In the next two weeks, we will continue to inquire about the growth process of plants and learn how plant and human lifestyles are interdependent. Here are my questions for the children to reflect upon: How do flowers pollinate? What do you know about edible plants?

Language: We will continue to learn the new lesson—Lesson 5, 悄悄话 / Whispering. We will continue to write our fourth poem “我想 I want” The children and I will start brainstorming a story topic. We have made a group storybook called “A Happy Bean.” I will record the children reading it. I will email each family with the audio file and book attachments. The children will also learn new vocabulary from our weekly inquiries: “How do flowers pollinate? And, What do you know about edible plants?

Math: We will introduce how to count money, counting by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100. The children will understand the purpose of money and how it is used. They will learn how to identify coins and other values. They will learn how to count small amounts of coins and how to compare numbers. Therefore, the children can practice their coin counting for when they sell their plants.

Science and Life Science: We have discussed the right foods for our worms and what they cannot eat. The children will continue to learn more about worm composting. We will continue to learn about chlorophyll (叶绿素) and how a plant goes through the process of photosynthesis (行光合作用). We will be discovering different flowers and taking a very close up look within the insides of them. We will explore the parts of a flower, such as the stamen / 雄蕊, pistil / 雌蕊, ovary / 子房, pollen / 花粉, and calyx / 花萼. The children will learn about the different functions that each part of a flower has. The children will discover the Campsis Radicans Trumpet Creeper Vine flowers that have bloomed so beautifully in our schoolyard. They will be a “plant doctor” and take a very close-up look at the inside of various flowers, fruits, and seeds. We will explore different kinds of fruits and vegetables. The children will learn how to identify which parts of the fruits and vegetables we eat, such as: a carrot is the root part, a broccoli is the flower part, a head of lettuce is the leaf part, an eggplant is the fruit part, a pea is the seed part, and a celery is the stem part, and etc. We will also taste them. We will discover different kinds of seeds and how a tiny sunflower seed can grow into a very tall flower. We will learn about where fruits and seeds come from and how they develop.

Art: We will use colorful tissue paper to make a spring scenery collage. We will make paper flowers and cards for Mother’s day. We will also make a Chinese styled flower fan. The children will learn how to use watercolors to paint flowers on rice paper.

Social Studies and PSE: We will learn why animals need vegetation to survive and how plant seeds are carried by animals, insects, and the wind (also know as pollination). The children will understand that plants’, humans’, and animals’ lives are closely related to each other.

Singing: We will continue to learn and sing, “Knowing the parts of a plant/认识植物的身体.” We will also learn another new song “Planting a seed/种种子.”

We will continue to inquire about the growth process of plants and learn that plant and human lifestyles are interdependent. Here are my questions for the children to reflect upon: What is worm composting? How does the body of a red wiggler worm work? Why do plants need soil, water, and the sun in order to survive? Why do we need plants? How do plants grow? Why are native plants important to their communities? How do we properly take care of plants? What do you know about edible plants?

Language: We will continue to learn the new lesson—Lesson 5, 悄悄话 / Whispering. The children will learn new words, 子 (child), 也 (also, and, too), 雨 (rain), 悄 (quiet, sad, silent), 里 (inside), 话 (word, language, saying, speech), and 说 (said). We will continue to write our third poem “我会…也会… I can…also can…” The children and I will start brainstorming a story topic. We would like to make a group story. This group story project will continue on until the end of the semester. Each child will make her/his story sentences and they will include picture drawings as well. The story will be based on the child’s oral skills and I will take notes for them and type and put the story together. We will have a topic discussion soon. This is a very good exercise for the children to learn imaginative thinking and reading skills. The children will also learn new vocabulary from our weekly inquiries: “Why do plants need soil, water, and the sun in order to survive?” and “Why do we need plants?”

Math: We will continue to work on the “Introduction to addition”. We will learn addition with manipulative numbers, number lines, math sentences, and math signs (plus signs, equal signs, etc.), story problems, adding groups of 10, ordinal numbers, recognizing and counting with and writing numbers from 1-30, months of the year, and counting by 10’s and 5’s, and 2’s respectively. We will continue to learn how to draw a picture to demonstrate a story problem and to use dice to experiment with addition problems within 10. We also will be making a two-sided counter beans book to find the combinations of the sums of 8.

