Week 17

What a great week we've had here in Mrs. P.'s class! We played new instruments, learned even more about Japan, and  practiced our sight words to near perfection! Mrs. P. has asked that all of her classroom Olympians practice their sight words at home, every day! All students have had flashcards sent home with them, and they should be using them as much as possible. Here at school we like to play "teachers versus students" with the cards. Students get to "keep" whichever words they get right and "give" the ones they get wrong to the teachers, and then count the totals to determine a winner! This is a great activity for our students to do at home, and can easily be adapted to a "parents versus kids" match. However, as the teachers in Mrs. P.'s class can attest, the students always win!

In music this week, students got to try out a new instrument: the xylophone! Our class learned how to play this instrument and how each bar makes a different sound. The students doubled up on each xylophone and each took responsibility for hitting specific notes with their mallet. Bigger bars made lower sounds, while the smaller bars made higher sounds, and each student had the chance to experiment with making various different tones with the xylophones.

In human growth and development class, students learned about the different relationships and interactions they may be faced with throughout their lives through the use of "circles." Circles are visual representations of levels of personal space that students can use to determine what amount of space is appropriate in various different social situations. Beginning with private purple circles which refer to the personal spaces of individual people themselves, and expanding to the red "stranger" circles which tell us how to interact with those people we don't know, circles help inform students how to touch, trust and talk to various people they will be involved with throughout their lives. A great way to put circles into practice at home is to identify which social circles members of your student's family and community are situated in.