New Month = New Curriculum Topic!

Welcome May! We have patiently awaited your arrival!  Except that it feels more like April... 

Staying optimistic, we explored the world of pond life with the children this week.  We began the week asking, What is a pond, what lives in a pond and how can we protect ponds?  The children learned about the different wildlife found at a pond, the type of water in a pond, how a pond if different from the ocean and the importance of plants in the pond. (There was no way I could have used the word "pond" less times in that paragraph, I tried!)

As the week progressed, we had a group discussion on understanding what exactly a pond ecosystem is.  This discussion started with the question, what helps animals survive? The children all said that animals need to eat.  Which is in fact the basics of learning about an ecosystem! We read the book, "Pond Circle" by Betsy Franco which introduced the children to how an ecosystem works.  It's a fun book if you come across it in your travels! To understand the idea of the book, there was a coyote that stalked the raccoon that stole the owl eggs from the owl that dived for the skunk that caught the snake that swallowed the frog that gobbled the beetle that ate the nymph that nibbled the algae.  Which pretty much sums up how an ecosystem works! The illustrations were beautifully done as well!  

Some activities around the classroom included practiced tracing skills by tracing the lines of a turtle shell, the children played a game with the parachute trying to keep the frog eggs from rolling away, the children wrapped up their mother's day gifts and the pre-k students wrote the sight words for our pond unit including the words cat tails, lilypad, turtle, duck, etc!

If you have a day available during the next few weeks, the Museum of Science in Boston is hosting a temporary frog exhibit, definitely check it out! MOS Frog Exhibit Click Here

Lastly, play practice for our end of the year performance will begin mid month as we prepare to wrap up another wonderful school year! The blog will be pretty quiet beginning mid-May through June as we don't want to give too much away!

Important Dates and Reminders:

May 11-12: Picture Day! Info on the fliers that went home
May 21: May gathering at the Stone Zoo, check Evite for more info
June 1: June tuition is due
June 23-24: End-of-the-year school performance, more info to come!

Check out some pictures from this week!

The children also created wish flags for our veggie garden, what a busy week it was!

Another wish flag in the making! The flags are proudly hanging in our outdoor classroom.

Tracing skills are a great tool to have for kindergarten!

Don't let the frog eggs fall off the parachute!

A few of our sight words for our pond life unit!

And to all of our SEE mommies, we think you're the bomb! Enjoy your seed bombs! May they bring you lots of pretty flowers :)

Have a wonderful Mother's Day Weekend!
Joanna