Science and Life Science: The children have learned about worm composting and the anatomy of red wiggler worms and how to prepare the bedding for the worms, what they eat, and what worm casting (vermicasting) is before spring break. They also made their drawing of the worm bin diagrams. We are observing the worm bin everyday. In our classroom, we have a science observe area for children to explore the plants, seeds, roots, tree barks, leaves, bulbs, water, soil, and air. Regarding the Mung bean experiment, the children tasted the Mung bean popsicles before the spring break. Now it’s time for us to check the Mung bean plants. We will make a conclusion of three different ways of Mung bean growth. We also will compare to Pre-K’s Mung bean growing processes to our Mung bean growing processes. The purpose of these Mung bean experiments are for children to find out how the factors of the water, sunlight, and soil can decide the plants’ growths. This year, we have a very unusual result of one of the Mung bean’s growth. We will learn about chlorophyll (叶绿素) and how a plant goes through the process of photosynthesis (行光合作用). Also as result, the no light source contacts of Mung beans have shown us there is no chlorophyll in leaves.

Art: We used two different tools, 6B pencils and Chinese brushes to draw and paint the Campsis Radicans Trumpet Creeper Vine flowers (from our school yard). We will be using recycled magazine paper to make the Campsis Radicans Trumpet Creeper Vine flowers collage. We will make a book about seeds and draw an anatomy of the Campsis Radicans Trumpet Creeper Vine flowers.

Social Studies and PSE: Thursday, 4/22 is the earth day. We will be celebrating this meaningful event by picking up trash in our schoolyard and in the streets outside. The children will see how green they can be and they will be introduced to the 4R’s concept (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Raw). We will learn how to classify different articles of trash. We will also discover the native plants that we can see in our communities in Berkeley, such as the California Poppy (加州罂粟), Coulter’s Lupine (羽扇豆也叫鲁冰花), and California Blue-Eyed Grass (加州蓝睛草). We will learn about how these native plants are vital to our environment and to animals’ habitats.

Singing: We will continue to learn and sing, “Knowing the parts of a plant/认识植物的身体.” We will also learn another new song “Planting a seed/种种子.”

Our new theme is about 小小园丁／Little Gardener. Five weeks, from 3/29 to 5/7, are the total number of learning weeks for this unit. The subject will focus on Language, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, PSE, and the Arts. The central idea is about how plants and human lifestyles are interdependent.

The inquiries are:
* Worms and compost / 蚯蚓和堆肥
* A tiny seed / 一粒小种子
* What are our native plants? / 什么是原生种植物？
* Yummy edible plants / 美味又可食用的植物

We would like to inquire about the growth process of plants and learn that plant and human lifestyles are interdependent. Here are my questions for the children to reflect upon: What is worm composting? How does the body of a red wiggler worm work? Why do plants need soil, water, and sun in order to survive? Why do we need plants? How do plants grow? Why are native plants important to their community? How do we properly take care of plants? What do you know about edible plants?

Language: We will begin a new lesson next week—Lesson 5, 悄悄话 / Whispering. Children will learn new words, 子 (child), 也 (also, and, too), 雨 (rain), 悄 (quiet, sad, silent), 里 (inside), 话 (word, language, saying, speech), 说 (said). The children will also learn new vocabulary from our weekly inquiries: “Worms and compost” and “A tiny seed.”

Math: We will start the chapter “Introduction to addition”. We will learn addition with manipulative numbers, number lines, math sentences, and math signs (plus signs, equal signs, etc.), story problems, adding groups of 10, ordinal numbers, recognizing and counting with and writing numbers from 1-30, months of the year, and counting by 10’s and 5’s. We are also getting ready to learn to count by 2’s. For our first introduction to addition, we will learn how to draw a picture to demonstrate a story problem.

