Ms. Hartshorn’s Classroom News
October 28, 2010
Dear Families,
Look out, Hollywood…here we come! Okay, maybe not. But, Kathi Orr and I had a blast dancing ON the Flynn Stage Monday night as we learned Iroquois song, dance and tradition during a teacher training. We had no idea we'd be actually practicing these dances for the first time on the stage. Of course, we had no audience, but that didn't seem to matter to us. We were too busy trying to keep up with the new steps and tempo. Your children have been practicing a stomp dance that is used as a community celebration dance. As a group we work to get our feet to stomp (gently) at the same time, and putting more emphasis on our lead foot so as to represen the sound of a beating heart. Once we get this tempo and rhythm going as a group we begin to move in a circle counter-clockwise, as with the way of the earth's movement and cycles. We are having lots of fun trying to learn this dance. Another dance we will try to learn is the Rabbit Dance.
This week we had Sharon Stafford, Jack's Mom, join us for Four Winds. Our year-long theme is “Designs in Nature,” and this month's topic was Leaves. Sharon and I did the puppet show together which touched on the importance of sun, water and air to form chlorphyll for green plants to produce energy (plant food/sugar). After learning that much of the action of making food for a plant, such as a tree happens in the leaf, we looked at three leaf patterns: parallel, palmate, and pinnate. We then searched for examples of these patterns among leaves we found in the schoolyard outside. In the afternoon we did leaf rubbings with the leaves we had collected in the afternoon, as we reviewed the vein designs of the leaves and their purposes for helping the leaf absorb water, air, sunshine. We learned of the air exchange between leaves and humans also—oxyen needed by humans is released from leaves and carbon dioxide needed by plants is released from humans. It was a great lesson that brought our attention to something we are quite familiar with—leaves, but may not have noticed the amazing designs of nature that have purpose and function. You might ask your child to explain why the leaves are no longer green this time of year, and what has happened to the chlorophyll. We discussed this as a group, and some children knew about the days getting shorter and having less light during a day, so the production of chlorophyll is slowed down and eventually becomes dormant until spring in our climate.
Enjoy the holiday weekend with your child. Excitement about Halloween has been pretty low key this week, but as the day approaches there is more and more enthusiasm in the air~
Brenda
PS: New photos posted showing us during the Four Winds lesson this week.
