In November and December, we continued our travel to North America and began our studies of Living and Non-Living things, Vertebrates and Invertebrates, Birds and Mammals. We studied the Parts of the Horse and Parts of the Bald Eagle and made books. We also talked about Feelings and have a “Feelings Chart” where children can place their photo on which feeling they are having (happy, sad, excited, angry, etc.) in both Spanish and English. We constructed a Gratitude Tree and children made leaves of what they are thankful for in their lives. We began our Word Study with word families -at, -an, -ap and had fun making up words with these endings. We worked on 1:1 correspondence of our “teens”: 11-20 and on counting and reading numbers from 1-100 (those tricky transitional numbers 29, 30…39, 40…49, 50, etc.).

We took walks to the Lafayette Community Center on Monday mornings and took lots of nature walks, bringing our clipboards, paper and pencils to draw and write what we saw. We finished our Skyhawks program with Coach Donut and started Yoga with Roxanna! We celebrated Kira’s birthday by making a card and singing Happy Birthday! She was so surprised! We practiced our Winter Welcome songs with the Ladybugs and Bumblebees every morning! We made wax votives by melting wax and dipping water balloons and putting flowers around them! They were beautiful as we walked into greet the families singing, “This Little Light of Mine” last Friday afternoon. We hope you enjoyed the program!

In January, we will be traveling to Antarctica and studying Penguins and learning about Arctic and Antarctic animals, Reptiles, Chinese New Year and the 100th Day of School and continuing our Botany studies by learning about roots.

Happy New Year Caterpillar Families!

The biggest news events this month were that Jake joined Caterpillar Classroom full-time!  We welcome him and his family to our classroom.  The second news item is that our play-yard in the back of our school was inspected by our State Licensing Board on October 17th and has been approved!  We have been playing everyday since then on our new equipment.  The children LOVE the climbing structure and the see-saw!  We will be adding new play equipment over the next several weeks so stay tuned. 

Our studies have kept us in North America studying the Bald Eagle and learning all the parts of these amazing birds (talons, beak, body, etc.).  We will be working on a life-size eagle drawing and hanging it up to get an idea of how large of a bird they are in real-life.  We had a presentation on Seasons and introduced our Science curriculum with talking about Living and Non-Living things, a lively discussion which included a talk about cars (they move, need water, solar cars need light, etc.) and leaves on the ground, flowers in a vase, etc.

We are working on our Original Artworks masterpieces which will be a surprise to each family and going home this week.  In Language children are practicing their sound-letter correspondence and learning to blend these sounds and read words like cat, hat, cup, pin, pot, etc., in addition to practicing our reading and handwriting.  In Math, we have worked on our teen numbers (11-19) as well as Odd & Even numbers, looking for patterns!  

In November, we will study Vertebrates and Non-vertebrate animals, Classification of Vertebrates, Mammals, Trees and Leaves and Gratitude and Giving Thanks.

The Caterpillar classroom started our new school year with eight students! We began our year studying the parts of the Caterpillar, making Caterpillar art and reading lots of books about Caterpillars! We reviewed all the routines and classroom rules and got our classroom jobs (pencil sharpener, shelf checker, calendar, etc.). In Language, we studied/reviewed rhyming words, beginning sounds and blending sounds to read. In Math, we studied/reviewed counting to 100, 1:1 correspondence to 10 and above and writing our numbers. We began our study of North America, talking about the animals and making animal books, coloring maps and landmarks. We are now studying apples, their varieties, parts of the apple and will be doing apple tasting.

Upcoming studies include Autumn and Seasons, Living and Non-Living things, Plants and Animals, and Air, Land and Water, including our Language, Math, Practical Life, and Sensorial curriculum.