April brings us to the Land Down Under, where we encounter lots of unique animals such as the kangaroo, platypus, koala, emu, flying fox, kookaburra, lyre bird, dingo, Tasmanian devil, echidna, and wombat. The waters around Australia and the Great Barrier Reef are also home to many types of ocean life, including the wobbegong shark, leafy and weedy sea dragons, the giant whale shark, and 1500 different types of coral.
The children began a giant ocean mural by using blue, green, and white paint to create water and seaweed. They traced, colored, cut out, and attached various ocean animals.
We filled the sensory table with water, rocks, and ocean animals. The children had a wonderful time swimming and splashing around and building homes out of rocks.
At the science table the children used stethoscopes to listen to their heart beats, tested their eye sight with eye charts, and weighed themselves on the scale.
During Spanish we played a fun new game, pulpo caliente (hot octopus), learned a song about pez (fish), and pretended to be different Australian animals.
For science, Friday students did an experiment to see how plants drink. They added red coloring to water then placed several stalks of leafy celery in the water. By the end of the day the tips of the leaves were tinted red. Next week we will cut the stalks to see how the water travels up to the leaves.