Science and Life Science: The children are very excited about our class worms. We have 75 red wiggler worms in our class. We will learn about worm composting and the anatomy of red wiggler worms. The children will learn about how to prepare the bedding for the worms, what they eat, what worm casting (vermicasting) is, when to harvest the worm cast, and how we’ll use the worm cast for our garden. We have last observed our sweet potatoes before the previous Thanksgiving. We were excited that one of the sweet potatoes is actually sprouting. It sprouted just in time for the Plum Gardeners to discover the life cycle of a potato. We will continue to review our sweet potato diary and conclude the sequence of sweet potatoes’ life cycle. The children will be introduced to the different parts of a plant. We will discover a few types of common roots. We will compare their differences. We will have different kinds of seeds for the children to observe in the classroom. They come in different shapes, sizes, species, and colors as well. The children will be also experimenting about how water, soil, and sun affect a plants’ growth. We will grow Mung beans in three ways in three different cups. We will place one cup of Mung beans in an outdoor area, which provides direct sunlight, we will keep one cup of Mung beans indoors, and the last cup of Mung beans will be placed indoors with a box covering it without any light source. Then, we will explore how light affects the germination process of a Mung bean.

Art: We will make an Easter basket to celebrate Easter. The children will draw the parts of a flower and also learn about how to paint flowers with brush ink techniques.

Social Studies and PSE: We will learn that plant and human lifestyles are interdependent. There are many kinds of plants on earth, which make our world colorful and diverse. We need to be more appreciative to these plants and cherish them. Plants have contributed greatly to human and animal habitability since many millions of years ago. We will discover why plants are so vital to human and animal lives. We will learn about how we rely on plants everyday. We will also learn about the differences between herbaceous plants and woody plants.

Singing: We will continue to learn and sing “Spring dawn / 春晓.” 春晓, an ancient poem from the Tang dynasty written by the famous poet, Meng Haoran / 孟浩然. We will learn a new song called “Knowing the parts of the plant/ 认识植物的身体.”

The inquiries are:
Art Can Talk too / 会说话的艺术
My Favorite Artists / 我最喜爱的艺术家
When the East meets the West / 当东方遇见西方

We would like to inquire about famous artists’ paintings and compare Eastern paintings with Western paintings. Here are my questions for the children to reflect upon: How do artists shape a story by creating and arranging elements in their painting? What is the mood or feeling of the painting? Has the story (that the painting tells) occurred in the past or present? Is the story indicating the time of day? What is the most important part of the story? Why? What is happening in the scene? What happened just before and after the action in the painting? What is the composition? Why does a composition have both positive and negative spaces? What are the Yin and Yang concepts in Chinese brush painting?

Language: We are continuing to work on, using the 31 characters that we have learned from the text, frequency words that we have read, and the vocabulary that we have explored from the inquiries to build sentences. This exercise focuses on verbal and written sentence structures. The children have made their first “I have…” poem, using 有 (have) and some of the vocabularies and phrases that they have already learned about. The children will use 爱 (love) to make “I love…” for their next poem. I have created a book of word banks that has pinyin and an English translation with each vocabulary word. It will be sent home with your child in his/her Wednesday envelope. Please keep it for you and your child as reference. I hope you find it useful. We will be learning new vocabulary that will relate to our inquiries “Art Can Talk too”, “My Favorite Artists”, and “When the East meets the West” Due to the different translations of some of the artists’ names in Chinese, we will say their names in English, unless they are a Chinese painter.

Math: We will do color pattern making—we will continue to learn how to use color to make pattern designs to implement the ‘The Colors of the Rainbow’ inquiry. After this exercise, the children will cut out their color patterns to make a piece of pattern art. Then we are about to move on to “Introduction to addition”. We will learn addition with manipulative numbers, number lines, math sentences, and math signs (plus signs, equal signs, etc.), story problems, adding groups of 10, ordinal numbers, recognizing and counting with and writing numbers 1-30, months of the year, and counting by 10’s and then 5’s. We are also getting ready to learn to count by 2’s. For our first introduction to addition, we will learn how to draw a picture to demonstrate a story problem.

Science: We will review that different colors have different wavelengths. We will continue to inquire about the following question: How do we mix and separate colors? We will spin a color wheel to explore color mixing and use coffee paper filters and colored markers to separate color. The children will understand why all the three primary colors of light (also known as additive colors), mixed together, will become white. They will also learn why all the paint pigment colors (also known as subtractive colors), when mixed together, will become dark brown or black.

