Dear Rainbow Families,
The Rainbows have continued to explore the senses through a variety of means. To emphasize the idea that we can feel/touch with more than our hands, the Rainbow teachers took a box, cut a hole in the top, and took turns hiding individual objects inside it. Then they had each Rainbow take off their shoes and socks and take turns putting their foot through the hole, feeling the different objects, and guessing what they might be. (The objects included a seashell, a plastic spoon, a sponge, a ball, and a pom-pom.) The Rainbows had great fun feeling with their feet and taking guesses. The Rainbows next have been concentrating on the sense of sight, reading “The Five Senses – Sight” by Maria Rius, JM Parramon, and JJ Puig, as well as “Your Eyes and Ears” by Justin McCory Martin. They have been using this sense of sight to hunt for squares, rectangles, and circles in the classroom, an activity which also led to a great lesson using the unit blocks to distinguish between squares and rectangles. They also combined the senses of touch and sight by painting with toothbrushes – feeling the texture of the toothbrushes and watching what kind of brushstrokes they leave on the paper.
The Rainbow’s interest in sea life continues to blossom. The children have been borrowing books on sea life from the classroom and then sharing something they learned from the borrowed book with their classmates at circle time. This has been a wonderful community experience as the children have truly been learning from one another and each has had the opportunity to share something they know. And once a child has returned a book, s/he may take out another. Another circle time activity was having each Rainbow act out a sea creature while the rest guessed what it was – we saw a whale, starfish, hammerhead shark (which even hammered with its head!), a shark, among others. The teachers have also put white “beach” sand in the sand table and the Rainbows are so enjoying playing there with plastic fish, whales, and sea creatures, plus a real sea horse fossil. They also made their own fish this week by wrapping newspaper around wadded paper towels, taping it altogether, cutting out tail shapes, and then painting them.
IMPORTANT NOTICE – Please return all borrowed sea life books to the Rainbow Room tomorrow. The teachers need them back. Thanks!
Also – don’t forget to stop in for “Bring An Adult to Free Play” Day tomorrow (Friday), from 8am-10am.
Cheers,
Martha