The Cardinals Blog 2024-25: Play-Dough Making, Self-Portraits, Parachute Fun , First Assembly and more....

Monday

In Spanish class with Alicia, she greeted us by saying each Cardinal's name one at a time and then asked friends in Spanish "how are you feeling". Alicia taught friends the Spanish words for "Good morning" and how they were feeling. Example, Buenos días Julian, ¿Cómo estas? - Julian then answered "muy bien" - "very good or okay". We then had a moment of silence, first Alicia tapped her singing bowl and the Cardinals began our silence and settled their bodies. It was great seeing how our new Cardinals are already doing a great job, along with our Cardinals from last year!! We are so proud of our Cardinals!! Alicia then read the book Se Contar by Bobbie Kalman followed by going over numbers 1-10 in Spanish. Today it was Colby's turn to squeezed la vaca!

Friends spent time running and playing with a parachute out on Nourie Green field near Tyson house here on campus. What a fun time!!

Tuesday

We have talked about self-portraits with our Cardinals and so today we began to work on them!! What are self-portraits - Each month the Cardinals will work in small groups and individually draw their own self-portraits. Friends look in mirrors to take a closer look at the details that make up their features such as hair, lips, ears, eye color and how many of each they have. Friends learned where these details are located on their bodies and how to translate these important details on to paper. As the school year progresses, it is truly amazing to see how these drawings evolve from simple stick drawings to faces and bodies filled with color and many many details. Friends also gain insight as to the beauty of themselves and do not need to rely on a mirror!

The Cardinals returned their library books to our lower school library today. Friends then settled and listened to the story, Rick -The Rock of Room 214 read by Michelle, our lower school librarian. Followed by each Cardinal choosing and checking out a book to bring back to our classroom!!

In PE class with Josh, he explained that today, we would be working with hula hoops. Josh asked friends to find a hoop and sit in it. He then gave directions such as when the music starts, friends need to move away from the hoop and do the action given. When the music stopped friends needed to find a hoop and sit in it. Friends did actions such as running like a cheetah, hopping like a bunny, galloping like a horse and jumping like a frog. At the end of class friends got a chance to explore any action/s they want to do more of. Ask your Cardinal what they like about Gym class?

Wednesday

Self Portraits continues

Art class with Johanna started with friends looking at different sizes, shapes, colors and types of seashells. The Cardinals made many observations and had much to say about the shells. Johanna then gave a shell to each friend to observe up close. Followed by each Cardinal working one at a time to create a group masterpiece. Friends did a great job waiting for their turn. Johanna encouraged friends to think about how they want to add their piece while waiting! Friends then went to the tables and used markers and stickers to create their own individual spirals. Ask your Cardinal what they did in art class?

Thursday

Late last week, the Cardinals helped to make our first batch of play dough! Friends took turns measuring, pouring, stirring ingredients, getting water from the sink and deciding what color our play dough should be. We chose the color by voting between the colors green and yellow. The class met on the front rug. A teacher explained what we were going to do. The Cardinals were then asked if they wanted our play dough to be yellow, to go stand on the red rug. The teacher continued if you want our play dough to be green go stand in the block area. We then count how many friends were on the red rug (12 ) followed by how many friends were in the block area (2). We as a class then worked to figure out which group had the most friends. We figured out that yellow had the most and so our play dough is yellow. The color green will be one of the colors to vote on for our next batch of new play dough!! Ask your Cardinal what they did to help make our play dough?

Voting on our play dough color is another way of visually seeing and beginning to understand the concept of less and more with numbers. Mathematics and literacy is in everything we do and all around us. In making our play dough we used words such as six cups, how many more, one and a half, table spoon, measuring and science components. As we worked with this hands on activity, teachers helped friends work through beginning to understand and figuring out concepts.

Alicia met us at the Spanish room door and invited us into Spanish class. Today we went over numbers 1-10 in Spanish. Then Alicia placed numbers 1-5 on the rug. Friends two at a time got to play the Swatter Game in which Alicia called out a number in Spanish and showed that number of fingers. Friends then needed to figure out which number it was by tapping on the number with the swatter. Our Cardinal friends really enjoyed this game! Today it was Ellery's turn to squeeze la vaca!

The Cardinals having fun with balls out on Smith field here on campus!!

Friday

We had our first lower school assembly in the auditorium early this morning! Andrea welcomed us and then we were led by 4th graders in singing our assembly hello song! The song consists of us standing and clapping our hands, dancing, patting our legs and stomping our feet to different parts of the song! After announcements, students were introduced to all the teachers in lower school by hearing interesting facts about them.

After our assembly the Cardinals headed off to the music room for music class with Keisha. Keisha shared some rules of the music room before class! We began class by dancing with scarves and making big movements with our bodies! The Cardinals then sang our hello song Jambo, followed by Keisha introducing a few of her animal friends and their different tones of voice. For example Betty Butterfly- has a whispering voice, Bunny Peter rabbit - has a speaking voice, Whooty the Owl - has a singing voice and Bruce the Bear - has a loud voice. We then got a chance to test out these different voices! We then sang along and made movements such as bouncing, marching, jumping, rolling our arms and wiggling. As Keisha played her guitar and sang Turn Cinnamon.