crazy weekend

Ming Ming has been very busy during the weekends. This past Saturday, She had ballet and music together back to back in the morning, headed back home and had lunch with all the kids in Anne and Keven's place, then went to see a women's basketball match at the university with Nourit and Avi, Antoine and Mike as well. We had an early dinner with Myra, the daughter of my former adviser from Hong Kong who is now doing her undergrad at UChicago. And in the evening, we headed out again to the SHOP, where Popo danced every morning, to a fundraising concert. As we left with Popo, Antoine commented that next week we could take Popo to a disco!

Popo at the concert

The band was pretty good, but Ming Ming prefered to go upstairs to a soft room where they played kid's music.

On Sunday, Ming Ming had her Chinese class in the morning. In the afternoon she went to see a ballet performance at the university (La Bayadere) with Antoine. And in the evening,  the neighbors gathered at our place for a collective dinner and to watch the Oscar ceremony together.
All these packed activities, and WITHOUT me! I was working during the weekend, then spent Sunday evening watching a very long Chinese documentary at Doc Film. It was thanks to Antoine that Ming Ming had such a fun weekend!

School update: Joseph

Joseph!

-- Hannah and Emily
02/24/20120

The excitement has been building ... For the past 2 weeks we've been learning all about the story of Joseph and his many colored coat to prepare for going to see the grade school perform the show "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." We've been retelling the story in class together and making some of the characters from the story. We really enjoyed describing our own dreams and imagining how Joseph would interpret them. On Wednesday, Rabbi Holman came to our class and gave us a dramatic retelling of the story, which had us giggling and jumping in to help tell the story. He was very impressed with how much of the story we already knew. Today we went to see the show and were totally awed. The kids sat for the whole show enthralled which is the highest praise these critics can offer :)

This week was also exciting because when we got to school on Tuesday morning our amaryllis bulb had bloomed! As we compared the blossom to our prediction drawings it became clear that this flower was very different from what we were expecting.

On Friday we wrote stories using "Rory's Story Cubes". These dice have simple pictures on each side which, as the children roll them, inspire new directions for our story writing. For example here is Bella's story; the dice she rolled showed an arrow and an alien: The arrow said "turn your hand the other way. No, turn your elbow the other way." Then a giant came. And then there was an alien who lived in space and he jumped on the giant. The giant ate him because he was very mean. The End. We look forward to continuing to explore using the dice to spark our imaginations.

Next week we'll begin learning the story of the holiday of Purim and, most importantly to our class, learning new songs!

Our Kindergarten will be celebrating the 100th Day of Kindergarten on Monday, February 27th. Stop by the Kindergarten while dropping off your child this Monday and discover how the children have been preparing for this special day, and focusing on the number 100 in so many different ways!

Here's a link to an article the staff found very interesting. It explains why play-based preschool experiences foster later success: click here

Popo's party

The Chinese grandparents organized a party. It was a get-together to have fun, and to thank Laura - the manager of the center - for so generously lending out the center's yoga room to house the dancers during the harsh winter days.

they started with a dance routine for the center photographer to capture some movements

Taichi

the party performance started: the first program featured popo and two friends dancing. Ming Ming was the third performer, she sang two songs.


Ming Ming singing

group photo

let the feast start!

The party was also some sort of farewell for Popo; she would be leaving Chicago in less than two weeks. 

ice skating update

MM's first time going to a hairdresser

She was reluctant at first, but once she sat on that chair, it was all smiles. She was so proud!

done!

Jeff and Laura's fashing(mardi gras) party

MM the ladybug

Lily the butterfly

me doing face painting

the kids lined up and waited for their turns

scarecrow and go go dancer

Hugo the viking

making music

Party at Paola and Jacob's

Jacob made a mouse and a seal out of pizza dough for the kids

eating their mouse and seal

their new game: head butting

MM and Anissa

kids sitting to listen to Regi play

Kaukau's valentine gift for Ming Ming

THANK YOU - to LKY and Selina

A big THANK YOU to Janet for all the new Chinese books!! Ming Ming was so happy when we got them last week. We still haven't read them all, at the moment MM's favorite is 晶晶的腿.

Also a belated thank you to Selina Yiyi for this book! It was a lot of fun reading it.

This is one of MM's favorite, we would read it and act out the "scratch-tap code". Selina yiyi you should practice it too, so that we can play together next time we meet.

another funny poem that MM really enjoys.

school update

school letter  Feb 5th
This past week was all about Tu B'Shevat, the birthday of the Trees! From singing songs with Shari to making observations of our Amaryllis plant, we had a ball! We named the Amaryllis parts on our larger than life illustration that the children colored in so beautifully!

Read books about how paper is made & the rainforest and it's amazing trees and the animals that live in them. And even planted some wildflower seeds!
It will be such a surprise to see if our wildflowers and Amaryllis plant have changed since last week.

In honor of Tu B'Shevat we are "growing" our own tree in the classroom! The Green Room went on our first "mini field trip" to the park across the street from Akiba to observe the amazing trees in our own neighborhood. We collected branches and bark to add to our class tree along with leaf rubbings & prints. This week we will put our tree together. 

Week of February 6-10 

02/12/2012

 

This week we continued celebrating Tu B'Shevat and learning about plants.  Our amaryllis bulb continues growing at an amazing rate and the children have really become quite astute little scientists as they observe and compare their observations to their earlier predictions.  Even greater surprises await them as we anticipate that the bud which has grown will open next week.  We also continued the Green Room tradition of making paper.  We have decided to make this activity a regular part of the class for several reasons - it helps us teach the children to be good stewards of the Earth by making the most of our resources; it builds many of the muscles in the hand which are integral to fine motor development, especially those used in drawing and writing; and last but of course never least, it is an opportunity for the children to create truly beautiful art and to experiment with a number of artistic principles such as tone and texture.

A big thank you to Laura, Anya's mom, for coming in to teach us about how trees eat and drink.  Not only did the kids have a great time "coloring" with the chlorophyll in spinach leaves, but they really took in and remembered her lesson on how tress make food.  When we had a fruit salad party in celebration of Tu B'Shevat with the Purple Room on Wednesday the Purple Room teachers were both impressed and surprised at the detailed answers to their question of "what do trees need?" 

A glimpse into a typical Thursday in the Green Room

Ming Ming and Bella

talking about which animals need trees

relaxing at the end of Yoga