Art: We have studied the painting ‘Broadway Boogie-Woogie’ by Piet Mondrian. We looked at Mondrian’s artwork and interpreted how he used lines, squares, blocks, and color to reflect the streets, buildings, and lights of Time Square in New York City. We have watched a couple of short clips of the Broadway Boogie-Woogie to see that the colors in the painting make sounds. We will make up our own sounds for each color that we see in the painting. In the next two weeks, we will look at Henri Matisse, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Diego Rivera’s paintings and some of my Chinese brush paintings. We will study Matisse’s painting—‘The red room’. We will interpret which of the objects in the painting are just red and which are painted using more than one color. We will ask and answer: what do the objects painted with many colors share in common? We will look at Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting ‘Oriental Poppies’ and my flower paintings to compare and contrast between Eastern and Western style paintings. The children will make a self-portrait with paint; two flower paintings—one with watercolor and the other with Chinese ink. They will make an art project called ‘Positive and Negative Space’. We will also use complementary colors to make clovers for St. Patrick’s Day.

Social Studies and PSE: In social studies, we will continue our ‘Color Matters’ unit. We will learn that color is an important part of human expression. We will continue to learn how colors are associated with human feelings, senses, and sound. The children will learn about why art can talk too, in their own special type of way. Some paintings represent stories that tell the time (past, present, or future), happenings, and the sequencing of events. We will learn about how the stories in paintings help us to understand the history of the past. We will have an art project for the children’s families to complete as well!

Singing: We will continue to practice singing “The Colors of the Rainbow / 彩虹的颜色.”

Our new theme is about Communication in the Arts／画中话. Five weeks from 2/22-3/26 are the total learning weeks. The subject will focus on Language, PSE, Social Studies, PE, Mathematics, and the Arts. The central idea is that human express their feelings and ideas through the arts.
Lines of inquiry:
* The Colors of the Rainbow / 彩虹颜色
* Art Can Talk too / 会说话的艺术
* My Favorite Artists / 我最喜爱的艺术家
* When the East meets the West / 当东方遇见西方

In our first inquiry, we would like to inquire about colors. Here are my questions for the children to ponder upon: What is color? How do we perceive colors? How do colors affect us? How do we mix and separate colors? Does color communicate a feeling or expression? Can color make sounds? Based on these questions, we will find out what the children want to know and what they already know about colors. We will experiment through science, art, and group project to learn colors.

Language: The first week back from the mid-winter break we learned new vocabulary from lesson four: Draw a picture / 画画—— 友 (friend), 四 (four), 可 (can), 有 (have), 地 (ground, land), 朋 (peer, friend), 草 (grass), and 张 (a piece, Chinese last name). We are going to work on using the 31 characters that we have learned from the text, frequency words that we have read, and the vocabulary that we have explored from the inquiries to build sentences. This exercise focuses on verbal and written sentence structures. This exercise might be a little challenging in the beginning, but it’s a very good strategy for practicing Chinese writing. The children will be continuing to learn how to use Chinese classification words (Quantifiers) in sentences. We will be learning new vocabularies that relate to our inquiries “The Colors of the Rainbow.” The children will be able to recognize and pronounce each color character. By the end of this inquiry, the children will know the warm, cold, primary, secondary, complementary, shade, and tint colors.

Math: We will continue to learn “greater than”, “less than”, and “equal to”. The children will use a dice to find the ‘equal to’ and ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ numbers in different activities. They will also learn how to use color to make pattern designs to implement the ‘The Colors of the Rainbow’ inquiry. For the next four weeks, our math will move on to “Introduction to addition”. We will learn addition with manipulative numbers, number lines, math sentences, and math signs (plus signs, equal signs, etc.), story problems, adding groups of 10, ordinal numbers, recognizing and counting with and writing numbers 1-30, months of the year, and counting by 10’s and then 5’s.

Science: We will inquire into the following questions: What is color? Why doesn’t color actually exist? How do we perceive colors? How do we mix and separate colors? The children will learn from our ‘black box’ and prism experiments to understand that color originates in light and the color we see is really just a trick of the light and our eyes. We will also learn that different colors have different wavelengths. We will learn about the colors of the spectrum. The other science activities we will partake in are spinning a color wheel to explore color mixing, and using coffee paper filters and colored markers to separate color.

Art: We will make a book about colors. We will start with the primary colors, then we will move on to the secondary colors by mixing together the primary colors. The children will be able to recognize complementary colors on a color wheel. They will also know the warm and cold colors. We will make two sets of color wheels, one set will include colors with a white background and another set of colors will be with a black background. We will inquire about how a color’s saturation and hue is affected by different background colors. We will make kaleidoscope.

