Flying Airplanes and Floating Seeds

Dear Parents,

We started our week making paper airplanes. We asked our paper airplane experts (we have a few) to help teach the rest of the class. Everyone looked and listened and folded and flew. The children wanted to color their planes, so we did that for a little while. We talked a tiny bit about pilots and air traffic controllers. We went into the big room to fly our planes. See how they fly in the attached video.

The next day we drove our airplanes outside to fly. We flew them in the grass, but soon many discovered that launching them from higher places helped. To the top of the jungle gym we went. We also noticed that the windy day helped. 

Wednesday was our first music class with Alex. While half the class was with Alex, the rest of us played a farm counting game: it involved goofy goats, and some animal sounds.

After we did our monthly fire drill, we walked to the end of our block to look at an apple tree that was in full bloom. We read two books about apple trees beforehand, and went to see what it looked like "for real life" as some say. Someone noticed another tree on the way that had similar flowers. 

On Thursday we read about how seeds travel. We looked at some seeds we had collected and guessed whether or not they’d float. We filled a bowl with water to test them. Some did, some did not. We made a list of seeds we eat. We will add to it next week. The children debated whether a coconut is a seed or not. We looked it up. There was also a discussion this week about whether or not chicken is meat. Eight children said yes, four said no. We asked what makes something meat, and someone said it has to be an animal. Everyone knows a chicken is an animal. 

Have a warm weekend,

Therese

Guitars and Tambourines

Dear Parents,

We began our week painting our guitars. We painted the inside and the outside of our boxes. While they dried we rode tricycles, built another ice-cream truck, kicked balls, ran, climbed in the jungle gym, tumbled, and cooked pretend food. 

During circle we played our drums and kazoos. We attempted to play our instruments to the beat of some poems and rhyming books. It sorta worked, but one person said they couldn’t hear the words, so we read the last couple of pages with no music. We read Chicken Soup With Rice while playing instruments. We read Eat Your Peas, Louise! And Each Peach Pear Plum without playing our instruments.

We added rubber bands to our guitars for strings, and practiced strumming and plucking. We listened to a CD of guitar music that included Bach and Jimmy Hendrix. 

We read Hearing (many times) and looked at the picture of the inner, middle, and outer ear. We talked about sound waves and vibrations. We examined the vibration of our rubber bands on our guitars as we plucked them. Someone said, "It looks like two." To further illustrate vibrations, we took turns dropping a quarter and a bolt into a tray of water. We watched the tiny waves go back and forth in the water. Someone said, "You can hear the vibrations of the waves at the beach." 

Also this week we read Ben’s Trumpet, The Philharmonic Gets Dressed, I Know A Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello, and My Little Sister Ate One Hare. We listened to Miles Davis, and 70’s disco. When we read Ben’s Trumpet the children noticed that the picture of the sound waves looked like the letters Z, N, W, and M. We said the name of the club in the book, “Zig Zag Jazz Club” and noticed all the Z’s. 

We cut paper plates in half and counted how many tambourines each cut would make: two, four, six, eight… The children decorated their tambourines with crayons, markers, and paints. They helped punch holes to add bells. We used pipe cleaners to attach the bells onto the plates. Fine motor skills galore. 

Since we’ve been making instruments, the children have told us that their parents play piano, trumpet, guitar, drums, and violin. If anyone would like to come in and play their instrument for a family share, we would absolutely love it. Do we have any singers? 

Next week: papier mache maracas!

Have a musical weekend,

Therese