Happy Friday everyone!

As we begin slowly wrapping up our exploration on the rain forest (for now), our class went around the school today to schedule chats with all the classes for next week. As you might remember, your child has been working super hard for a couple weeks now on researching their rain forest animal. After first coming up with a “rough draft” in their journals, they made a poster of their animals which they will use to educate their schoolmates and then all of you! On Monday, we plan to conclude this project with making a clay model of each animal to use for part of our presentations.

Do you know what an epiphyte is? Ask your child! We read a couple more pages of our In The Rain forest book earlier this week and learned a bit about the various plant species that thrive under a tropical rain forest climate. Epiphytes are non-parasitic plants that grow on other plants such as ferns and air plants. Some can grow to hold as much as 10 gallons of water! Someone was very quick to point out that the epiphytes ability to collect water assists in the life cycle of other insects and animals. Amazing!

We have finished our second chapter book already this year! Good Morning, Gorillas was another great read and your kiddos are already asking when we’ll be reading our next Jack and Annie adventure:) Maybe they can tell you how this one ended!

Our class continues to show a lot of interest in acting out their own stories and in an effort to feed that fun, feel free to send a couple old socks with your child next week to make puppets for these elaborate puppet shows they have been putting on. I know Halloween is right around the corner so it makes sense that their favorite genre so far has been spooky!

Show and Tell is off to a GREAT start! Not only is it a fun activity for your child, but show and tell helps kids to get more comfortable with public speaking, builds self-confidence, practice organizing their thoughts, as well practice good listening skills for when others presenting. Please refer to the show and tell guidelines that was sent home a few weeks ago. Show and tell should tie into our current exploration and not be larger than the bag (if using).

Books we read this week:

• Brains! Not Just a Zombie Snack by Stacy Mc Anulty
• Good Morning, Gorillas by Mary Pope Osborne
• Chickens Don’t Fly and Other Fun Facts by Laura Lyn DiSiena and Hannah Eliot 
• Come on Over, Rovers! Mars’ First Friends by Susanna Leonard Hill

Home Connection:

• https://multiplicitylab.northwestern.edu/project/ltt_r-041-about/
• https://multiplicitylab.northwestern.edu/project/oyg-012-square/
• https://earlyimpactlearning.com/14-benefits-of-loose-parts-play-with-examples/

Reminders:

• Uniforms: Please remember that on gym days (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) your child should be in a matching uniform and not mismatching colors. Khaki skirts, dress, pants, or shorts with a Plato polo of any color are to be worn on dress days (Tuesdays and Thursdays).
• Please make sure EVERYTHING is labeled with your child’s name or initials, especially sweaters!

That’s all for this week! Have a wonderful weekend and GO BEARS!

-Ms. Anna

–“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”- Albert Einstein

Hello awesome Kinder Parents! Hopefully you all had just as awesome a week as we all did here in Room 103!

We kicked off week 5 (whoa!) with studying and then comparing/contrasting rainforests from all over the world. How does the tropical rainforest in the Amazon differ from the tropical rainforest in Australia? How does a temperate rainforest in Alaska look similar to a temperate rainforest in New Zealand? We looked at many different pictures of many different rainforests, but the conclusion was the same. Rainforests play a vital role in keeping our “earth healthy”, “safe for us”, “green”, “pretty” and “good to grow stuff like chocolate beans because I love chocolate!” 

A little rain couldn’t stop our rainforest fun! We did have indoor recess earlier in the week so I took advantage and made it into a math lesson on estimation! We first refreshed ourselves on making educated guesses or estimations.  I then asked everyone to look outside and look at their ruler. We know the numbers on a ruler represent inches so everyone then made their best estimation about how much it had already rained outside. Answers varied from less than an inch to almost a foot! Unfortunately though, it didn’t stop raining during the times we could go out to measure so we said we would try this again another day. We also watched a really fun and interesting Magic School Bus episode about the rainforest and I’ve included the link below in the Home Connection section in case your child wanted to revisit it. We talked more about how everything in the rainforest is interconnected and also about the web of life. We did a mini follow-up activity on this and drew a picture of a web of life in our journals. Remember the fig seeds from before? How are they connected to fig wasps? Because we learned about this life cycle a couple weeks ago, the connection to this episode’s depiction of the web of life came very easily and further engrained this design in their sweet big brains:) I did mention that they could illustrate a web of life picture with you all at home that was made up of members of their family!

