Musical Adventures

Here are some photos of the class engaged in our study of sound and music. Children made, played and paraded around using their zithers, digerdos, bells and drums. The Springfield Symphony Orchestra's Musical Petting Zoo visited today. Pictures of that event are included.

Happy Chinese New Year

We had an extraordinary treat to day. One of our families shared their traditions for Chinese New Year. Children made lanterns and masks for their Chinese Zodiac animal. They played a game which involved chasing away the lion who scared a little girl. There was lots of excitement, noise and delight as the children banged and ran after the lion. Friday Feast was a delicious meal of Chinese noodles, dumplings, and sweet rice balls.  Thank you for sharing a special day with us!

Catch up

Wow, I cannot believe we have been back two weeks! We began our study of music and sound. Last week we made bells, this week zithers. We also had our pea estimating activity and have conducted a survey about favorite musical instruments. T he wind family won. Of course the lively dramatic play and productive construction activities continue. New friendships are blossoming, older friendships remain strong. Happy New Year.

Puppets and drumming

Back to it!

We jumped back into things after Thanksgiving and got right to work on our family puppets. The first step was to count how many members are in our family, cut out stencils for the bodies, glue popsicle sticks together and paint skin color on the faces. Everyone has done that first step and some children have moved on to the second step of adding facial features, clothes and hair. The last step will be to make a house for the puppets.

Some children also began authoring and illustrating their own books. So far we have a book about Hannukah, a story of Ninjas and a tale about fairies.

And some photos of our Friday Feast bakers, who made delicious muffins to accompany our apple slices, and the always lively areas of Dramatic Play and Blocks.

Music Class with Tim

Tim was our guest music teacher today and he had us singing, swaying, circling "around the zero" and walking like elephants! We also worked in pairs to make wooden "puppets" dance on the end of a board to the tune of "This Old Man".