Dear Parents,
We started our week identifying wheels and axles. We found them in our math manipulatives, in our books, and in the big room. We discovered that many of us use wheels and axles to get to school, on bikes, scooters, buses, trains, and strollers. We counted how many wheels and axles are on a car. We made an eighteen wheeler vehicle using our manipulatives. We counted the wheels as we added them.
We talked about inclined planes being a ramp. One person said, “…for a wheelchair!” We assembled cars using our math manipulatives, and made inclined planes using tables in the big room. Everyone took turns rolling the cars down the inclined planes. We guessed which cars would roll the farthest- the longer or heavier cars?
On Wednesday we set up two pulleys in the big room. We used another simple machine, clothespins, to clip scarves to a rope and pull them back-and-forth from pulley to pulley. We alternated turns between our pulleys and our inclined planes and cars.
We read Machines again and took turns turning a screw into a piece of wood. Some children thought it was harder than using a hammer. It was.
In the yard this week we saw many birds and insects. We noticed more blooming flowers and new buds on trees and bushes.
Zhubin came in on Friday and told us about how they celebrate the Iranian New Year. Everyone got a picture of things to place on a special tablecloth which they do at the beginning of the month-long celebration. He told us what each item symbolizes. Then everyone took turns jumping over (pretend) fire saying: “Take my yellow (old and tired), give me your red (strength and vitality)!” This is done on Red Wednesday. The class was so excited about jumping over the fire that we did it twice. Except for two friends who declined.
Have a simple weekend,
Therese