Monkey See, Monkey Draw

This week was all about the monkey! According to the Chinese Zodiac, this is the year of the monkey and after celebrating the new year, we thought it would be a great idea to learn more about these fun creatures!  We read several different kinds of monkey books including educational books and fun books such as, "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" by Eileen Christelow and "Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina about a hat peddler trying to outwit some mischievous monkeys.  In addition to reading lots of great books, the children were introduced to the word, prehensile, that is defined as something that has the ability to hold things or grab onto things, such as a monkey's tail.  The children explored with pipe cleaners to mimic the way a monkey's tail works.  The children discovered that a monkey's prehensile tail can hold onto chairs, door knobs, basket handles and much more! (side note: if your child brought home a random pipe cleaner, twist it back into a monkey tail and see if you can find places around your home that a monkey can hang onto!)

Another great book the children read was called, "Monkey See, Monkey Draw" by Alex Beard.  The book was about a group of monkeys that used their handprints to make fun drawings of animals.  The children each made a handprint using finger-paints and were asked to turn their handprint into any animal of their choice.  The children were encouraged to turn the paper in different directions until they say their animal.  The handprints were turned into monkeys, alligators, butterflies and elephants just to name a few.  Check out the pictures below!

On Wednesday, Mary Beth's movement class learned a dance called  "The Monkey" from the 1960's and played a game of monkey in the middle.  The children rolled a ball to their friends and the monkey in the middle needed to try to stop the ball with their feet before it rolled across the circle to a friend.  Lots of wonderful gross motor practice in this class!

On Thursday, the children read, "Koko's Kitten" by Dr. Patterson. The story is about a gorilla that learned to communicate with Dr. Patterson, an animal scientist, by using had gestures and sign language.  The children were introduced to several nonverbal signs including tree, baby, eat and cookie.  Ask your child if they can show you the sign language they learned!

To wrap up the week, the children heard the sounds of a howler monkey.  Howler monkey's are the loudest known land mammal.  The children were surprised and excited to hear the sounds these monkey's make.  

What's Up Next?
It's almost March and that means, we get to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday! Next week will begin the birthday celebrations that will lead into a science and engineering theme!  More info to come next week!

Important Dates and Reminders:

February 27: Monthly Gathering at Celebration Kingdom - check your Evite for more info!
March 1: March Tuiton Due
April 1: April Tuition Due
April 18-22: SEE closed for Spring Break
May 11-12: Picture Day! More info to come in a few weeks

Some pictures from this week:

Exploring the monkey's prehensile tail

Our zoo of animal handprints!

A crocodile by a pre-k student

Handprint Stegosaurus

The making of a handprint monkey

I hope everyone enjoyed the post! See you on Monday!

Joanna

Who are John, Paul, George and Ben?

Happy Friday! Another short week has come and gone! Let's hope this is our last short week until April break! 

We bagan the week with our belated valentine's celebrations.  The children have been painting hearts with pink, red and purple paint, using valentine stampers to make valentine's for their friends and teachers and finished up their valentine's cards for their classroom friends.  The card exchange and celebrations took place on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week with an extra special red-themed snack.  The children enjoyed strawberries and red grapes along with yogurt on Tuesday and valentine shaped pretzels on Wednesday.  

Before the cards were exchanged, I got a quick chance to read some of the messages the children wrote to their friends.  Each child was prompted to finish the sentence, "______ is a good friend because..." and some of the responses were priceless! One of our pre-k girls wrote to a little boy, "because he is so cute and I love coming to school to play with him." Adorable! And a few others included, "because you're the best" and "because he plays in the block area with me!"  At school, valentine's day was all about friendship and learning how we can all be a good friend to everyone.

As Chinese New Year continues, we thought it would be fun to learn more about the monkey as it is also the year of the monkey.  We began our monkey studies with the question, "How is a monkey similar to a human?" and believe it or not, the children's answers were very accurate.  Some of the children answered, "because they stand up and walk like a person (this is true for gorillas)," "they have thumbs like us" and "their brains are smart."  Way to go preschoolers! 

The children were also introduced to the new vocabulary words primate, backbone and a word we are all familiar with, adapt.  The teachers love to incorporate words from previous lesson plans to show children how the same word can be generalized to other topics.  Monkeys also adapt to their surrounds!  Do you know about the Japanese monkeys called macaques (pronounced muh-KAKS)?  They are also called snow monkeys and they live in the mountains of Japan.  In the mountains, it is very cold and the ground is often covered in snow.  The macaques find warmth in hot mountain springs that are almost jacuzzi-like from the heat inside of the earth  bubbling up to the ponds, heating the water. 

Lastly, school was closed on Monday in observance of President's Day.  Ms. Heather read a story about the founders of America.  Before she read the book, she asked the children, "Does anyone know who John (Adams), Paul (Revere), George (Washington) and Ben (Franklin) are?"  And one of our pre-kers proudly shouted, "THE BEETLES!"  We can't make this stuff up!

Important Dates and Reminders:

February 27: Monthly Gathering at Celebration Kingdom - check your Evite for more info!
March 1: March Tuiton Due
April 1: April Tuition Due
April 18-22: SEE closed for Spring Break
May 11-12: Picture Day! More info to come in a few weeks

Some pictures from this week:

Practicing sewing skills!

Painting with feathers

Everyone loves finger painting!

Have a great weekend!
Joanna

Happy Chinese New Year!

