Dear Spanish Lime Families,
I hope everyone had a wonderful, restful Spring Break and is ready to finish the year off strong! Standardized testing is completed! The students appeared to enjoy the testing experience and overall took pleasure in receiving the extra outdoor time. Our Toddler Community baked us bread and muffins to show encouragement during the long testing periods. These bake goods were well received by the children. Thanks toddler friends! During the testing period the first year children were invited to visit their previous primary classrooms to observe the environment and work alongside their former peers. Each afternoon they shared their observations and experience with the rest of the class. Overall, it appeared to be a great experience for all involved. They were complimented by the primary teachers on how helpful and inspiring they were to others and how much they have grown since last year!
The Spanish Limes enjoyed The Fifth Great Lesson: The Story of Numbers. It starts by addressing the underlying motivations for counting in a pre-counting human era. The story discusses how our number symbols came to be. Before counting began, it is believed that one-to-one matching, or pairing, occurred. In today’s world, a simple example of pairing would be matching yourself to an empty seat at a concert, or you car to a parking place. In ancient times, it may have meant matching a notch to a stick to something else. It would have been like counting by ones only. One, one, one, one, one, etc. This is not really counting as we understand it, but it was, and remains, an essential first step in human counting ability. The story goes on to how our number symbols came to be. Ask your child to retell the story of numbers!
Mark your calendars: Our second Parent Education night of the year is this Wednesday, April 3 at 5:30. Childcare is available. We invited our current Kindergarten parents and next year’s 1st grade parents to learn more about our wonderful Elementary programs. Come share your experiences, learn more about what we do and why, and asked the questions that you have been meaning to ask. Student Led Conferences are Friday, April 19th from 2:00pm-5:00pm, located in the Spanish Lime Classroom. Parent-Teacher Conferences are Monday, April 22th from 8:00am-5:30pm. Look out for an email containing the sign up genius for these conferences.
May is just around the corner and that means my favorite school fundraiser of all time, Cultural Immersion Day and Art Show Fundraiser. Friday, May 24th from 5:00pm-7:00pm located at The Children’s School. It can be compared to a miniature version of Walk on White with student art hanging throughout the front lawn of our campus. Bring a picnic basket, blanket and tour all primary and elementary classrooms. Each classroom will have studied a particular continent, and have designed a visual of their animal research. This year our classroom will be studying South America. Each child will conduct elaborate research on an invertebrate, vertebrate, plant and famous landform/landmark of their choosing.
In order to enhance our cultural study, if any families have a piece of the South American culture that they can share; artifacts, photos, stories, books, art, food, etc. we would love to borrow them temporarily. Thank you all for your help and support.
Best,
Ms. Sally and Ms. Nicole