January 2015

Happy New Year! I hope everyone one had a very nice holiday break!

Before we left for break, our Rojo classroom was very busy and active. In December, we have started to learn how to thread a needle and sew a button on in Practical Life.  With Miss Katherine, our gardening and cooking specialist, the children worked hard to prepare their holiday gifts for their parents. We also finished up our Culture units on North America and on reptiles. The children worked with and explored our North America puzzle map. Some of the children traced the map as well.

I told you in the November blog that we were going to have a reptile visitor come to our classroom. The visitor became very popular with the children, his name is “Crash” and he is the pet tortoise in an MCH elementary classroom.  A couple of the elementary students brought Crash to our room and gave us a little presentation on him, giving our Rojo children a chance to see an interesting retile, watching him walk in the middle of our circle. It also allowed our students an opportunity to see older children in the elementary level being role models; showing leadership skills in handling Crash and teaching us about the tortoise.

The children are still enjoying the specialist lessons in gardening/cooking, Spanish, and music. Our parent volunteers came in again working with the children in food preparation, reading to the children and writing down (transcribing) the children’s stories.

2014 is now behind us, and we are going to start 2015 with fun and engaged learning. In January, we are starting our new units. For Geography, we are starting to learn about South America now. We will be exploring the South America puzzle map, listening to Brazilian music, reading about the cultures there, as well as the Rainforest plants and animals. In Science, we are starting to learn about Ocean Life. We will be exploring sea life through art, music, puppets, reading books and writing. It will be a busy and interesting month!