Playing with Color

"Oooo! Look at how these colors mix!"

"The paint doesn't cover up the pastels."

"This sort of looks like a dinosaur."

Our kids had lots of fun this past week exploring different types of art and experimenting with color. We read The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse and Papa Please Get the Moon for Me, and with Eric Carle and Franz Marc as inspiration, we experimented with collaging and pastels. They rolled up beads out of magazine pages (requiring some serious small motor control) and strung them to make necklaces and bracelets. We learned about Vasya Kandinsky's art through The Noisy Paintbox. We looked at some of Ashley Goldberg's work and played connect the dots on our papers with Sharpies, then added colors with watercolors and/or pastels. It has been easier than I thought to come up with art projects that work for 4 to 10 year olds. The experimentation is fun for all of us (myself included).

Rose and Norine's PK and K Class

• Read Bean Thirteen and worked to add numbers 1 - 12.

• Played addition games with dominoes.

• Categorized shapes based on the number of sides.

• Played the game "Who's the Biggest?" and worked to compare sizes.

• Made Geoboard "X's," Yarn "Y's," and Zebra "Z's."

• Found all the letters of our names in a giant pile of alphabet blocks.

• Read Fox in Socks.

• Worked on "a" letter blends.

• Sang "We're Going to the Zoo."

• Reviewed the alphabet by putting all the letters in order.

• Read a book about kindergarten and asked questions about kindergarten.

• Read Beekle and made our own imgainary friends.

• Played with water beads in big bins.

• Painted "secret paintings" with white crayons and watercolors.

Tracy's 1st - 4th Class

In math, we finished up end of year assessments, correcting mistakes and discussing areas we needed to focus on between now and the end of the year. The first graders played "Moneywise Kids" over a few days, working on adding a ten and some ones while also getting the things necessary for a solid life (transportation, health care, food, clothing, a place to live, and taxes). The second grade class worked on adding tens and hundreds, rounding, and money calculations. The third grade class worked on measuring to the measuring to the nearest inch as well as solving area and perimeter problems. The fourth graders reviewed their geometry vocabulary around different types of angles, practiced drawing them, and solved for missing parts of angles.

In writing, everyone had a writer's choice assignment. They could write about anything they wanted in whatever style they wanted as long as they could get the project completed in one week: outline, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. We had a paper about "Sephora Kids," a number of fiction stories in various styles, and a few graphic novels. It was challenging for some, but everyone got a piece done in a week. If you haven't seen it yet, ask your child to share what they made.

In reading, the two older groups continue to read The Wild Robot and finished The Aquanaut. Our younger kids read Fox vs. Fox, We Are in a Book, and Today is Monday. They also continued to work with short and long vowel sounds.