Social Studies and PSE: In social studies, we will start with our ‘Color Matters’ unit. We will learn about the colors in a city. How do those colors affect our daily lives and what purposes do people use color for? We will make a color survey to find out how the colors are associated with human feelings. We will also have group project “How Do Colors Affect Our Lives?”

Language: How exciting! We are ready for the new Chinese lesson, lesson four “Draw a picture / 画画。” 友 (friend), 四 (four), 可 (can), 有 (have), 地 (ground, land), 朋 (peer, friend), 草 (grass), and 张 (a piece, Chinese last name) are the new vocabularies in the new lesson. We have learned 31 characters so far since September. The children have been working very hard to build sentences during the past few weeks. Now, they are more comfortable to use different words and phrases to construct sentences. 张 (a piece) is our first Chinese classification word. In this lesson, the children will start exploring how to use Chinese classification words (Quantifiers) in sentences. Therefore, we will be continuing to learn new vocabulary that relate to our inquiries “Animals undergoing hibernation and Celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year” in the next two weeks.

Math: From “more” and “less” we will move on to what is “greater than” “less than” and “equal to”. The children will use a dice to find the ‘equal to’ and ‘greater and less than’ numbers. From using the paper clips and the 1-inch block for measuring, we are learning how to use the ruler to measure and compare “longer” and “shorter” within the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. The children will continue to recognize and count with numbers from 1-30 and write numbers from 1-30. We will make the February calendar. By practicing how to count the days at school, we are getting ready for the 100th day of school. In the next two weeks, the children will continue to use two-sided bean counters to find combinations in 6’s.

Science: The children’s Jade plants are ready to plant in the pots and to be sent home with the children. In Taiwan, it is also known as a money tree. We hope it brings good luck and extra money to your family. We learned from the animals’ hibernation, animals in the mitten, and the 12 animals in Chinese zodiac that we have discovered which animal will hibernate or is active during in the winter. We will draw a picture to summarize what we have learned about regarding weather and animal hibernation and how they affect each other. The children will learn how landforms and animals are affected by weather changes. The daily temperature observation is still going on. Starting this week, we will be practicing how to do a weather report like a meteorologist.

Art: We will finish the mitten project for the winter animals undergoing hibernation then we need to prepare the Lunar New Year classroom decorations; we will be making couplets, firecrackers, and doing a lot of paper cutting. The students will learn how to write Chinese calligraphy from the couplet activity. The children will make the ladybug bag in preparation for Valentine’s Day.

Social Studies and PSE: The Plum Garden is embellished with the red color of firecrackers, red envelopes, lanterns, couplets, and lucky foods. We have started of the Chinese Lunar New Year unit with learning about the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. The Plum Gardeners will learn how to prepare for the Chinese Lunar New Year—We will clean, sweep, and decorate the classroom. We have so many things to learn about the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration. The children will learn about:
• Why we celebrate the Lunar New Year?
• What the meaning of Chinese Lunar New Years is and how it arrived.
• Why families get together on Chinese Lunar New Years Eve?
• Chinese Lunar New Year traditions, food, and customs.
• Lucky words, phrases, and greetings.
• What the meanings of lucky words and phrases are.
This month is Black history month. We will talk about a few great African Americans who made an impact on our daily lives. We will also learn about the story of President Lincoln and Washington since 2/12 is Lincoln’s Birthday and 2/15 is Washington’s Birthday.

Singing: We will continue to practice “Changeable Weather / 多变的气候 and Greetings Wang Xiaoer / 给王小二拜年.”

Winter is here! We dress in layers like a furry bear. Winter is supposed to be cold. Winter is supposed to be wet. Winter is a good time to hibernate. Winter is good time to celebrate. “Winter is here! / 冬天来了!” is our first theme in the semester of 2010. Five weeks–from 1/5 – 2/12 are the total number of learning weeks. The subject will focus on language, social studies, personal social education (PSE), math, science, history, culture, and the arts. The central idea is to express how the changing of seasons affects our natural environment.
The inquiries are:
* Winter scene / 冬天的景象
* Cozy warm winter / 暖暖的冬天
* Animals’ hibernation / 冬眠的动物
* Celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year / 欢喜迎中国农历新年

(January 6 – January 19)
Language: We will continue to learn Lesson three “长大 Growing up”. The children will learn how to do phrase and sentence exercises. The children will play Chinese scrabble to build up their sentence structure skills. We will also learn new vocabularies that relate to our first inquiry “Winter scene”.

