Dear families, As we enter the final stretch of the spring semester, we begin to focus on bringing together all of the elements of our curriculum. It is true that children act as sponges when faced with new information, but after months of introducing new facts, concepts, and skills, it is important to recognize the essential role that reincorporation and review play in the learning process. With that in mind, we will spend the next two weeks with the indelible Dr. Seuss story, Horton Hears a Who. Thanks to the wonderful word play of Dr. Seuss, we will introduce punchy new vocabulary (yelp, whisper, speck, shout, whisper, dust, tiny, vim, vigor), identify action words (running, jumping, etc), review the letters V and W, and continue practicing our phonemic awareness (this is easy to do at home: present two images or objects and ask if they start with the same letter). For our math unit, we all go on a daytrip to Whoville. In the classroom, instructors will build cardboard Who houses (numbered 1-5) and students help create a village of craft stick Whos. We continue to practice counting, one-to-one correspondence, and sorting as the students make appropriate number sets of Whos for each house (3 Whos in house #3) and later organize the sets of Whos in numerical order. As we make our way through the village, we begin to explore the components of a town: What do we find inside a town? Who are the people that live in a town? Whos are from Whoville, where are you from? Though we created a visible Whoville in the classroom, we discuss how in the book, Horton is only able to hear the Whos as they are microscopic in size. This leads to a conversation about how we are able to view small things (microscopes), objects that are far away (telescopes) and allows a reintroduction of the magnifying glass to examine the world around us. The line "A person is a person no matter how small" is key to the central theme of tolerance and respect in Horton Hears a Who. We discuss the importance of respecting all people, colors, sizes, and ethnicities. We believe that as we are each unique individuals we should celebrate not only what we have in common, but also that which makes us different. In that vein, every student will be asked to bring in and present an item from home that means something to them for our very first Show and Tell. Please stay tuned for information regarding 3's Club Graduation Ceremonies, which will be held during the last week of the semester. Locations Managers will be sending out details regarding these year-end celebrations. We hope to see you to commemorate this exciting milestone and wish each of you a very happy Mother's Day this coming Sunday!
Warm Regards, Gair Morris |