You may remember that over the last few weeks your child has been working diligently on their research project of their chosen rainforest animal. This week, we got started on our final presentation posters! We will be using these to educate our friends in other classes all about different animals in the Amazon rainforest and they are SUPER excited to share with everyone what they have learned not just about their own animals, but also about their classmates’ animals.

One of the best parts of my day with your kids is watching how they use their unique creativity during play. Earlier this week, I had put some clay out on a table in the morning and a variety of loose parts. A couple kiddos decided to make characters out of the clay and stick them on popsicle sticks. Another child then had the idea to use his for a puppet show. Others started journaling stories with me so they could get their friends to act in them. In the end, every single child got involved in some capacity to put on multiple puppet shows on different days! Some made theater tickets, while others set up the seating area! Enjoy the pictures below:) 

Another super fun and creative activity we did this week using loose parts was to make a collage/3D visual of the rainforest. Some of them are still a work in progress and we plan to display them next week. Additionally, any wine lovers out there? We will gladly take any corks you have! Twist off caps from applesauce, yogurt, smoothie pouches are great, too! 

Jack and Annie are learning so much about gorillas in the rainforest! Ask your child to get you up to speed in our current chapter book and see if they can remember how to say I love you in sign language just like the gorillas!

Your children had so much fun working on their Art To Remember pieces and are super excited for you all to order a little memorabilia 😉 Keep an eye out for a link coming soon to order gifts!

Home Connection:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbUkxDI7gOU
• https://multiplicitylab.northwestern.edu/project/ltt_r-037-organize/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vijLre760w

Reminders/Announcements:

• Please make sure ALL of your child’s belongings are labeled with their names! You would not believe how many items, especially sweaters, end up in the lost and found. And those are expensive!
• We want to encourage healthy eating habits. Cookies packs, cakes, and candy are also not allowed at school. If packing a small sweet treat, remind your child to first eat their food so they don’t end up running out of time and are left with a belly full of sugar:) I’ve recently stumbled upon a super yummy, but healthy sweet treat. The brand name is called Undercover Snacks and they have a lot of different chocolate quinoa treats! For our hot lunch friends, their sweet treats will be sent home to eat for a special snack with mom and dad:)
• Unfortunately, our class has been hit hard with an array of illnesses. A few strep cases and other viruses as well. Please practice good hand-washing skills with your children at home and remind them to always cough into their shirt or a tissue to stop the spread of these pesky germs!
• With the recent wet weather we’ve been getting and are sure to get more of, feel free to send your child with an extra pair of boots/gym shoes to keep at school.
• And a VERY
• special thank you to Benji for buying every item from our Amazon wish list! Everyone is having so much fun learning and playing with all of our brand new math games!! Thanks Benj!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and GO BEARS!

-Ms. Anna

—

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”- Albert Einstein

Good afternoon Parents and Happy Friday! We had such a great week here in room 103:)

We have been journaling a lot and having so much fun making silly rhyming songs along the way! For one of our journal activities earlier this week, I asked the class to think of an animal that begins with the same first letter as their name, then to write it down and draw it. We’re building upon the skills needed to become successful writers and readers by practicing writing the date when journaling, how we hold our pencils, and moving on slowly from inventive spelling to sounding out words. Kids feel much more confident in themselves when given the space and time to do this on their own and feel very proud when they show me and their friends. I encourage you all to keep a little journal at home or in the car to help your kiddo do this with you all, too! After everyone got the chance to share their animals, we tried to make a rhyming song using everyone’s animal and name, but things got a bit tricky so we decided to give it another try next week. Stay tuned!

Our research projects on our individual animals is coming along amazingly! Each of your children sat with me this week to work on theirs one-on-one. The first thing we did was write the name of the animal we are researching by sounding it out phonetically. Next, your child picked up a couple non-fiction books from our library to find any information about their animal. We read up on some super cool facts and after talking about all this new found info, your child chose to write about one thing in their journal. For example, after sounding out leaf-cutter ant, he/she could write “eats fungus” as one fact about them. Ask your child what animal they are researching and if they can tell you a fun fact about it!

