Grade 1 - January 24-28, 2011

First Grade students will take a look in the mirror and create self portraits that are better than a camera portrait. Colors, patterns and lots of fun taking a closer look at how our features are put together.

Kindergarten January 24-28, 2011

This week we will be looking at birds of the rainforest and then creating some fanciful birds of our own. Students will draw familiar shapes combining them to create a new creature. Color what about color. Lots of bright colors and a few surprising finishing touches. Wait and see what happens.

Nursery - PreK January 24-28, 2011

Exercising our cutting muscles. Gripping the scissors in a good way and coordinating the open close of the hand with the tool, positioning the paper just right. Cutting with scissors is a complex fine motor skill. It is one that young people are eager to learn. This week we will have fun practicing this skill. Making little pieces of big pieces students will cut their own way. What kinds of shapes will they make? Each one will be different. We will collect all of our small pieces and next time we will glue them down on paper. Then what will we do with them? Wait and see.

Early Elementary Grade 1 January 18-21, 2011

Make Way for Ducks!
Grade one students have painted papers with lots of colors and are ready to create a collage on them. Reading or rereading the story Make Way for Ducks is always fun. Students will exercise their fine motor skills by pinching and tearing paper. They will create edge textures that will make their ducks look a bit fluffy. They will put the torn shapes together, head, body, wings with glue sticks and add more details, eyes, duck bills and floppy duck feet. These ducks will be ready for fun in the park, in a puddle or on a pond.

Nursery, PreK and Kindergarden January 18-21, 2011

This week students will explore the concept of transparency when they create translucent designs that look like stained glass windows. Little fingers will tear colored tissue paper into interesting shapes and then glue them onto wax paper. Next they will fold and cut a design for their window from colored paper and place the paper frame over their colors. We will put them on the windows for the sun to shine through.

They will be developing their fine motor skills and a greater awareness of touch.

We will look at pictures of stained glass windows like the one at Chartres Cathedral in France and modern windows made by Matisse.