We took our photo in the end of year. Children were doing great trying to be patient and showing the best face in front of camera. They all did a great job. During this week, we took two days to evaluate all children for our end-year student report ready. Thank to all children for their cooperation. This week, we talked about farm animals. What farm animals eat, what farm animals benefit us and how the different animals sound.

Language: story: farm animals
Have you been to little farm? What do you see there? We shared a story having pictures. We saw hours, cow, goat, sheep, goose, duck, dog, cat, pig and so on. We discussed what they eat and how the benefit people? We could see it clearly from the pictures. We also create different sounds of animals.

Music: 我家有个小农场
We had a new song about the farm animals. We created a lyrics by making a sound of animals.
一二三四五六七，一哎一哎唷，我有一个小农场呀，一哎一哎唷，我有 xx(animal- we changed everyday), xxx (the sound of the animal). 我有 xx(animal- we changed everyday), xxx (the sound of the animal). 我有 xx(animal- we changed everyday), xxx (the sound of the animal). 这是我的小动物呀，一哎一哎唷。

Body movement:
We follow the music and whatever farm animals they try to be, we make sound of it.

Science: 变大?变小? Bigger and bigger or smaller and smaller
We had our growing toys in the water which were a shark and a castle. We have been observing what is changing. Children discovered that it was growing up and become bigger and bigger for about a week. This week, we took two of them out from water. We tried to touch it and felt it. Was it hard or soft? We took a picture and we will compare when the toys were out of water for another week, what will happen? What might be different from the picture? It has become more interesting.

Next week,
We will focus on how farm animals having babies and how they take care of babies and will have a two-day art project.

Thanks,
PeiPei
06.14.09

Dear parents,

One more week and we will finish our school year. After considering how to take care of the fish over the summer, we decided to have the water ready before next school year starts and to have new fish for the next school year. Instead of having new fish at the end of school year, we will have a “growing toy” shaped as a fish and castle. We will experiment with what is going to happen when we put them in the fish tank.

Language: 雨靴里的麻雀
We talked about how birds fly. We talked about how they have babies and how they build their nests.

Science: Fly! Fly!
We had an experiment about how birds fly with cardboard shaped as a bird. We discovered that birds can move their wings so fast in order to fly and they can stay in the air while getting food. We also realized that the convenient airplane is an idea that came from flying birds.

Art: 我的风筝
We made our own kite. We fly them when we play outside.

Music:
We continued singing our songs related to sea animals and birds.

Activity: 老鹰捉小鸡
We played a game to end this inquiry named “An eagle catches chicks.” Pei was a chicken and all children were chicks. Feng Laoshi was an eagle. We sang our bird song and every time the song finished, an eagle tried to catch a chick which was left behind.

Next week,
We will move on to farm animals. What do we see in the farm? What do farm animals for?

Thanks,
PeiPei,
06.07.09

1. Thank you for coming to pick up your half-time child on time.

2. As the head of school already announced, if you are interested in enrolling in the Mandarin immersion summer camp, please contact Ping or Jie.

3. Full-day children can bring animal-related books to share with us in the afternoon.

This week, we talked about all animals in the bird category, including those which do not fly.

Language: Are they birds?
After we watched a video about the penguin, we discussed what animals are birds? There are “老鹰- eagle，猫头鹰-owl，鹦鹉-parrot，孔雀-peacock，天鹅-swan，啄木鸟-woodpecker”。What are their special characteristics, what do they usually eat and how do they usually move?

Music: 飞呀飞呀
We have a new song about all the animals we learned about:
“我是只小企鹅，飞呀飞，碰碰碰，自由自在，啄木鸟，咚咚咚，猫头鹰有大眼睛，飞呀飞呀，大老鹰来了。”

Body movement:
We sang our new song with our body movements. We also do morning exercise to imitate how animals move.

Art:
We imagine the color of the sky. The sky’s color changes in the morning, in the afternoon and at night. What are the different colors of the sky? We talked and made the sky color as a background. We also used a lot of different beautiful colors to make birds. Peipei posted them on the board, please come and take a look.

Social studies: How do we take care of our fish?
The children and I are learning how to create a better environment for the fish. We didn’t want to see the bad situation again and again. We decided to leave the water in the tank and have everything work for a week without any fish. After a week, we will see if we will get new fish. I am very proud of all the children for trying to learn and help how we should take care of the fish. We are learning together. I believe we will have fish with us soon.