Gong Xi Fa Cai or Gong Hey Fat Choy! (I will have to figure out which one is the correct way to say Happy New Year in Chinese!) We had another short week due to the snow so we combined Chinese New Year and Valentine's day and turned it into a holiday extravaganza! We had such a busy, yet super fun week!  To kick off the Chinese New Year celebration, the children learned about the culture and traditions behind the big celebration.  First things first,  we cleaned our school to say good bye to the old and welcome the new.  Since it is the year of the monkey, the children learned how to say monkey in Chinese and practiced writing the character for it, too! 

Speaking of the year of the monkey, do you know how each animal became part of the Chinese Zodiac?  We read the story, "The Great Race" by Dawn Casey which told the story of how each animal took their position on the zodiac calendar.    And this is how the story went: The great Emperor declared that a calendar must be created to help the people keep time.  The Emperor invited every creature in the kingdom to come and participate in a race.  The first year in the calendar was to be named after the winner of the race.  The animals came from far and near to compete in the race including rat, cat, dragon, tiger, monkey, snake, ox, pig, dog, hare, sheep, rooster and horse.  The animals were instructed to swim across the swift river.  To make a long story short, rat was the first to make it across the river and was named the winner and first animal of the zodiac.  As the animals made across the river, they were given their place in the zodiac as well.  To find out how the smallest of the animals, the rat, won the race and why cat never finished the race, you'll have to read the book to find out!  To extend the learning from the book, the children were introduced to a sequencing activity to put all of the animal picture cards in the order they each finished the race.  

To prepare for the fifteenth and final day of the new year celebration (February 22nd), the children created lanterns for the Yuan Xiao festival or the lantern festival.  Each child practiced their cutting skills as they prepared beautiful lanterns for the festival.  Come check them out, they are hanging from our classroom ceiling!

To finish our week, the children helped Mrs. M make rice noodles for snack.  Each child had the opportunity to practice eating with chopsticks and they all had a blast! We also offered oranges for snack as a symbol of wealth and good luck.  To end the week, and to chase away the evil, the teachers lead the children in the Lion Dance and paraded around the classroom. 

What's up next:

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will hold our Valentine's Day Celebration of Friendship.  In addition to all of the Chinese New Year Festivities, the children were busy creating friendship cards for their friends!  These beautiful cards will be exchanged on Tuesday and Wednesday along with a special Valentine's Day snack! To wrap up the month, in honor of the year of the monkey, we will study monkeys as we get ready to say hello to March!

Lastly, don't forget to vote for us on Wicked Local's 2016 Reader's Choice Awards! CLICK HERE TO VOTE Don't forget to vote for at least 10 of your favorite local businesses for your vote to count! All votes do not have to be exclusively for businesses in Burlington so pick all of your faves from surrounding towns!

Important Dates and Reminders:

February 15: SEE closed in observance of President's Day
February 27: Monthly Gathering at Celebration Kingdom - check your Evite for more info!
March 1: March Tuiton Due
April 1: April Tuition Due
April 18-22: SEE closed for Spring Break
May 11-12: Picture Day! More info to come in a few weeks

Some pictures from this week's celebrations:

Creating a special valentine

Chopstick practice!

Constructing with straws

The leader of the Lion Dance!

Have a great three day weekend everyone! See you on Tuesday!

Joanna

Michelangelo the Sculptor?

Happy snowy Friday! I hope everyone is warm and cozy on their couches with the kiddos! 

This past week the children learned all about the great artist, Michelangelo! Three years ago, we introduced the class to Michelangelo and we talked a lot about how he laid on his back to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  While preparing for our Michelangelo unit this year, upon further investigation, I discovered that Michelangelo did not lay on his back to paint all that much.  He craned his neck and actually developed a "toad neck" from straining his neck to paint above him.  He only laid down to paint at the tippy top of the ceiling. AND Michelangelo was not a painter by trade, he considered himself a master sculptor!  The pope persuaded Michelangelo to paint his church and, reluctantly, Michelangelo agreed. After four long years of painting the chapel, Michelangelo completed his work and is now know as one of the world's best artists.  So, the teachers and I quickly threw together our own little Sistine Chapel from the outdoor PVC pipe kit.  The children got to experience how it felt to reach up high to paint the ceiling.  The children also experienced just how it really feels to be an artist, lots of the kiddos went home with paint in their hair, on their faces and down their arms. Getting messy is so much fun!!! The pictures of the children painting are just incredible.  Everyone had such a blast becoming Michelangelo for the day! There are lots of pictures on Shutterfly (updated yesterday) so definitely log in to see them.  

Before we ended the week short, we also began our unit on the Chinese New Year! This is one of my favorite units!  This year is the year of the monkey and the children will learn all about Chinese culture, tradition and the animals of the zodiac.  And because it is the year of the monkey, we will transition into a quick unit about monkeys towards the end of the month.  It's going to be a busy month full of learning around here! 

Lastly, don't forget to vote for us on Wicked Local's 2016 Reader's Choice Awards! CLICK HERE TO VOTE Don't forget to vote for at least 10 of your favorite local businesses for your vote to count! All votes do not have to be exclusively for businesses in Burlington so pick all of your faves from surrounding towns!

Important Dates and Reminders:

February 15: SEE closed in observance of President's Day
February 27: Monthly Gathering at Celebration Kingdom - check your Evite for more info!
March 1: March Tuiton Due
April 1: April Tuition Due
April 18-22: SEE closed for Spring Break
May 11-12: Picture Day! More info to come in a few weeks

Some pictures from this week's explorations:

The Sistine Chapel ready to go!

The children learned about the convenience of painting palettes!

Reaching up tall to paint the ceiling!

And again!

And again!

The paint palettes ready to go

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Stay warm!
Joanna