A Pair of Red Clogs and our water cycle debut

  Our book, A Red Pair of Clogs, by Masako Matsuno, brought us a wonderful lesson on telling the truth.  The setting took us to Japan where we met the author as a young girl.  She told the story about her new, beautiful red clogs.  When she was playing the weather telling game with her friends, one of her clogs cracked.   She was heartbroken.  She knew it was too soon to ask for a new pair, so she purposely got the clogs dirty, dirty, dirty, in hopes that her mother would want to buy her a new pair. Instead, she felt horrible for trying to deceive her mother.

    We talked about the story's setting, theme, characters, and the wonderful onomatopoeia. (The new clogs sing when she walks and runs- "Kara, koro, kara, koro." ) We also noted how the artist depicted the time of day with color.

    We made a weather wheel to take home and track the weather for your familes. I hope the arrow is pointing to rain today.  (It's raining at my house.)

    We also worked on a skit illustrating the water cycle.  The kids enjoyed acting and were very excited about the possibility of a lunch performance next Thursday.  So, WE WILL PERFORM OUR PLAY AT 12:10 PM next Thursday, directly after announcements.   I think you will like it, especially the cute performers.

Afternoon tea in England

We spent another day reading The Glorious Flight.  It was just as great the second time.

We talked about some of the wonderful things we get from France and Great Britain.  France brings us wonderful things like grapes, perfume, berets, the Eiffel Tower, croissants, and French poodles.  While England is known for its double decker buses, the Royal Guard, umbrellas, and tea.

We then pretended that we were airplanes flying across the English Channel.  We actually flew to the bathroom to wash our hands.  When we finally flew back to our classroom, it was like we actually DID fly to England. A lovely tea party was set out for us.

We talked a bit about using our best manners as we sat down for our tea (only after our hostess sat first.) We then politely placed our napkins in our laps as our hostess filled our tea cups (with delicious lemonade.)  We politely sipped our tea as we held up our pinkies.

We were oh so polite as we asked for crackers and cookies to be passed to us.  We had such a delightful time.  It was hard to leave England.

Next week, we will read a wonderful story from Japan.

Our "toast" to Louis Bleriot.

Pinkies up!

Sent from my iPhone

The Glorious Flight and classtime

What a high-flying day we had in class this week.  We read a wonderful book, The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot July 25, 1909,  by Alice and Martin Provensen.  It is another TRUE story.  It tells about the successes and failures of Louis Bleriot in his attempts to build a flying machine.  He tries and tries again, despite failure, broken bones, bruises and other setbacks.  Finally, he succeeds!  He becomes the first man to fly across the English Channel from France to England.  It was an amazing feat.

 

We enjoyed seeing his flying inventions and crashes.  It was such a good lesson of endurance and determination.

We also picked out the onomatopoeia present in the story.  Be sure to ask your child to give you an example of onomatopoeia.  They might need a little reminder : ).  The flying machine in the story made the sound CLACKETA, CLACKETA.

 

After reading, we made a little airplane shaped snack and learned the parts of an airplane.  Our little creations were delicious.  And finally, we tried our hand at paper airplane folding.  This proved to be very difficult, even with directions.  We intended to go outside and fly them, but we barely had time to fold them.  Maybe, next week we will give it a try!