Happy Mother's Day!

We ended our Around the World unit this week with travel to Germany.  The K-Kids learned about the food and costumes and enjoyed looking at many pictures of Rhett's mother's childhood in Germany.  They especially loved eating the sweet treats from Germany including a cherry cake, apple treat, and soft pretzels!

I hope you all enjoyed your Mother's Day books!  The K-Kids worked very hard on completing the open-ended sentences and drawing pictures to match.  I am sure some of you will be surprised how insightful your child is about your favorite things, ways to relax, and what bugs you the most!  It was fun to help them complete their books and watch them "wrap" the presents up with the tissue paper and a lot of scotch tape!

We started our ladybug unit this week by starting our "bug journals."  Late last week we received a ladybug habitat and "weird bugs."  I told the K-Kids that I ordered ladybugs, but the company sent me the weird bugs instead - little did they know that the weird bugs are actually "baby" ladybug larvae.  They have since made the connection that the bugs in our habitats are baby ladybug by reading the non-fiction books and seeing the pictures of the ladybug life cycle.  It was so fun to see them make that discovery on their own and be sooooo excited about correcting me!!!  Through the week we have made entries in our bug journals about the changes happening in the habitat and used scientific words such as larvae, pupa, and metamorphosis.  We also created construction paper ladybugs using a glyph based on our gender, age, and feelings toward bugs.  These are on display on the back windows - take a minute to see if you can guess which bug is your child's!

Lastly, we studied two different artists this week for our Fine Art unit.  The K-Kids learned about Frida Kahlo from Mexico.  Frida Kahlo's artwork is often viewed as sad, angry, and scared, and the idea behind studying her art is to understand that art is not always happy.  The children then drew pictures of a time that they were sad, scared, or mad and wrote about it.  On Friday, the K-Kids learned about Vincent Van Gogh and his famous sunflower painting.  They replicated the piece and -oh my goodness- these drawings are some of my favorite!  I am very excited to share all of the masterpieces at the Art Show during Culmination Night!