Spring has sprung!  The trees are green.  The grass is green.  The blossoms on the crab apple tree have appeared, covering our playground in pretty white petals and scenting the air.  Some of us examined the flower parts, including the petals, pistils, and stamen.  The children discovered a plant growing in the sandbox and decided to care for it.  A toad was found hopping across the grass, and everyone interested took a turn holding it before allowing it to continue on it’s way.

There was a lot of royalty in our class this week.  All the princes and princesses of Sunnybrook were showing off their fancy attire and bejeweled crowns, which they received when they did Spanish vocabulary work.

We continued our study of South America as we learned about the Amazon river, which was created by glacial ice melt from the Andes mountains.  There are thousands of tributaries that run into the Amazon, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean. We learned that there are tribes that live along the river that have only recently been discovered.

At the art table students each illustrated a picture to go with Zeanny’s story of her Abuela and the Chocolate Tree.  We will use the illustrations to create a book so that everyone can have a copy on the last day of school.

During Spanish we continued to practice our Spanish songs for the last day, and the students spent a lot of time doing the vegetable and fruit vocabulary cards.

Friday students spent the morning doing sound experiments.  They created a giant telephone by taping together paper towel tubes, then taking turns whispering and listening to each other.  We also took turns hitting the tuning fork and placing it in water to see how sound waves move.  The students then made ear trumpets so they could focus sounds to their ear canals.

The afternoon students have been enjoying the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during lunch.  They particularly like it when each child does not listen to Willy Wonka and suffers the consequences.  They find the departing songs that the Oompa-Loompas sing quite entertaining.  We are looking forward to finding out what happens at the end of the book!