Thanks to one of our parents who works as a radiologist came in to share what she does at the hospital. As she shared and described her work, the children’s jaws dropped! Looking at those images and pictures, we were amazed and the children looked and listened with undivided attention. Thank you so much for coming and sharing your stethoscopes with us! You have deepened the children’s understanding about this special community helper!
The children were busy as bees this week digging deeper into what each community helper’s jobs are, working as a team to create a child size community helper, and making their “What is in my tool box” projects.
Learning about digraphs and blends are a huge challenge for the children. This week we embarked on the next journey in the phonic lessons. The children discovered that sounds do not stand alone and that when two sounds are together they make a new sound. In writing, the children started working on listening to the digraphs and blends and making their marks in the booklets. We continue to read the High Frequency books and we can see children are getting better at recognizing the high frequency words.
Part of the fun of our lessons is to listen to what the children are asking and planning ways to discover the answers together. These weeks, whenever we go on our walk to the parks, they notice the water in the bucket on the road freezes while the water in the river never freezes. We did a little science experiment to find out the difference between confined water and running water. They were amazed when they found out that running water almost never freezes compared to still water.
A view of what the children have been working on at the music lessons.
We have officially entered the brutal winter of Shinshu. We felt it especially when we went on our regular walks to the parks. The bitter wind blows hard making rosy cheeks, chap lips, and running noses on the children. Yet they braced themselves as they ran loose outside.
We set up a listening center where the children can take turns listening to stories on EPIC, a digital reading platform that is widely used in schools in the United States. Each child gets 5 minutes to choose the stories they want to listen to during free choice time. Most of them have been utilizing it and are loving the variety of books they can listen to. Other times, the children enjoy making crafts or playing a game or two with a friend.