We also finished our treehouses this week! Yay! They all look so unique and different, we just HAVE to put them up on display! Projects such as these don’t typically go home when complete, but instead will be sent with you or your child during conferences.

Today was International Dot Day! We read the story The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds and painted our own dot inspired artwork. If you have not had the chance to read this book yet, you can borrow it from me! It’s such a great story!

Books we read this week:

• The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble
• Come On, Rain by Karen Hesse
• The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds
• The Teacher From the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler
• The Gym Teacher From the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler
• Good Morning, Gorillas by Mary Pope Osborne

Home Connection:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEQMEllUyks
• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/why-amazon-doesnt-produce-20-percent-worlds-oxygen#:~:text=Think%20about%20it%3A%20For%20every,to%20generate%20that%20much%20oxygen.

New vocab alert!

• international
• arboreal

Just a quick note on Scholastic book orders. There will be times throughout the year that I will submitting one collective order and the books will then be sent to our school. See the note below:

Hey there, families!

Ready to discover the characters and stories your kids love? With expertly curated selections, plus the chance for your teacher to earn rewards for the classroom with every order, Scholastic Book Clubs is here for you all year long to boost your kid’s reading fandom and maybe even create moments of quality time you can share together!

Place an order of $25 or more and you can pick a FREE $5 book (use code READS at checkout) to add to your reader’s TBR pile!

Family Order Due Date: 09/27/23

SHOP OUR CLASS PAGE: https://orders.scholastic.com/VFQYM
https://orders.scholastic.com/VFQYM

SHOP FLYERS: https://clubs.scholastic.com/k1

Invite relatives and friends to help your child discover the pure joy of reading when you share our Class Page link. Every order benefits our classroom, helping me earn FREE books and resources that every child can enjoy.

Thanks for your support!

That’s all for this week folks! Have a great weekend and GO BEARS!

-Ms. Anna

Did you know that gray’s bald faced sakis can leap up to 32 feet!? WOW! We learned so much about the 14 species of monkeys that live in the Manu National Park in Peru this week after reading a very fun and interesting book! The book illustrated in which layer of the rain forest each species lived and how they can coexist. Some of the monkey species were familiar to a few of us such as the pygmy marmoset, the brown capuchin, and the Peruvian spider monkey. Take a look at our illustrations below depicting the four layers of the rain forest! Ask your child to point theirs out to you and tell you which is which!

We also spent some time really familiarizing ourselves geographically with where exactly the Amazon rain forest is and how expansive it is. Maybe your child can show you on a map! Our other book, Zonia’s Rain Forest, taught us a bit about the indigenous people of the Amazon and how they are fighting to protect the rain forest. This sparked another conversation about what we can do to help. Stay tuned as we work out details on our first service project!

I think my personal favorite book this week was Something Wonderful by Matt Ritter. The book did an incredible job of not only showing our class the interdependent relationship of the fig tree and fig wasp, but we learned all about seed dispersal and how every animal in the rain forest is interconnected. We then made a connection to the saki monkey from the 14 monkeys book because they are one of few that don’t spit the seeds out and actually eat them, which doesn’t always result in a new lifecycle for that fig tree! There were a lot of laughs and ewwws and hahahas when we got into the dirty details of seed dispersal and poop…pun intended!

Take a look at this week’s Multiplicity Lab and chat with your child about what you see! This was a super fun one to listen to talk about and take turns listening to everyone’s thoughts. During math games some of our friends then decided to come up with their own pattern challenge to ask me what I see! We are surrounded by patterns in our everyday lives, but we definitely don’t always notice them. Perhaps your child and you can make a list or draw some pictures of some of the patterns you see in your everyday lives and they can share with the class next week. 🙂

Afternoon on the Amazon is complete! I’m so glad the class LOVED this book and it was such a fun one to read. We took a vote and they decided they wanted to read ANOTHER Magic Tree House so we started our new one today, Good Morning Gorillas. For one of our STEAM (science technology engineering arts mathematics) challenges this week, your children built their own tree houses using popsicle sticks and glue. We’ll add some finishing touches to these next week!

