Dear parents,
As we enter the final stretch of the semester it is such a pleasure to see the students drawing connections between different aspects of the curriculum. With a bevy of new skills and the mid-semester review under their belts, students will spend these next two weeks exploring Don Freeman's book Corduroy, a tale about a stuffed bear in a department store.
Corduroy allows us to build on the notion of reality vs. fantasy as children will be asked to distinguish which items in the story are real and which are make believe. This differentiation helps reinforce logical thinking, reasoning, and understanding. We will continue to discuss point of view, story sequencing, and we will introduce the concept of punctuation (period, exclamation, question mark).
Our Corduroy units anticipate the cold weather (and winter wardrobes) ahead as we discuss and practice fasteners like buttons, zippers, Velcro, and more. Students will race to see who can get dressed for the cold the fastest! We will also celebrate autumn with two new poems.
Fall leaves
I like the leaves in fall
I like their colors bright,
Gold and orange, yellow, red -
What a splendid sight.
I like the leaves in fall,
The way they crunch beneath my feet
Then whisper 'round the driveway
And scatter down the street
Autumn Cheer
I love all the seasons,
But autumn is the best!
Let's put on our sweaters,
Now we are all dressed.
In the leaves, we love to play
And this is what we hears
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch!
That's this season's cheer!
Math stations will incorporate all of the major skills we have worked on so far this semester: measurement, pattern recognition/creation, and sorting. Students will build a home for Corduroy out of blocks and piece together a photograph puzzle. In the coming weeks, instructors will be introducing more mathematical vocabulary (longer, shorter, inside, outside, shapes, more, less, etc); we encourage you to practice these terms at home and in your everyday conversations.
Children will learn about different types of bears in their science rotation and discuss habitats and the concept of hibernation. Then during music and movement, they will pretend to be dancing teddy bears in a game where instructors call out directions for the 'teddy bears' to jump (front, back, left, and right).
At the end of Freeman's story, Corduroy talks about friends and home. Instructors will lead a discussion about the nature of friendship including similarities and differences between our friends, and the qualities that make someone a good friend. It is always exciting to watch friendships develop over the course of the semester and as always, we are grateful to have such a wonderful group of students and families at our New York Kids Club home.
Sincerely,
Gair Morris | 
