Seeds and Feelings

Dear Parents,

We began our week planting seeds in baggies. Everyone chose between chia seeds, red kidney beans, and popcorn. We folded paper towels in half, and placed them in a baggie with our seeds. We poured a little water in because the class knew that seeds need rain to grow. What else do seeds need? “Sun!” many exclaimed. We counted to see how many of each seed we had chosen: six chia, six popcorn, and five kidney beans. We taped our bags to the window, near the sun we made for our outer space study, and near the real sun. 

We read Earth, How A Seed Grows, Flowers, The True Book of Buds, Under the Ground, and I Know the River Loves Me.

We also read Sometimes I Feel Awful and Steps and Stones, Anh’s Anger Story. We asked the class to name two positive and two negative feelings. They were happy, excited, sad, and nervous. The children gave each feeling a color: happy/orange, sad/blue, nervous/red, and excited/purple. We took turns talking about a time when we felt that way. We talked about how we go from a sad feeling to a happy one. Someone said they felt nervous when they had to get a shot, but felt happy afterwards when they got a lollipop. 

On Wednesday everyone was excited to run through the obstacle course. During circle, two friends said they had never been through an obstacle course. We talked about how feeling excited is one of the feelings on our chart. A few people went through the whole course more than once! One friend said “I can go faster now!”

Thursday we were busy cutting paper with scissors. Some people were cutting shapes while others were making very specific things, like a red chair and a yellow sun. We observed our seeds during circle but didn’t see any growth yet. We checked our seeds in the dark closet - no growth there either. We read Up In the Garden and Down In the Dirt and Red Lemon. We took turns thinking of things we know that grow up from the dirt: flowers, grass, trees, and corn.

Friday morning we read I Was So Mad. We talked about ways to change our feelings from sad or mad to happy. After music with Alex we went out in the yard to look for signs of spring. We saw a black beetle, a red beetle, a few flies, a pile of very busy ants, a spider about to have babies, a dragonfly, a bumblebee, a black bug with white polka dots, and many robins singing in our tree. 

It was good week,

Therese and Nicole

Spring Colors

Dear Parents,

This week we made spring art. 

We used watercolors on Monday. Some friends were excited to make new colors by mixing two. All the colors of the rainbow were visible in our pictures. 

On Tuesday, children cut pictures from bird magazines to make collages. There were birds of prey, flowers, bees, trees, and butterflies. Everyone glued their pictures to different colors of construction paper.

We had our first music class with Alex. We heard singing and a drum playing from the big room, while the other half of the class snapped unifix cubes in the classroom. The children made patterns and shapes galore. 

Wednesday we painted water onto orange, purple, red, and blue tissue paper to create bleeding colors. Two children kept saying, “Mine's bleeding, mine's bleeding!” 

The next day we drew with oil pastels on white paper and added watercolors on top of it to get more color. Some children painted quick circles while others painted long, slow lines.

On Friday we spent the day in the yard. We saw ants outside, and more inside when we came in for the bathroom. 

We read Buds, In A Garden, All About Seeds, and A Tree Can Be. We noticed the tree in the book was similar to our tree in the yard. We hung up our Spring Tree photo and looked at the four seasons that have passed since the beginning of school. We talked about the pattern the seasons make, and that each time it repeats, we are all one year older. 

It was a colorful week,

Therese