Dear River Families,
We had a blast celebrating Halloween at school on Monday! We played Halloween bingo with beginning sounds and ending sounds. We wrote in our journals about our costumes and did Halloween art! Tuesday was our 50th day of school and we welcomed November by starting our unit on European discovery and Native Americans. We began and will continue over the next few weeks to discuss Great Plains and Southwestern Native Americans. The children are beginning to understand the journey of the pilgrim to America and the fact that Native American tribes were the first Northern Americans living on the land they found. We focus on what Native Americans value (natures, animals), what skills they had, where they lived, what the ate, what they wore, and more! As for European discovery, we focused on the trip over the Atlantic Ocean, early villages and learning to survive in the new land. The children explored, looked and touched artifacts from the Longmont Museum that Plains Native Americans made hundreds of year ago. The artifacts included; a war club, a wood and leather drum, glass beaded moccasins, porcupine quills, rock scrapers, shaped-rock projectiles and a leather parfleche (dried and stretched hide into a carryall painted with geometrical shapes).
This unit leads us to our big idea: Thankfulness. Over the next few weeks we will identify the fundamentals needs of humans and discuss what we have, what others do not have and thankfulness for our health, family, education, food, shelter and more. Centers this week included listening to the adventure of, “Gulliver’s Travels”, completing a weekly reader about Thanksgiving and working in our Jr. Great Books on a funny story about a Haitian man who plays dead (Bouki Cuts Wood). The children did a super sight word challenge this week! Math this week included matching object to number line and numbers 8,9,10. The children made fresh squeezed orange juice and completed an instructional writing titled, “How to Make Orange Juice”.
Next week we have a special visitor from the Arvada Art Center who will facilitate a Native American drum circle for the children! Our new share starts next week! The theme asks the children to bring in something handmade (like the Native Americans). It can be a painting, art project or craft-anything handmade by your child!
Have a great weekend,
Ms. Stephanie and Ms. Kira
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