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Mosaic Minutes

Early Elementary Update December 2012

1/9/2013

 
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Before Christmas, we spent two weeks learning about the Lenape tribes that lived in New Jersey before the European settlers arrived. We especially enjoyed playing Lenape games and making clay pots.

This week we learned about the explorers who traveled around the world looking for an easy route to India. Did you know that they wanted spices to mask the taste of rotten food? After reading from A Child's History of the World, we smelled many different spices. We also learned about navigation methods. We made our own compasses, using magnetized paper clips. We also learned constellations, and painted pictures of the night sky. At the end of the day, we enjoyed Eric Carle's Draw Me a Star.

Next week we will learn about the lives of the early European settlers.

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Have to Have a Habitat

11/20/2012

 
On Monday, our Early Elementary students learned about the different habitats we will find in our study of New Jersey. The children were able to tell us about these habitats in their own words:
Animals live in habitats. They need food, and they need to be safe. They all need water to drink. Some animals need water to swim in. Animals need to be in the right temperature. Some need big space and others live in small homes.

Water Habitat

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All of these animals live in the water. Some of these animals live in New Jersey. There are two frogs in the water. There are two ducks in the water, and one goose. There are two alligators. Alligators do not live in New Jersey. All of these animals are wild animals.

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To help the children think about habitats, we also read these books: The Salamander Room and Make Way for Ducklings, as well as another installment of Happy Jack Squirrel.

Forest Habitat

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We made a place for the animals to live. This is the forest with bushes and fallen trees. There is a river with rapids. There is a bunny, two deer, a fox and two bears. This habitat is in New Jersey.

Please click the gallery below for more wonderful photos of our habitat projects and discussion. 
Happy Thanksgiving from Sally and Kim!

Early Elementary Fall Update

11/14/2012

 
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We have spent the past several weeks learning more about the world around us. After studying land forms, we started our study of the creatures that live in the sea, making the ocean mural that you see in our class. 


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We learned about size, reading Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? and then went outside to measure with yarn the length of a blue whale. We discovered that it was exactly as long as the church building! Wow! We were very impressed!

Using clay, pipe cleaners, Popsicle sticks, and paper, we created a little tide pool on a table. What beautiful and colorful creatures live there.

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This week, we finally focused our learning on New Jersey. We made maps and discovered that New Jersey has water on three sides, making it a peninsula. Along with our weekly installment of The Adventures of Happy Jack, we read G is for Garden State, and started to make our own alphabet books. We also counted 100 paperclips. Good work! Next week, we will begin learning about the many different habitats here in New Jersey, and the animals that live in them.
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Early Elementary Program

10/9/2012

 
What a delightful group of children join us each Monday for our early elementary class. They are inquisitive and talkative and interested in every activity we bring out. Our cultural geography studies are interwoven with math, reading, and writing games and opportunities.

We started out with the broad view of our world, and we are gradually getting closer to our study of New Jersey. Each week we enjoy a few chapters of Thorton Burgess's wonderful story, Happy Jack Squirrel. We are also watching a large maple tree in the front of the church for changes, and are each drawing pictures for a semester long book about the tree. Ask your children which tree it is, so that you can make observations together when you arrive. 

We have spent the first few weeks of class learning about the earth. Our first week of class we learned about the elements - earth, air, fire, and water - that make up our world, and talked about the animals that live in them. We loved making paper mache globes. Don't they look wonderful? The second week, we learned about the continents and read stories about children from around the world. We made a play house and dress up clothes out of silks, and imagined we lived somewhere far, far away. Last week we moved onto land forms, such as bays and capes, peninsulas and gulfs, isthmus and straights. We each made one out of clay, and next week we will paint them and bring them home. 

Next week we will finally arrive in New Jersey...at the shore. We are looking forward to learning about all of the creatures that we find in the ocean, both big and small, and remembering summer days gone by...

Warmly,
Kim & Sally
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A little free play time at the end of the day
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Autumnal crafts
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Proudly displaying their paper mache globes

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