Dear Little Stars Families,
The Little Stars recently finished up their music curriculum with several engaging activities, books, and songs. They had a wonderful time making music shakers out of 3 sizes of cardboard rolls – toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, and industrial-size toilet paper rolls – by painting the rolls, applying oak tag paper to one end with tape and rubber bands, filling the rolls with a substance of choice (salt, rice, plastic beads, dried beans, etc.), then closing up the open end, again with oak tag paper, tape and rubber bands. They had such fun using their shakers to accompany various songs or to play just by themselves. Some music books they enjoyed were “Ah, Music” by Aliki, a compendium on all aspects of music (instruments, genres, composers, performers); “The Maestro Plays” by Bill Martin, Jr. with vibrant pictures by Vladimir Radunsky, a playful rhyming book about a maestro’s recital; and “The Happy Hedgehog Band” by Martin Waddell with pictures by Jill Barton, about a band of hedgehogs who love to play an assortment of drums and attract other animals to their enthusiastic music-making. And a new song the Little Stars learned was “Che Che Kule,” a call-and-response song from Ghana.
Moving from music to a new curriculum on the senses, the Little Stars have initially focused on “hearing,” allowing for a smooth transition between the two foci. The Little Stars first played a guessing game of “What’s Inside My Shaker?” with each child playing her/his shaker while their classmates guessed, then they read the informative non-fiction book “Hearing” by Sharon Gordon. They also listened attentively to recorded soundtracks of different animal sounds, guessing the calls/sounds of a horse, rooster, monkey, elephant, duck, sea lion, cat, dog, sea gull, and gorilla.
Aside from the senses, the Little Stars are also focusing on the season of spring. They recently read the non-fiction book “How Do You Know It’s Spring?” by Alan Fowler, then discussed how each of them knows. Responses included “Flowers grow in my garden,” “Birdies,” “Grass turns green,” “The heron comes back,” “Rain,” “The snow goes away,” and “ I walk to the playground.” They also used markers and crayons to create a spring mural together – look closely and you can see lovely spring elements!
Finally, Spanish continues to thrive in the Little Stars Room with the children learning the Spanish word for spring – primavera – as well as days of the week and numeros 1-10. And a new Spanish song the Little Stars are singing is “Des Colores,” which describes the colors of spring.
Hope you are all enjoying the lovely spring weather!
Martha