A week of work

We worked on our dictionary pages.

 We learned about various artists and wrote about them. The counting jar had a teen number.  It was tricky for us to make a matching set.

 Edgar Degas liked to paint horses and ballerinas.  He also was a sculptor.  We sculpted ballerinas, just like Degas.







We worked in large groups and small groups, practicing our literacy and math skills.

 Friday, we started the day with reading the newspaper.............the Room 101 News, that is.

 Our versions of Van Gogh's sunflowers are ready to be hung!

Whew!  What a week!

A week in review

In addition to all the excitement we had this week learning about art and opening our Beatrix Potter's Nursery, we were quite busy!  We explored and compared 2 and 3 dimensional shaped objects, worked on the classroom computers to strengthen our math and literacy skills, began making our Spring Eggs book, met in reading groups and even looked ahead and began to make our calendar markers for next month.............when we will learn about frogs and toads!  

Author and artist - Beatrix Potter

Part of our study of art also includes learning about author and artist Beatrix Potter.  She wrote her books in the early 1900's.  We heard about her when we read the American Girl, Samantha story and also when we learned about Teddy Roosevelt!

Potter wrote about and painted beautiful watercolor paintings of small animals.  So, room 101 has opened it's own nursery.  Turbo the rabbit and Suzy and Speedy the gerbils have arrived.  We will be visiting the nursery, and painting the animals over the coming weeks.  This is very exciting!

Art in Kindergarten is exciting!  We have been working and learning about colors, lines and brush strokes.  This week we reviewed the primary and secondary colors, hot colors and cool colors,  and created our own palette and portfolio.  In addition to sketching and painting self portraits and portraits of our classmates, we have explored contemporary art and have emulated the works of artists like Jackson Pollack and Henri Matisse.  We love how marvelous creations can be made by oozing the paint onto the canvas or shaking it on with objects jacks and balls!

We have also begun to learn about the Impressionists.  This week we painted zippy strokes like Claude Monet as we re-created his painting of the Japanese bridge.  Then we studied Pierre Auguste Renoir and learned that like Monet, he painted things as they witnessed them in life, but he preferred to paint people and their experiences and expressions.  These artists would paint the same thing many times and it would look very different depending on the time of day and the lighting.  The Dancers was the Renoir that we replicated.  Be sure to ask your child about this...........we concluded if you really study the painting, you can almost hear the music!

Ms. Fallon, Pine Glen's art teacher, was kind enough to stop in and share her real palette, some of her books and her love of this topic with us.

This art exploration has lead to many great books and discussions.  We are practicing our math skills as we explore shape and our journal writing reflects what we have been learning.  It is amazing!

Next week we have more artists to introduce.  Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt are just a few.

Pine Glen's art aficionados are looking forward to the trip to the Museum of Fine Arts in April, but would not mind if we went to France instead to see Monet's actual Japanese Bridge.  Linnea, the character in a story we read, got to go!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Room 101 celebrated Saint Patrick's Day today.  Liam, the leprechaun, visited our room hiding treasures for the students and teachers!  We received necklaces and pins!  Boy did he leave a lot of leprechaun dust!

Pine Glen alumnae stars from the Burlington High School hockey team visited the school today.  They will be participating in the state championship  game at the TD Bank Garden in Boston on Sunday.  The entire student body gave them an encouraging applause and wished them success.  Tickets may be purchased in advance via Ticketmaster if you would like to go cheer them on!

We were also visited by BHS students and Pine Glen alum who will be performing in the BHS production of Kiss Me Kate to be held at the Folgelberg Auditoruium at BHS next weekend.

A Week in Review

What a wonderfully busy week we had in Room 101!  Check us out in these photos.  We were wondering what a Leprechaun might look like and created them on the computer.  Then we wrote sentences describing their appearance.  We also wrote notes to Liam the Leprechaun suggesting some safe places to hide his treasure.  We tried to use some of the direction words to help guide him to the perfect spots!  Liam wrote us back!

We are in the process of creating two books and are working on making our own dictionaries.

Even though we already had our math facts quiz, we still practice our flashcard.  Keep practicing at home as automaticity is critical.  We have also been practicing the spelling of number words and the connection between number words and their values. 

Exploring with large and small pattern blocks, geoboards and geoblocks we have created many designs.  We are learning how interchangeable some of the shapes are, and have explored some of the similarities and differences. 

Quite a few of our classmates have been sick.  We wish them a speedy recovery, and are taking care of ourselves by making sure we are washing hands and using hand sanitizer.