"A mouse in her room woke Miss Dowd.
She was frightened, it must be allowed.
Then a happy thought hit her -
To scare off the critter,
She climbed down from her chair and meowed."
- Author Unknown
2nd Grade students are studying the continent of Asia so they read the book entitled Spotlight on Asia by A.R. Schaefer. They also watched a video clip from Brain Pop Jr. on Ancient China to learn many interesting facts about what came from that country, how the Great Wall got built and who was Confucius. They then read The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop and Kurt Wiese and Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong. Both folktales had some very interesting lessons and twists in the plots. Their task for the next lesson is to decide which story they want to "act out" without using any written script. They will be using their creativity to retell the story.
Since students in grade 1 are studying our national symbols, we discussed the bald eagle, the great seal and the statue of liberty. Students were surprised to find out how this symbol of freedom measures up. They listened to the story entitled Emma's Poem - the voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser. Emma Lazarus's now famous poem, written as part of the fundraising campaign, is displayed in the statues's museum located on the second floor in the pedestal. Working with partners, they also did a reader's theater of the book.
Students in Jr. K are studying about Africa and during their library lesson they helped read the story entitled Traveling to Tondo - a Tale of the Nkundo of Zaire retold by Verna Aardema.This folklore is about a civet cat who meets with extraordinary and unexpected delays on his way to his wedding with his friends as attendants. The children helped out with the reading by repeating the words of the people who live in the rain fores of Zaire. Their language is called Lonkundo (Lon-KOON-doh) and the students said the vocabulary words in that language.
Third graders continued doing their research work using encyclopedias in the media center and they worked with the same partners from the World Book Encyclopedia online lesson. They used the indexes of the encyclopedias to locate the correct volume and pages to answer research questions and got very excited while finding out some very interesting facts.
We will compare both types of research during our next lesson.
Alpha students have been studying all about Dr. Seuss in honor of his March 2 birthday and "The Lorax" movie which opened in theaters this month. To continue the celebration we read The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and the children helped along by reciting the alphabet at the end....what to know why? ... Just read the sequel to the famous Cat in the Hat soon to find out!
Kindergarten students discussed all the habits of leprechauns and listened to two stories in honor of St. Patrick's Day, which will be celebrated during their spring break. Lucky O'Leprechaun by Jana Dillon and takes place on St. Patrick's Day eve when Meghan and Sean get help from their three grandaunties and manage to capture a sly leprechaun. Clever Tom and the Leprechaun by Linda Shute, is about clever Tom Fitzpatrick who thinks his fortune is made when he captures a leprechaun and forces him to reveal the hiding place of his gold, but the leprechaun is clever too.
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