you- (一二三四五六七yi er san si wu liu qi，我的朋友在哪里wo di peng you zai na li? 在这里zai zhe li，在这里zai zhe li，我的朋友在这里wo di peng you zai zhe li。)
哈啰 ha luo- (哈啰 ha luo，哈啰 ha luo，哈啰 ha luo，哈啰 ha luo，你是我的好朋友 ni shi wo di hao peng you，敬个礼呀 jing ge li ya，握握手 wo wo shou。牵牵手一起玩 qian qian shou yi qi wan。)

Body movement:
We had body movement every morning related to our current theme. We also had two activities:
找朋友- (一二三四五六七，我的朋友在哪里? 在这里，在这里，我的朋友在这里。) While we are singing the song, we need to find our friend.
哈啰- (哈啰，哈啰，哈啰，哈啰，你是我的好朋友，敬个礼呀，握握手。牵牵手一起玩。) After we found our friends, we shake hands withthem singing the song together as the music gets faster and faster.

Activity: (Please see the pictures. In the next few days, we will post more pictures of the children playing together with their friends)
We had two different activities :
Children needed to work with friends two in a group to gather as many stars as possible.
The stars were accumulated for the second activity. Afterward, the group who got the most stars got a reward. Everyone got stickers to encourage participation in the activities.

Thanks,
Pei-Pei
05/03/2009