Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Lower Elementary Newsletter - December 4, 2015

12/4/15

Dear RiverRun Families,

              This week in our class a group of five children started to read their first novel for Readers’ Workshop. They are reading The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt. Together we named the characters and analyzed their personalities, discussed the setting, looked up challenging vocabulary and predicted what may happen next. Science demonstrations for this week were on gravity. Using a container, sand, ping pong balls, metal, and human force (see the picture below) we shook a container and watched the balls rise and the metal sink. Next, we observed hot water dyed red, rise when introduced to cold water. Our First Years completed the lesson on the political map of Oceana. Upon completion they will be set home. The Middles and Elders were introduced to our large biome map used to learn the waterways, mountains and deserts of Australia. Some of the First Years where introduced to the multiplication bead board and our Elders are using the checkerboard to do more complex multiplication problems. The Middles are now using bead bars to work on their multiplication facts. Rachel gathered the children for their next art project. Martha Sutro leant us a Tapa Cloth. These cloths are made from flattened bark. They originate from the islands of the Pacific Ocean like New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. They are used as gifts or as clothing for ceremonies. The children learned the custom to making the designs. Ask them about it! They will be making their own type of Tapa on cloth rather than bark. The RiverRun Community Council is putting forth their Taco Tuesday initiative. The menu was sent home in your child’s folder. We look forward to this community gathering. They also acted upon the Tomie de Paola Month initiative. They read Tomie de Paolo books to the community in groups of two, engaging their children by asking questions and comparing different books he wrote and illustrated. Later this month they will be leading art projects.

For those families celebrating Chanukah, enjoy your first night!
Have a great weekend, Amy, Tatiana, & Rachel

No comments:

Post a Comment