We talked a lot about lines this week. Learning about lines is the second part of our art lesson series. . .but we took it a lot farther than that. . .
Lines that make letters, lines that make art, lines that make shapes (in Spanish!) and lines on the map. We found all kinds of lines around our school, on our clothes, in books and outside. We made different lines out of pipe cleaners while listening to stories, we sang a song about a very special line on the globe (Equator!), we practiced following lines on paper by tracing our names and drew lines to match numbers with objects of that number. We drew lines under vowels in words, drew lines around words we could sound out and stood in lines to get ready to up and downstairs. We looked at maps and found blue lines that are rivers. We listened to a song about a river (Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss), danced to it, and drew our own map (a music map!) using only one line. We tried to follow our music map using a paint brush. Can you follow your child's map? (Youtube has several good versions of the song with pictures of Strauss' great 'stache!)
On Friday (Science Friday! Only without Ira. . .) we talked about magnets and how tiny parts of magnets line up just so. Lines again! The kids conducted their own experiment and, by themselves determined that magnets will only stick to metal. Smarty pants! We talked about the earth being a magnet and watched as a bar magnet floating in water will turn to point north all on it's own. Science is magic, people!
Easiest magnet experiment in the world:
You need:
A bar magnet
A piece of styrofoam (just bigger than the magnet) or several pieces if they are thin
a large bowl of water (several times wider than your piece of styrofoam
Float the bar magnet on top of the styrofoam (or stack several small pieces, like from a take-out box that you tore apart) and place it gently in the water. Wait several seconds for the ripples to settle. turn the styrofoam so that the S end is pointing north. Wait and watch. It is pure science magic, I tell you!
Your kids are doing great. We have been working in small groups once a week to work on reading/letter levels. I will start sending home some homework on Fridays this week or next so please have your child bring their folders each day!
Don't forget: Field trip this Thursday. Dinosaurs!!! I will email details. Thank you! Keep working at home.
Letter learners: Review the letters in your name, and letters Hh, Mm, Aa, Tt
Ready to readers: keep practicing short vowel words like cat, map, mop, sit, top, cup, etc. Throw in some harder ones like flag, drum, scrap, et. It is okay if they can't get the word, just practice sounding out each letter in order.
I have told many of you, but my favorite learn to read website and app is STARFALL.COM if you can, you should pay the $30/year to upgrade to more.starfall.com but the free stuff on starfall.com is awesome as well.
The alphabet and the learn to read program is available on an app and is worth the 3 bucks.
My second place reading app?
Reading Raven
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