Next week, We will talk about why and how do birds fly? Are airplanes just like birds?

Thanks,
PeiPei,
5/31/09

Many thanks to Sophie (Luca’s mom), Sherry (Miles’ mom), and James (Corbin’s dad) who came to the classroom to share with us about their pet. James told us how to take care of fish, so we all tried to be experts at raising fish.

Language: WOW! We see a lot family pets!
It was our pleasure to invite parents to share your experiences with all of us. We had Sophie (Luca’s mom) here to talk about their family pet, a cat named “Lulu.” Sophie and Luca told us how they take care of the cat, the cat’s habits, the cat’s favorite food and so on. Sherry (Miles’ mom) was here to share with us about a family pet, a lizard. Sherry and Miles shared how special the pet is, the daily routine of a lizard, what a lizard eats and so on. James and Corbin told us how we need to take care of our fish, what the air pump, heater, and light are for, and how important a responsibility it is to take good care of our classroom pet, fish.

Music:
We continued to practice our new song and have fun with all our previous songs.

Body movement:
We played a song without lyrics and followed PeiPei’s directions on how sea animals move in the sea.

Science:
It was sad for all of us that our first experience of having fish did not end well. However, we learned from James’ experience and we now have new fish. We are trying to make our fish friends happy every day. We will keep observing how the fish swim and eat.

What animals are flying in the sky? We talked about if penguin have wings and if they are birds. After we discussed, we watched a video and we found out the answer from the video. We will talk more about animals flying in the sky.

See the pictures of children enjoying family pets.

Thanks,
PeiPei
05.25.09

Dear parents,

Many thanks to all parents who helped accompany us on our second field trip. I believe that children had a lot of fun watching the show. We also invited the fire department last Tuesday to show us how the water works, the inside of fire engine, and what kind of special clothes they use when they are on duty. The firefighter told us how to escape from a fire and what we shouldn’t do when we are in a fire.
It was a very good experience for us and the children to have a chance to talk to firefighters.

This week: Sea animals

Language: A fish tank
After we learned about most of the sea animals we normally see, we were happy to set up a fish tank. We talked about what fish need in the tank, including water, seaweed, stones, and so on. When we were trying to set up the tank, we found out that actually we need more things to keep fish alive in the tank, such as light (灯管), air pump (空气调节气), and a heater (暖管) and we also had fake seaweed.

Music and body movement: 海底世界
We continued singing the songs about sea animals with body movement.

Art: Our own fish tank!
We used the shapes we learned to make a fish. On another day, we talked about the different colors in the sea, on the bottom, in the deep sea, and on the surface of the sea. Children realized that actually there are different colors and we finished painting the sea with different colors. We put our art fish in the sea we painted.

Science: Why do fish need these things?
After we talked about the fish tank, we discussed why we need a light, air pump, and heater to keep the fish alive? How does it help in the tank? What if we don’t have them?

Social studies:
How do we take care of fish? How important a responsibility it is to take care of fish (or any kind of animals)? We will invite James (Corbin’s dad) to talk about how to take care of fish.

Next week: What kinds of animals fly in the sky?

Thanks,
Peipei,
05.18.09

*Group A:
Lead teacher: Kai (K teacher)
Pre-k children: Miles, Mia, and Desmond
Please arrive at Shu Ren by: 8:45am, May 14th (Please be here on time)
Departure time (bus): 9:14am

*Group B:
Lead teacher: Meng-Pei
One chaperon with two children:
-Peter Imburg: Sophia, Monte
-Heidi Tasker: Kieren, Deja
-Christina Chang: Kai, Charlie
-Meng Pei: Evelyn, Luca
-Irene Shen: Michelle, Nicolas
-John Palmer: Alexandra, Paige
-Gloria Breeden: Corbin, Kimi (will confirm ASAP)
Arrive at Shu Ren by: 8:45am, May 14th (please be here on time)
Departure time(bus): 9:24am

If you have any questions, please let me know. Thank you!

Dear parents,
Thanks to Sophie (Luca’s mom) and Megan (Kimi’s mom) for their future participation to share how their family raises pet(s). If you would like to participate to share how your family raises pet(s), please let me know and we can arrange the time for you. You will be greatly appreciated. Full-day children are welcome to bring books about animals.