(January 20 – February 2)
Language: We will continue to learn lesson three “长大 Growing up” and practice phrase and sentence exercises. We will have more phrase and sentence homework to send home. At the end of January, we will be starting to learn lesson four “Draw a picture / 画画” We will also learn new vocabularies that relate to our inquiries “Animals undergoing hibernation and Celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year” in the next two weeks.

(January 6 – January 19)
Math: The children have made their own Chinese calendars for the calendar activities to learn numbers. The children will continue to learn “more” and “less” and “longer” and “shorter”. They will learn how to compare more or less objects. We will learn how to estimate the object’s quantity and length and also how to measure length. The children will recognize and count with numbers from1-20, write numbers from1-20, and understand math vocabulary used in correspondence with measuring activities to learn various ways things can be measured. In this month, the children will learn how to measure an object with a string. The children will measure different objects and compare the length. We will play math games called “Size and Shape” and “String Time.” The idea is to gradually teach the children how to measure any thing in sight—big things and little things, whether mobile or stationary. They will know how to measure objects’ heights, widths, depths, diagonals, and circumferences from different angles and directions. Through these games, the children will think hard and get the concept about an abstract quality—size.

(January 20 – February 2)
Math: The children will continue to review “more” and “less” and “longer” and “shorter”. We will continue to learn how to estimate the quantities of objects and length and also how to measure length. The children will continue to use different measurements to measure their own hand and footprints. We will also record daily temperatures and weather on the weather report charts. In the next two weeks, the children will recognize and count with numbers from 1-30 and write numbers from 1-30. We will learn how to measure objects’ lengths, heights, and widths. The children will start to learn how to use two-sided bean counters to find number combinations. We will start with 5. This is how we will learn addition.

(January 6 – January 19)
Science: We have planted three sweet potatoes in our science corner. One is in a jar with water, one is in a jar with sand, and one is in a jar with dirt. The children will observe them daily to see how the different elements affect the growth of plants. We will also discover winter weather patterns and compare the differences between summer and winter. We will draw a graph to report daily temperatures in January. We will learn how Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit and Anders Celsius both invented the temperature scales. We will experiment with melting ice. The purpose of this science experiment is to demonstrate the effects of salt and sand on ice.

(January 20 – February 2)
Science: During next two weeks, 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 and how they adapt to the winter. The children will continue to observe three sweet potatoes daily to see how the different elements affect the growth of the plants. We will be continuing to observe daily temperatures in January and tracking the weather for their temperature and weather charts.

(January 6 – January 19)
Art: This week, the children used colored tissue paper to make their own portrayals of winter. Next week, the children will observe artwork made by Alexander Calder. Hopefully, the children will be inspired by his artwork to use clouds, the sun, rain, lighting and snow to make sculptures. The following are questions in which the children will be able to answer after this unit: Does winter have colors? If so, what colors? Are winter colors different from summer colors? The children will learn the colors of different seasons from famous artists’ artworks. We will explore the warm colors and the cold colors in the paintings we observe. We will listen to classical music, Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” We will, in addition, learn how to listen to music and interpret the season the piece is for, based on the expression and articulation of the sounds.

(January 20 – February 2)
Art: This week, the children will finish their Weather Mobiles inspired by Alexander Calder. We will continue to explore the cold colors in the paintings we observe. We will continue to listen to Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” We will listen to classical music and paint our inner expressions onto paper. The children will use cold colors only to draw shapes and lines to experience their winter scenery drawings. We will also make a mitten project for the winter animals undergoing hibernation.

(January 6 – January 19)
Social Studies and PSE: We will look at the pictures that we took in September 2009. We will explore the differences of summer and winter.
The children will inquire about:
1. How our natural environment changes in the winter.
2. How the plants on our campus have changed based on the change in weather.
3. How we should dress accordingly to different weathers and seasons
4. The different activities we do in different seasons.
5. Summer foods and winter foods.

Monday, 1/18 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will learn the story of Martin Luther King Jr. We will also learn about his importance during the American civil rights movement and the impact he has left in America today.

