Bravo

I hope    everyone enjoyed the performance as much as I did.  

Congratulations to the children and Jan for all their hard work and an inspiring presentation.

Explorations

One activity choice during Friday's Math Exploration" was to build a building that fit on your "property" (the rectangular shape on the paper).  It was a challenge to remain in a specific area with out going over onto another person's yard but the children came up with some very creative solutions.

After lunch the

 engineering crew was out building dams and canals to control the water flow on the playground.

What's this?

Today, your child brought home a 3x5 card with a square cut out of the middle.  The square was covered with a piece of foil.  If you look closely, you will find a pin prick in the middle of the foil. What is it?  Art?  Recycling?  No, it's a magnifier.

That's right the pin hole is a magnifier.  This was one experiment we did in connection with our discussion of light. If you hold the card near your eye and look at small writing, for example a newspaper, (0r a computer screen also works great because it has it's own light source)  you will find the the writing is enlarged.  This is possible because the closer you are to an object the image creates a larger image on your retina.  The blurriness or clearness of the image had to do with how your eye is able to bend the light.  To look up this "exploration" on the web, click here.

If you child did not bring home the pinhole magnifier you can create one with your fingers:

We also learned about light and color from Bill Nye the science guy.

Hand-On Museum

An en-lightened time was had by all today at the Hands-On Museum.  Thank you for to Karen, Alec's mom, and Kjirsten, Lea's mom, and Kristen, Ian's mom, for helping at the museum.  We couldn't have done it without them.

Tiles

The tiles the children made last month at the Art Association are done.  

Each child has a tile in their cubby to take home.  The rest of the tiles are installed in a table that will be auctioned off this Saturday. I heard the table is beautiful.  I can't wait to see the finished product. 

Thank you, Heidi, for all your efforts in making this project a success.

Light and Sound

 

Spring brings more light and sounds to Ann Arbor as the days grow longer and the song birds return.  Light and sound will also be filling the rooms at Summers-Knoll since "LIght and Sound" is our focus of study for the remainder of the year. 

The unit will include a variety of  hands on activities that will help the children understand light and sound better.  We will begin our study exploring various aspect of light.  On Friday, we will be taking a trip to the Hands-on-Museum to participate in a science lab called "Bright idea".  Remember, we will be eating lunch at the museum so you child needs to bring a sack lunch.

Thank you

Thank you  to all the children and parents who made teacher appreciation day so special.  It definitely took a village to pull off this event.  Volunteers took the children to a play while the teachers ate and enjoyed relaxation treatments; food and flowers magically appeared, everything was amazing.  I love my album filled with the collages made by the children.  When I looked at it I reflected on each child's uniqueness and special talents.

Thank you for a lovely day.

Elaine