Panda Bear Newsletter – January 4-15th, 2010

NO. 7 Panda Bear Newsletter

Dear Panda Bear Families,
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful vacation.

We are currently on our second theme, “Amazing Umbrella. Now it is the rainy season. From knowing the weather, we are getting into the theme:
The central idea of the theme is that we discover the uniqueness of an umbrella and its development in different cultures.
These past two weeks we discovered :
1. What is an umbrella? How many kinds of umbrella are there?
2. When do we need an umbrella?
3. How do we use it?
Here are subjects that we have worked on in the past two weeks.
Language:
Story: 小红伞。We had an open discussion. What is an umbrella? What kinds of umbrella are there? An umbrella (雨伞) is for rainy days. A parasol(阳伞) is for when the sun is very strong. We also looked at a Japanese traditional umbrella and a Chinese traditional umbrella. By looking at the posts and pictures, we realized how an umbrella is made.
Math:
We looked at an umbrella and discovered what shapes we usually see from an umbrella. We answered the questions: what shapes usually make up an umbrella? We had an art project related to the question.
Art:
We painted our own umbrellas.
How do we make an umbrella with triangles?
Social studies:
We often use umbrellas. It is important to learn how to open and close it without hurting the people around you and yourselves.
Social/emotional:
We spent some time this week discussing acceptance and what it means to be a friend. We talked about how, although we may look different on the outside, we are all the same on the inside. We also talked about what it feels like when someone says they are not your friend and how we should treat our friends.
Sciences:
We experimented with four different umbrella materials to see which type of material repels water better. We made a record (做纪录)
Music:
伞可以做什么? (what can we do with an umbrella?)
伞可以做什么? 遮太阳。伞可以做什么? 避风雨。伞可以做什么?当拐杖。伞还可以做什么? 看不见了遮住你。