Books we read this week:

• Something Wonderful by Matt Ritter
• Zonia’s Rain Forest by Juana Martinez-Neal
• Fourteen Monkeys: A Rain Forest Rhyme by Melissa Stewart
• Anteaters, Bats, and Boas: The Amazon Rain Forest From the Forest Floor to the Treetops by Roxie Munro
• Good Morning, Gorillas (Magic Tree House #26) by Mary Pope Osborne

Vocab alert!

• germination
• indigenous
• interdependent

Home connection:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO4UYhhU-8c
• https://multiplicitylab.northwestern.edu/project/ltt_di-015-patterns/
• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/why-amazon-doesnt-produce-20-percent-worlds-oxygen#:~:text=Think%20about%20it%3A%20For%20every,to%20generate%20that%20much%20oxygen.
• https://artsintegration.com/what-is-steam-education-in-k-12-schools/

Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week!

-Ms. Anna

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/UUZ6HLU98KUU/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_2

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”- Albert Einstein

Hello awesome parents, HAPPY FRIDAY, kalo mina/to a good month!

We had another fabulous week here in room 103 and hopefully your kiddos are ready to tell you all about it! In case they’re not, here are some highlights from our week in the rainforest:)

After reading The Great Kapok Tree on Monday morning, we painted our own versions of the story and we had a discussion about what impact we have on the rainforest, even if we don’t necessarily live by one. At one point in the story it read, “and surely you know that what happens tomorrow depends upon what you do today.” We talked about what this means to each of us and how it ties into our school theme this year of making a difference. Here are some ideas of how we can all take better care of our planet right here, right now, according to your children:

1. Plant more seeds.
2. Reuse as much as you can.
3. Stop hunting animals:(
4. Don’t cut down trees.
5. Don’t put trash in the water or on the ground. 
6. Only get rid of bad weeds, not good ones!
7. Plant more trees and flowers.
8. Recycle!
9. Compost!

One way to get our brains ready for the day is having a little morning challenge or Multiplicity Lab Wednesday Wonder up for the class when they come in. One challenge I had up this week was a Lego building challenge. I asked everyone to build something that starts with the same first letter as the first letter in their name. We had an octopus, apple, cinnamon, and more! Ask your child what they built:) I’ve also attached the links for this week’s Multiplicity Lab below. 

We have been busy little researchers this week focusing on different animals that inhabit the tropical rainforest. Earlier this week, everybody got a few different books out either with a partner or solo if they chose to, and took some time looking at different animals that they were curious about. I then gave everyone two post-it notes to write their name down and stick their post-it on the pages of the animals that piqued their interest. The next day during morning meeting everybody shared their pages and I wrote down on their post-it notes their reasons for selecting that specific animal. Ask your child what animals they chose and why! Thank you once again to our reading buddies for helping us learn more about our animals and the rainforest this week! 

What’s the difference between a tropical rainforest and a temperate rainforest? Bonus points if you know, but it’s ok if you don’t because your child can tell you! Take a look at our compare/contrast illustrations and see if you figure out why! Fun fact: Did you know that on average, a temperate rainforest receives about 20-30 inches of rain a year and a tropical rainforest gets about 200 inches , (10 times that!!) every year!? Wow! We really wanted to go outside and measure out 200 vs. 20 with some chalk, but completely forgot to! Maybe you all can and send in a picture to share with the class!

New vocabulary alert:

• compost
• temperate
• vital
• interdependent
• foliage

Home connections:

• https://multiplicitylab.northwestern.edu/project/ltt_r-068-notice-wonder/
• https://multiplicitylab.northwestern.edu/videos/#notice-wonder
• https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/collections/transforming-kindergarten/
• https://multiplicitylab.northwestern.edu/project/ltt-gs-009-patterns/
• https://multiplicitylab.northwestern.edu/project/ltt_r-045-notice-wonder/

Books we read this week:

• Afternoon on the Amazon chapters 4-8
• The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry
• Over in the Jungle: A Rainforest Rhyme by Marianne Berkes
• There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books by Lucille Colandro
• In The Rainforest by Kate Duke
• Monkey, Monkey, Monkey by Cathy MacLennon

Have a great, long, HOT weekend everybody and see you all Tuesday!

-Ms. Anna

—

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”- Albert Einstein