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As a fun way to learn our shapes, our Moonbeam Authors and Illustrators created a class book called “Moonbeam, Moonbeam, What Do You See?” The shapes in our book are created in a very special way…

Kinesthetic activities bring learning to life!  During circle time we made child-sized shapes with tape on the rug. Each child got a turn to place him or herself on the tape so that their body became a side of the shape. Of course we needed several friends to form each shape.  Our kinesthetic activity turned into a wonderful lesson in cooperation and working together. We took photos of the children’s shapes and put them into our class book.

Springtime is ideal for exploring and learning about the natural world around us. Expanding the learning from our classroom, throughout our nature-rich campus, all the way to Pierce Park and Codman Farm, we will learn hands-on about plants and observe how things grow. We’ll investigate the differences between plants and animals and learn about life cycles. Incorporating mathematics into our minds-on curriculum we will practice counting, patterning, and sorting skills along our travels through the spring!

 

During our Read Across America celebration, we explored the art and characters from our favorite Dr. Seuss books. Our Rainbow Room door was transformed into the character- Thing 2 from the “Cat in the Hat!” The children glued red stripes onto tall white cylinder towers to create the legendary hat, from the “Cat in the Hat”.  “The Foot Book” inspired us to trace and paint the children’s feet.  To emulate the pink spots in the snow, from the “Cat in the Hat Comes Back,” the children created a group collage using pink ink pads and foam footprints to produce pink prints across a snowy background.

Rainbow painting

Rainbow Room has been looking to the skies to observe different types of weather, and as always, New England springs are the perfect backdrop for this curriculum unit. We constructed a large 3-D sun, which the children have enjoyed a variety of creative movement activities around. Games and dancing have included “Sally Go Round the Sun,” “You Are My Sunshine,” and “Walking on Sunshine.”

On rainy days we listened to the rain on our roof and windows, and created our own rain sticks. The late snowfall gave us one more opportunity to bring snow indoors for exploration. We also discussed the concept of melting by dropping snow into a small container of water.

Adding to our ongoing theme for this year, “Traditional American Children’s Songs”, we enjoyed singing “If All the Raindrops Were Lemon drops and Gumdrops,” Rain Rain Go Away,” and “Mr. Sun.”

Next month we are looking forward to exploring our beautiful campus in search of signs of spring.

During the month of March 2016 as part of our Read Across America celebration, we were so lucky to have many of our Alumni students, Magic Garden friends, Parents and Community Members visit us and read to the children. Special thanks to everyone who made this literacy celebration a success!