Hello Everyone,

It’s been a happy and sunny week for the Primary students as they stay busy exploring new material.  This week, they enjoyed lessons on recycling, sequencing months of the year, states of matter (i.e., liquid, solid, gas), objects that sink and float, and various individual lessons in language and math.

The kids also had a lesson on how maps are made from a globe, particularly how two hemispheres are created.  For this lesson, Angelique took a photo of one side of a globe, and then another, followed by uploading the photos for the kids to see the images on a flat screen.  Then the children were introduced to our continent map puzzle.

Everyone also had lessons on pin poking.  This is new for some children while it’s old for others, but good for building fine motor skills with all ages.  This lesson includes a piece of paper with a small shape printed on it, placed on a layer of thick felt, as well as a tack which the child is shown to hold and carefully poke holes along the lines of the shape.  They are shown to poke very closely so that the shape becomes lose from the paper to a point which it can be carefully removed.  Most children start off poking holes close to the lines and it takes some time to build up coordination to do this properly, but over time it will get easier for them.

States of Matter

100 board completed

Practice walking quietly in the classroom

Story Telling 

Everyone’s favorite circle time this week was when we presented random cards with imagery and encouraged the kids to help tell a story as we flipped through the cards. This was a great opportunity for each child to communicate and for students to listen to each other.  Everyone had something very unique to add as the story got very silly.  It began by the teacher showing a card with a house on it and then saying, “Once upon a time, there was a green house.”  Then, she showed the next card, with a frog on it, and said, “and then there was a frog who lived outside of the house.”  Each child had several chances to add to the story as new images were presented.  For example, an image of a mouse showed up, followed by a book.  One child said, “And then the mouse found a book, and he was very sad that he could not read.”  The story went on and got more random as the kids talked about how a dog found a diamond ring on the ground and put it on and wore it around…”  It ended up being a really fun and silly exercise that got a lot of kids to open up and think out of the box.

Celebration of Life

This year, we are doing our celebrations of life a tad bit different than last year.  For those who don’t know what a “celebration of life” is, it’s a special day at school where we focus on one child during a circle time to celebrate their journey from their birth to present day.  We take a walk down memory lane and share stories, funny times, big events, progress in the child’s life, etc., along with a few photos from over the years.  For each year, the child holds a globe and walks around an object that represents the sun and we sing a song about how the earth goes around the sun each year.  This year, we are using candles to represent the sun, and the children have already begun practicing being very careful to walk around a candle as we teach that it can be dangerous if we are careless.  When the celebration is over, the child may blow out the candle.  While we would love for you to come and visit, it is completely optional for parents to be part of this celebration and we promise we will make that day very special for your child no matter what.  We will get in touch with you as the time gets closer to their birthday to see if you can send in some photos and stories.  It will only take about 15 minutes.  I know some parents like to bring snacks, but this is also unnecessary and please keep in mind to bring a healthy treat if you prefer.  Celebrations will not typically fall on birthdays this year as we have a lot of birthdays in the same months.  If we present too many celebrations of life in a row, we lose time for lessons and students can become restless with doing the same routine over and over again.  It’s much more fun and special when we can spread it out, so we will get in touch with you around the time of your child’s birthday and offer you a time frame to choose what day works for you.

We ended the week in song and stories.  Their favorite song this week seemed to be “Stand by Me.”  Overall, it was another pleasant week and we look forward to next week.

We hope to see many of you Tuesday evening.  Let us know if you have any questions!

Take care,

Carrie & Angelique