(January 20 – February 2)
Social Studies and PSE: In the last weeks of January, we will start to learn about the Chinese Lunar New Year. The children will learn about how to prepare for the Chinese Lunar New Year—We will look at some pictures and discover how people from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China plan to prepare their New Years and New Years Eve feasts. We will learn the meaning of Chinese Lunar New Years and how it arrived—We will listen to a couple of Chinese mythological stories: 年 / Nian story and 灶王爷的故事 / The Kitchen God story and we will learn and think about why we celebrate the Lunar New Year.
Our inquiries for the next two weeks are “Hibernation and Celebrating the Chinese Lunar New year.” We will inquire about:
• The kinds of animals that sleep in the winter.
• The kinds of animals that migrate in the winter.
• How animals prepare for hibernation.
• Why the Lunar New Year is also called the Spring Festival.
• The Lunar New Year traditional/symbolic of foods.
• Lunar New Years Eve.
• Lucky words, phrases, and greetings.
• The lantern festival.

(January 6 – January 19)
Singing: We will sing “Weather / 天气 and Happy New Year! Wang Xiaoer / 给王小二拜年 songs.” The original “Happy New Year! Wang Xiaoer / 给王小二拜年” was sung by a famous Chinese singer, Bai Guang / 白光 in the early 20th century. We are staring to prepare for the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration.

(January 20 – February 2)
Singing: We will continue to sing and learn “Changeable Weather / 多变的气候 and Happy New Year! Wang Xiaoer / 给王小二拜年.”

The Plum Garden bi-weekly subject planners are listed below:

Language: We will review all of the vocabulary in lesson one and two. We will continue to focus on simple sentence structures. The children will play Chinese Scrabble to practice their phrase and sentence exercises. We will learn lesson three “长大 Grow up”. We will learn 下 (down), 三 (three), 鱼 (fish), 河 (river), 大 (big), 光 (light), (middle), 在 (in, on, at, by). The children will learn related vocabularies from our weekly inquiries: Chanukah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas

Math: We will continue to learn numbers from everyday calendar activities. In these few weeks, the children will learn “more” and “less” and “longer” and “shorter”. They will learn how to compare more or less objects. We will learn how to estimate the object’s quantity and length and also how to measure length. The children will recognize and count with numbers 1-20, write numbers 1-20, and understand math vocabulary used in correspondence with measuring activities to learn various ways things can be measured.

Art: We will use play dough to make a candleholder and a paper dreidel for Chanukah, we will weave a place mat for Kwanzaa, and the children will make Christmas cards for their classmates and family members. We will use paper plates to make a Christmas tree and we will also make a Christmas stocking.

Social Studies and PSE: We will discover holiday celebrations in different cultures. We will inquire into Chanukah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, and Christmas. We will discuss about how Jewish people celebrate Chanukah, how African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa, and how everybody celebrates Christmas. We will learn about the traditional Chanukah and Kwanzaa games and foods. By the end of the unit, the children will be able to answer these questions: What traditional symbols represent Christmas? What are the differences and similar between the Hanukkah menorah and the Kwanzaa kinara? Why are the seven principles of Kwanzaa so important for African Americans and what do they stand for? What are their meanings? We will also learn about the Winter Solstice and why Chinese people eat rice balls during this time.

Science: We will continue to observe our Jade plant.

Geography: We will learn the origins of Chanukah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas through stories.

P.E: Its jump rope time—we will learn how to jump like a grasshopper. The children will learn how to jump over a stationary rope several times in succession, using forward, back, and side-to-side patterns of movement. The children will learn how to use their locomotor skills in this exercise.

Cooking: On the last day, we will make red bean and rice ball soup (Tangyuan 汤圆) to celebrate the Winter Solstice before we leave for winter break. We will need two volunteers for this cooking project. Please let me know if you are interested in helping. The cooking class will be starting at 1pm. We will enjoy Tangyuan during the multicultural party.

Singing: We will sing “光明节的陀螺转转转 / dreidel and 圣诞老公公来了 / Santa is coming.”

谢谢，
Kai Laoshi

The Plum Garden bi-weekly subject planners are listed below:

Language: We are still continuing to review lesson two “上学 / Going to school”. Last week, we focused on phrase exercises. We learned how to use characters to build phrases. The children started to understand the meaning of phrases. This week, we will focus on simple sentence structures. The children will learn that a basic sentence structure needs a subject, a verb, and an objective. Also, they will understand the 的 (a possessive noun) usage in a sentence. The children will continue to learn related vocabulary from our weekly inquiries: Thanksgiving and Harvest season. We will continue to discover the history of Thanksgiving.

