Front Building:
A big Thank You to all our parents who were patient and came in later in the month and after hours for their conferences! We appreciate your flexibility and enjoyed talking with you about your children’ s progress.
This month is still all about dinosaurs in the front class, and we managed to go through the three dinosaur periods: Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous while taking a closer look at at least two different species from each period.
We talked about what they ate and what we call meat-eating dinosaurs (carnivores) and plant-eating dinosaurs (herbivore) and when they ate both, they were called omnivores. There was not a single flowering plant around though.
The times when dinosaurs lived were much more tumultuous, too. Volcano eruptions and earthquakes and a large lake in the middle of what is now the continent of North America. The continents themselves shifted a great deal during the millions of years when these large lizards like creatures dominated planet earth, from one mega-continent called Pangea to two big continents called Laurasia and Gondwanaland to what we have now with seven continents.
Some reptiles were flying, and others remained in the oceans, so they were technically not dinosaurs, but they are still interesting to discover nonetheless. What makes a dinosaur different from a reptile is that the legs are coming out straight from under the pelvic bone and do not go out sideways.
Our classroom was full of busy paleontologists at work, we watched hatching dinosaurs and dug up some pretend fossils of our own. In math, the children measure different types, and in the language, they can make their own dinosaur facts book. There were several art projects related to the unit, and we will continue to put out more for the next few weeks till spring break. Then the extinction is near, and after our break, we will be off to new adventures
The children still get to go on the beautiful nature walks and even there they can discover relicts from the dino world. Ferns used to be the size of trees, not bushes and Holly as well as Ginko were favorite herbivore foods!
Thank you for making sure your children wear appropriate clothing on their outings as it can be muddy and a little colder in the forest.
This month our field trip is a visit from the local fire department.
What an exciting time for the children to see all the equipment and different compartments on a big fire engine as well as loose a little fear of a firefighter in full gear with helmet, a breathing mask and all. They seem much more prepared on what to do in the event of a fire (keep doors closed, stay low to the ground and do not hide from the firefighter when they come to rescue).
The morning class was able to witness a real call and saw how fast everything was packed up, and the crew was gone to help.
Another big Thank You goes out to our Mrs. Brunswick for coming to share her Purim tradition with our school and for making Hamantaschen with the children. The children rolled out the dough and cut it into circles, then filled the middle with jam and folded it into a triangle. That cookie shape represents the hat of the villain Haman in the Purim story. They tasted delicious!
She also read the story during circle time and told the children about creating baskets with goodies for friends and neighbors during the holiday.
Back Building:
It was beautiful to see many parents at our parent-teacher conferences in March. Thank you for taking the time to come and meet us! Our main curriculum unit for this year is “study of Dinosaurs,” which is very popular among kids. We started “study of Dinosaurs” with learning Big Bang Theory and how over millions of years animal life has evolved from fish to amphibians to first reptiles. Starting this week, we studied three periods of the dinosaurs: Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. We found several interesting facts of the Triassic period, like different plants, animals that lived during that time also learned that grasshoppers began their life in this Triassic period. We will continue exploring exciting facts about Dinosaurs that lived during those times. The classroom has many unique works and arts to support this unit.
We have also continued with our science experiments: we performed a demonstration on how supercontinent formed.
We also learned about Refraction and conducted an experiment on how light switched its direction when it moved through two different mediums.
On Fridays, in German Circle, we are learning about shapes and colors. Kids are showing lots of interest and are very interactive throughout the German Circle.