We had many parents and family members come visit Music and Drama during Informance week, the children enjoyed seeing you at school. If you were not able to come, check out the previous post for videos from Drama class. The incredible Mrs. Armentrout had the Lemurs perform an opera…”Who Will Eat This Soup!”
Next Thursday night is Dr. Kirkland’s “State of the School” and also Move-Up Night. I hope you are able to come, it is a great opportunity to peek inside Kindergarten. Students and parents can see what to expect next year and also get to know the fabulous Kindergarten teachers.
Small Group Treehouse Activities This Week:
Monday
Science/Art: Rainforest Book – The Canopy -First we learned about howlers monkeys, who are able to form their mouths into megaphones to communicate with each other. After making a howler monkey for our rainforest books, we did an experiment with a real tropical leaf to test it’s “drip tip.” Large tropical leaves share rain water with leaves below them by directing water from their tip. Click on the photo to see a video clip:
Math: Clear the Board– Students practice addition by playing a game, rolling and adding dice together. They needed to clear their game board of markers on each number to win the game.
Science/Art:Blue Morpho Butterflies – Mrs. Kirsh introduced students to the beautiful iridescent blue butterfly of the rainforest, the blue morpho. This day students painted the shiny blue symmetrical side of the butterfly.
Tuesday
Reading: Intro to Raz Kids app – Students were walked through using a new reading app on our ipads, Razkids. This is a leveled reader program used in many schools. Our Kindergarten and first grade classes are also using Raz-kids. Today Lemurs learned how to navigate the app, selecting and listening to books. We will use this app more as the year goes on.
Reading: Verdi – Reading Comprehension -Mrs. Swanson read her group the wonderful book, Verdi by Janell Cannon. Verdi is about a young tree python in the rainforest who notices that the older, greener tree pythons are big and slow and just sit in the tree all day. Verdi does not want to be like the big slow snakes. He likes being fast and having fun. A careless accident forces Verdi to recover motionless and he sees things from a different point of view.
Science/Art: Blue Morpho Butterfly – Students painted the brown side of their butterfly today with beautiful symmetrical patterns. You can see these gorgeous creations flying in our hallway.
Wednesday
Writing: Verdi – Compare and Contrast – As a large group, we brainstormed ways that the young snakes and old snakes are different and are the same. Then students worked on their own to complete two sentences, “The young snake is” and “The grown up snake is.” You can see this working hanging in the hallway.
Thursday
Reading: The Shaman’s Apprentice – We learned about researchers who live in rainforest villages and use plants growing there to help heal people. Most modern medicine originates from plants grown in the rainforest. Students heard the story, The Shaman’s Apprentice by Lynne Cherry, about a shaman who learns to believe in himself and his value to his village.
Math: Geoboard Shapes – Students used fine motor skills and shape knowledge to recreate 2d shapes on a geoboard using rubber bands.
Science/Art:Tree Python Patterns – Students carefully studied the patterns on yellow and green tree pythons and then used oil pastels to replicate the patterns on paper snakes.
Friday
Writing: Whiteboard letters & Words – Students worked on letter formation and word building on little white boards.
Game: Mastermind – Mrs. Kirsh taught students how to play the super fun game Mastermind. One person creates a secret color code and the other(s) try to break the code by creating patterns and getting feedback from the code maker.
Science: Mint Tea Party – Like the shaman in the rainforest, we investigated mint leaves, smell
ing them, ripping them, making observation drawings in our notebooks. We learned that some people eat mint to help with a belly ache. We steeped 
some mint leaves in hot water to make a “tea.”