Language: How many kinds of animals do you know in the sea?
Story: Way down deep in the deep blue sea.
Animals are close to humans and even are good friends to us. We discussed if you were swimming in the sea, which friend would you like to meet in the deep blue sea? By reading a book, way down deep in the deep blue sea, we saw a lot of different sea animal friends. There are 水母，狮子鱼，海星，海葵，小丑鱼，龙虾，螃蟹，蝶鱼，海草，海豚，鲨鱼，海马。 We talked about how they move in the sea.

Music: 海底世界
The new song about swimming in the sea and what we see in the sea:
“我是一只小小鱼，游来游去乐悠悠，长长的海马，飘飘的水母，闪亮亮的海星，还有可怕的鲨鱼”

Body movement: I’m one of the animals in the sea
Following the music, we move just like all different kinds of animals, sea horse, starfish, crab…and so on.

Math: Pictures book: Sea shapes
Children tried to recognized what shapes they saw in the animals. We learned 4 more shapes, diamond, star, heart, and ellipse. There were several animals on the board. They tried to find the shapes we talked about from the sea animals.

Art: Mom! I love you
1. We had a lot of activities with all of our friends from the last theme. We did brush painting on long paper and Peipei posted all of our pictures to share with parents.

2. With the new shape we learned, heart, we tried to give mom a surprise by making a card. Group A decorated the heart. Group B drew their favorite things on the heart and decorated them.

Next week, we are going to give children a big surprise: We are going to have a fish tank. We will talk about what we need for a tank, what kind of fish we will have, and how we going to decorate the tank. It is important how we take care of it.

Thanks,
Pei-Pei
May 10, 09

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 ”
=====

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

Dear Parents,
Welcome back to school after a short break. To continue our theme, how we express ourselves, we have come to the last inquiry, how to make a good friend and what should we say when we meet a new friend? We choose a different friend every day who we want to be with and do an activity with. In addition to friends around us, one of our important friends, “the earth,” needs our help. What happened to our friend, the earth? How can we care for it? How we can help it?

Language: 地球生病了- The earth is sick
Our important friend, the earth, has gotten sick. Why has it gotten sick? The environment has been destroyed by many of us. The sea animals are eating trash. The animals need to find their new houses. The weather is getting hotter and hotter. How can we help our friend to give it back it’s original health? The biggest and easiest thing to do is to keep our environment clean which means recycling, 塑料瓶(plastic bottle), 罐头 (cans), 玻璃瓶(glasses bottles), 纸类 (paper).

Music:
We continued having fun with our previous songs. Here are two new 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 will try to say hi to them.

Math:
Children had 3 or 4 in a group with their friends. They tried to sort all the different trash in the right recycling boxes after we introduce 塑料瓶(plastic bottle), 罐头 (cans), 玻璃瓶 (glasses bottles), 纸类 (paper).

Social studies:
How do we make a good friend by saying proper words and showing a proper attitude? How we can help our important friend, the earth, to make it happy? How do we care for the earth? How important recycling is.

Next week, we will talk about how we can be a better problem solver when we meet problems with friends. How we can work together to finish a project?

If your child has books about friendship, making friends, please ask your child if he/she would feel like sharing it with all of us.

Thanks,
PeiPei
April 26, 09

Dear parents,

Hope you all had a good Easter Holiday! Last week was a really fun week.

Language, “Easter is coming, spring is coming”
Story: 复活节(Easter),
As we all knew that spring is coming, we introduced what changes we noticed around us. The biggest holiday in the beginning of spring is Easter (复活节). 复活 means the start of a new life. We also learned about Easter eggs (鸡蛋) and bunny (兔子) from the stories.

Music and body movement: What can I be in the spring season?
We continued practicing our songs. After we shared what we would see in the school yard, in the park, and everywhere we go in spring, we recalled and acted it out with our bodies.

Art: We designed and decorated our eggs. We made baskets ourselves by weaving and gluing paper.

Social studies:
Story: Queen of Easter, Easter parade, Easter egg hunt!
We had different stories about what we usually do on Easter. We had a story about decorating a hat for a parade. An Easter egg hunt is the most fun thing to do on Easter for all children. On Easter morning, people get ready for a parade and join the celebration. We also introduced how different countries celebrate Easter.

We had so much fun hunting Easter eggs in the school yard. Please see our pictures.

Next week, we will continue our theme, how we express ourselves. We will have different activities about “how we make friends.”

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