Hi families!

It’s already May — how the time flies (and also very much doesn’t fly) these days. Sending you happy spring thoughts for the thunderstorms and sunshine that are coming up this weekend. Here are our activities and videos for today:

Singalong: Come and celebrate the CCS Spring Jubilee! (Teacher Naima reads “The Wind’s Garden” and sings “In Our Garden” and “My Roots Go Down”,  Teacher Rachel sings “Everything Grows” and “Here Comes The Sun”, Teacher Carrie sings “Hermie the Worm”, and Teacher Laura sings “Thanks A Lot”)

 

Nature/silkworm journals:

Math. Some ways to incorporate math into your journals:

  • Establish the numbers of days since silkworms have hatched. On each day of their journal entry, they can record that the silkworms are “3 days old”, etc.
  • Counting the silkworms. When kids count real objects, they are engaging in “rational counting”,  a skill which underlies all arithmetic.
  • Measuring the silkworms (with a ruler or tape measurer) or…
  • Comparing the length of the silkworm to other objects (longer or shorter than a dime? thicker or thinner than a toothpick? etc.)
  • Making predictions: I predict ____ days until they become cocoons. I predict that they will be 1 inch long when they turn ____ days old. Then, keep track of whether the predictions were correct.

 

An activity for this weekend: Make a Share and Tell video! As we do every weekend, we’re asking you for a short clip (or pictures or a written answer if sending it to us in video format doesn’t work for you!) for our Share and Tell video. Please try to send it by 2pm on Sunday. (Perhaps kids want to share their silkworms this week!)

 

For parents: This week, Patricia and Rachel made a 6-minute video for you, discussing strategies for healthy and communicative co-caretaking modelled after strategies we use in our co-teaching relationship. The strategies include:

  • Communicating and planning for grown-up needs (physical, emotional, career)

  • Planning adult needs before kids’ needs

  • Scheduled check-ins

We will be making videos for parents once a week. Let us know if there’s anything specific you’d like us to talk about!

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Rachel Ford and Patricia Houston