Math: Last week, we learned how to count and organize patterns, the repetition of patterns, colors, and shapes. The children completed pumpkin length and line measurements. This week, we have learned about shapes, sides and corners.

Art: Last week, we used paper plates and feather to make turkeys. This week, the children made their Thanksgiving books. We have also finished our “Tracing Ancestors’ Roots” project. This is an appreciation season. We will make thank you cards for friends and family members.

Social Studies and PSE: Last week, we learned about the history of Pilgrim and Native Indian. This week, we were continued to study the first Thanksgiving story. We have learned about the traditional foods, which we eat during Thanksgiving. We will continue to discover where our ancestry derived from.

Science: Last week, we measured our pumpkin length and counted how many lines on a pumpkin. This week, we weighed our pumpkin and experimented with whether a pumpkin floats or sinks in the water. We were observing how an ear of dried corn grows in the water.

Geography: Last week, we have learned about the seven continents. We have also learned about how the pilgrims arrived in America. This week, we learned places through several Thanksgiving related storybooks.

P.E: We didn’t have the PE lesson for these two weeks due to the report period and short Thanksgiving week. Our PE will resume after Thanksgiving break.

Singing: Last week and this week, we learned 七大洲 / Seven continents and 感恩节的由来 / Origin of Thanksgiving songs.

谢谢，感恩节快乐! Thank you and happy Thanksgiving!
凯老师 Kai Laoshi

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“Family Holidays ／家庭节日” is our second theme. Six weeks from 11/2-12/18 is the total number of learning weeks. The subject will focus on language, social studies, personal social education (PSE), physical education (P.E), math, science, geography, history, and the arts. The central idea of learning is that every family celebrates different holidays. The children will learn how to express their family holiday celebrations.
The inquiries:
* My family and I / 我的家人和我
* Harvest season / 丰收的季节
* Shiny candlelight / 烛光闪闪
* Different families celebrate different holidays / 不同家庭庆祝不同的节日

Language
(November 4 – November 17) We will continue to review lesson two “上学 Going to school”. We will focus on phrase exercises and how to build sentences. The children will also learn new vocabulary from our weekly inquiries: The members of my family and Day of the Dead and Thanksgiving. We will discover the history of Thanksgiving. The children will know how to say the holidays’ names and Thanksgiving related vocabulary.

Math
(November 4 – November 17) We will review number ordering and counting forwards and backwards, before, after, and in-between, and number recognition from 1-10. We will learn counting and organizing patterns, the repetition of patterns, colors, shapes, sides and corners. We will also learn how to sort, classify, copy and extend patterns. The children will learn how to measure a pumpkin with a string. We will have an exploration of math materials.

Art
(November 4 – November 17) We will make mini altars, yarn art, my family, and the Mayflower ship. We will experiment with paper, yarn, watercolor and mixed media for all those art projects.

Social Studies and PSE
(November 4 – November 17) We will learn about the story of Day of the Dead. We will learn how to call our family members in Chinese. The children will learn that the relatives from father and mother’s family have different names in Chinese. We will learn: who they are and how we call them. We will also learn how to celebrate Thanksgiving. The children will learn why family members get together during the holiday seasons. We will learn about the traditional foods which we eat during Thanksgiving. We will also learn the history of Thanksgiving and will discover where our ancestry derived from.

Science
(November 4 – November 17) We will learn how to grow corn and sweet potatoes. We will discover the important elements for growing plants. We will also have a science/math table for the children to sort leaves and discover the different shapes, sizes, colors of the leaves, and of course to count them.

Geography
(November 4 – November 17) We will learn about the seven continents. We will learn about where the Day of the Dead is from. We will also learn about how the pilgrims arrived in America.

P.E.
(November 4 – November 17) We will continue to learn how to shoot and kick a ball. Our PE class will divide into two sections, we will learn how to shoot a ball into a hoop in the first section and we will learn how to kick and catch a ball in the second section.

Singing
(November 4 – November 17) We will review “My School” and “Halloween is coming.” We will learn a new song “感恩节的由来 / Origin of Thanksgiving”