Artful SKers!

This was a week of reuniting as an SK family, story-telling about our adventures, and enjoying the process and product of art!  Read on for more details about our time together this week...

Language
- "-et" and "en" family: two new word families joined our ranks!  Bet, get, jet, let, met...ten, when, den, Gwen... there are loads in this bunch!  Challenge your SKer to find (or think of) some that have even more than one letter at the start (like "forget" or "chicken"... those are tough ones!)
- New Decodable Books: We welcome Book #11 and #12 to our friends book boxes that include our new word families.  With two new books, we'll keep them here at school for one more week and then send them home in 4/12 folders to be added to your black book boxes at home. 
- et/at/en/an: comparing word family words, friends worked to distinguish tricky medial vowel sounds and ending sounds too.  
- Journals: beginning/problem/fix-it stories from Spring Break!  Ask your SKer about the story they wrote detailing the trials and tribulations (in a three-part story form) of their time away from school.

Printing
- Alliteration: Our SK friends have made it through all of our letters, so we're starting fresh from the beginning, and writing alphabet alliteration sentences!  We started with the letter "S" and worked together to brainstorm loads of words (and action words!)  "Summer, Sophia, swim, spin, shimmy, sun, school" were a few of our friends' great ideas.  SKers chose words to write, and penned their own sentences like "Sophia spun in the sun with Summer at school in the spring!"  (Wow!)

Math
- Quarter Coins: noticing the size, shape, color, thickness, edges, illustrations, dates, and differences from quarter to quarter - WOW we have coin detectives in our room!
- Quarter trades: trading nickels, pennies, even dimes, for quarters.  Ask your SKer how many of each type of coin could be traded for a quarter, and if they'd rather have 25 pennies or 1 quarter in their pocket...
- Lady Bug Spot Addition/Subtraction: working in pairs, friends pulled two ladybug cards; they started with the ladybug with more spots, and then "counted up" (i.e. "5 + 3... 5, 6, 7, 8") and wrote down their number story 5+3=8.  They also did the same thing when we started subtracting spots, beginning with the larger number and "counting down" (i.e. "5 - 3... 5, 4, 3, 2"), writing down their number story 5-3=2. 
- Surveying: writing questions about their spring break (questions are new for us!), friends surveyed everyone in the room, and marked an x under "yes" and "no" - it was a great opportunity to share their experiences while focusing on the things that others did too! 

- Bar Graphing: compiling our data from above, friends shared how many "yes" responses they got and we charted the results.  Turns out, heading to the pool was the most popular activity, while visiting Cincinnati and having a monkey on one's head were more rare!



A is for Art
- A is for Art Book: enjoying a few pages a day, we've been sharing the works of art from A through Z that we looked forward to viewing at the museum!  We loved learning about when the artist lived, and where they came from... it was a spectacular preview!
- Eric Carle: our SK author provided loads of inspiration through his beautiful video detailing his entire artisitc process, start to finish, aimed at children five and six years old!
- Eric (or Erica!) Carle Artists: relishing the opportunity to create their own "pretty papers" (Eric Carle's name for the painted paper he cuts to use in his collages), friends painted, stamped, brushed and swiped two full size sheets for future use in our art work.  Magnificent work!
- Marina Lee: our sensational Artist in Residence came back for her second session with our SK friends.  We were thrilled to revisit our clay footprints we made earlier this year, glazing them to be put permanently (!) in the ground at our USM playground.  We even got to drum and play the xylophone before painting them too.  All of the above will work to create one of the first ever sonic playgrounds!  What a joyful time for our young artists.

 

Reminders/Announcements:
- Weather gear: While we are not longer slipping into snowpants (!), we still need all friends to come each day with boots, hats, mittens and coats.  It can get mucky, wet, and chilly this time of year!
- Show and Share: A new round is coming up next week!  If your child comes home with news that the next day is their special helper day, they may select TWO things to bring in - the two items can either be a pair, or opposites (i.e. favorite socks... or a black crayon and a white crayon!)  They'll need to give friends three clues to guess their objects with, so practice the night before or on your way to school!
- Rummage at the Rink: You're all receiving more information about our USM Rummage Sale coming home in tote bags today (4/5/13) - thank you for your help in this community effort!
- Thank you!  So many of you were here to help with car circle this week.  We feel so fortunate to have such a kind and generous band of SK families - thank you!
- Art Museum Photos: We'll be adding art museum photos later on today (Friday) - thanks for your patience!