January
Social Studies - After learning about the importance of citizenship, we started learning about our United States history. We started learning about the hidden meanings and symbols of our United States flag. After learning that the stripes of the flag represent our first thirteen colonies, one student was disappointed that Minnesota was not one of the first thirteen colonies (Oh, how much they love our cold state!). We are now learning how we declared our independence against Britain. We will learn about the constitution, and our three branches of government in next month.
Last week, we had one of our staff, Idil, come and present what was happening with Trump’s immigration restrictions with our students. Our students learned so much about what was happening with our new president and his abrupt changes with our country. With her presentation and our class discussions, our students really embraced each other despite of the differences in their backgrounds and cultures which was really marvelous to see. |
December
Science - Before I share the news in the science class, I foresee that there will be some deaf astronauts in the future based on my observations of the students’ enthusiasm to the learning about the solar system!
In the month of November, the classroom turned into chaos as we were busy making the galactic mobile and captivating planets using paper mache which involves a lot of glue, strips of newspaper, colorful paints, and tangling strings. After making the galantic mobile, we created an astronautic game board. We created our own trivia questions about what we have learned in the class for the game board cards. Instead of playing the classic game boards during winter break, ask your child about the solar system game board! Your child would be so thrilled to show his/her knowledge about our solar system through the game! We ended our first science unit, the solar system, with a bang by completing the job application for an astronaut position, jumping into an astronaut suit and flying in a rocket into the space (see the picture below)! When we officially finished our solar system unit, there were a lot of disappointing and sad faces; however we were happy to start a new unit in social studies! Social Studies - We started our first unit in social studies which is citizenship. We discussed about the difference between good and bad citizenships. We brainstormed the ideas how can we make the difference through the action of great citizenship. With our discussions and thoughts, we decided to create a movie about the good and bad citizenships in the school as we wanted to encourage our students outside our class to show more action of excellent citizenship. We are in progress of making the movie. Once the movie is completed, the movie will be shared with you. :) (Now, the movie is completed, and the access to the movie is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEMxsE_MkKk ) After learning about the importance of citizenship, we will learn about the branches of government and the voting process. |
September & October
Our class is having a blast! We were off to a great start as we started our first science unit, the Solar System. The students were astonished with our universe as they learned that there is not only one planet, but eight planets, and only not one star, but billions of them, and not only one galaxy, but zillions of them! As the students realized how enormous our universe is, they grew concerned and excited about the possibility of the UFO and aliens. :)
Learning about our planetary neighbors, we focused on memorizing our eight planets excluding the dwarf planet which is Pluto. To make the memorizing the planets easier, we were eternally grateful for the planetary mnemonic which is, “My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nachos.” The first letter of each word represents the planets in the order which are, “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.” We also learned about the orbit of the planets. I asked the students why does it take Earth 365 days to orbit the sun while Jupiter 4330 days to do so. One student shared his logical answer with the class, “Because Jupiter is genuinely heavy!” A quite close answer! We’re currently creating the planets and sun into paper mache, and we will make a “solar system” mobile using paper mache planets. It will be a fun and beautiful addition to your child’s bedroom, and it may be a factor to your child’s ability to sleep swiftly during night time once they have it hanging in their room. :) |
¡Nuestra clase se está divirtiendo! Comenzamos nuestra primera unidad de ciencia, el sistema solar. ¡Los estudiantes quedaron asombrados con nuestro universo al enterarse de que no sólo hay un planeta, sino ocho planetas, y no sólo una estrella, sino miles de millones y no sólo una galaxia, sino millones de ellos! A medida que los estudiantes se dieron cuenta de lo enorme que es nuestro universo, crecieron preocupados y entusiasmados por la posibilidad de los OVNI y los extraterrestres. :)
Aprendiendo acerca de nuestros vecinos planetarios, nos enfocamos en memorizar nuestros ocho planetas, excluyendo el planeta enano que es Plutón. Para hacer la memorización de los planetas más fácil, estábamos eternamente agradecidos por la mnemotécnica planetaria que es, "Mi madre muy emocionada acaba de servirnos Nachos." La primera letra de cada palabra en inglés representa los nombres en inglés de los planetas en el orden que son, "Mercurio, Venus, Tierra, Marte, Júpiter, Saturno, Urano y Neptuno ". También aprendimos acerca de la órbita de los planetas. Les pregunté a los estudiantes por qué toma 365 días la Tierra para orbitar el sol mientras Júpiter 4330 días para hacerlo. Un estudiante compartió su respuesta lógica con la clase, "¡Porque Júpiter es realmente pesado!" ¡Una respuesta bastante bien! Actualmente estamos creando los planetas y el sol en mache de papel, y haremos un "sistema solar" móvil usando planetas de papel maché. Será una diversión y una adición hermosa al dormitorio de su niño, y puede ser un factor a la capacidad de su niño de dormir rápidamente durante la noche una vez que lo tiene colgado en su sitio. :) |