April Curriculum Theme : Spring Fling
As the days grow a little warmer, flowers begin to grow, and nature takes center stage. There is much to investigate in Springtime including weather, flowers and bugs. We will learn weather terms, plant flowers, and discover bugs in their environment. We’ll also work together to celebrate Earth Day!
– Week 1: Weather/ Changes Spring Brings
– Week 2: Plants & Flowers
– Week 3: Save the Earth
– Week 4: Bugs
Activities We Will Do
+ Have children move objects by blowing through a straw to develop their knowledge of science concepts including how wind can move objects, heavy vs. light and making predictions.
+ Create planet Earth with blue and green cloud slime! This activity develops knowledge of science skills including recognizing Earth in picture form and demonstrating awareness of how to protect the environment. It also promotes fine motor skills and color recognition.
+ Create “bug juice” smoothies in the Culinary Kitchen!
Books We Will Read
The Windy Day by Anna Milbourne
Planting A Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
Earth Day Every Day by Lisa Bullard
In The Tall Tall Grass by Denise Fleming
A Recap of Last Month
Our theme for March was Reading Rainbow in honor of National Reading Month. Each week we highlighted a different children’s author and explored their books through a variety of fun and engaging activities. The highlighted authors included Dr. Seuss, Eric Carle, Leo Lionni, Lois Ehlert and James and Kimberly Dean.
The beautiful illustrations of these authors’ books inspired our March STEM focus of ‘Mixing Colors’. In STEM class each week we explored a book by the highlighted authors and conducted experiments to learn more about color combinations. These experiments were fun ways to develop fine motor, color recognition and other important skills.
During the week where we honored the work of Leo Lionni, we read the book Little Blue and Little Yellow. This wonderful tale discusses friendship and teaches that blue and yellow combine to make green. We then mixed a ball of blue play dough with a ball of yellow play dough to create a green play dough ball!! Color mixing is an activity that can also be done at home. You can allow children to mix blue and yellow paint or food coloring to make green or mix red and yellow paint or food coloring to make orange! Encourage your children to mix various colors to see what color they can create!
