Friday, April 13, 2018

In Like a Lion and Out Like a Lamb?

A little belated but we didn't forget about you! The month of March was all about weather and boy oh boy did Mother Nature give us some interesting weather to talk about! We started the month off enjoying picnic lunches outside while soaking up the sun and warm air but our sunny play area quickly turned into a snowy wonderland for sledding, snowman building and snow angles!

We started the month by learning about the special scientists called meteorologists that study weather and what tools they use to predict what the weather will be. We made a thermometer to see if it was hot or cold out, made wind socks to see what direction the wind was blowing and also made a rain gauge to track how much rain we got.  The kiddos had a blast taking turns being meteorologists, the news anchors, and the camera person in our very own weather station here at SEE!

As the month went on, we learned about rainbows and how they form. We discussed the colors in the rainbow and why we see rainbows in the sky after a rain shower. Speaking of rain, this brought us to a discussion about thunder and lightning. Did you know that you can tell how far away a storm is from your house with a simple math equation? Once you hear the thunder, start counting. When you see lightning, stop counting, take that number and divide it by 5. The answer you get is the distance in miles the storm is from your home!  

Our book of the month went along with our weather theme very nicely, “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs” by Judi and Ronald Barrett. The story takes place in a town where no one needs to go to the grocery store because all of their food comes from the sky. Once day the storms of food got a little out of control and the town was destroyed by all the food. The people of the town then sailed off on a boat made of toast and formed a new town where their food didn’t come from the sky anymore and they had to get their food from the store like we do. As a group we talked about how yummy it would be if we lived in a place where it rained our favorite foods. We decided it’d be best if it rained cookies, ice cream and an occasional pizza shower.

We wrapped up the month learning about Leonardo Da Vinci. He was an inventor and a sketch artist. He would come up with amazing ideas, draw them out and later on someone else would put his thoughts into action. We were so inspired by his work that we came up with inventions we would like to make someday. We had a few robots that would help clean up all the toys, a machine that would take the weeds out of our garden and a bike that could move and balance on its own! Some pretty good ideas if you ask me!

What's Up Next?
Watch out for the dinosaurs! We've put on our Paleontologist hats and have entered the SEE dig site! The children are learning all about dinosaurs this month!

April Clothing Drive for Cradles to Crayons
Don't forget to bring all of your gently used children's clothes and shoes to school to add to our Cradles to Crayons collection bin! The bin is located outside of the front door or floating around the cubby area. We will be collecting items until the end of April. Thank you all for your generous donations!

Upcoming Dates and Reminders:
April 16-20: SEE will be closed for spring break
May 1: May tuition is due
May 3-4: Picture Day! Don't forget your smiles!
May 11: Parent's Night Out 5:30-9:00pm
May 28: SEE will be closed for Memorial Day
June 1: June tuition is due
June 21-22: End-of-the-year performances and parties - stay tuned for more details!
June 29: Final day of the school year
July 2-6: SEE will be closed for summer break
July 9: SEE's summer program begins!


Pictures from the past few weeks:
Artist of the Month: Edward Hopper!  
Lights, Camera, Action! Welcome to the SEE weather station!

Story of the month: "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs"
What is raining from your sky?

Rainbow experiment in action
More experimentation showing how clouds hold rain

We LOVE a fun art project!


Mid-month snow fun!

Stay tuned for our next blog post about our dinosaur adventures!
Ms. Tiffany