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Dear
Parents,
We want to keep you posted on the project work the 4’s
and the 5’s are engaging in with the help of Kohl Children’s Museum of
Greater Chicago. Ms Lily and I took part in the second seminar organized
at the museum, where we shared our experiences with other teachers on
the approach, our pitfalls, and our children’s final decisions about the
topic for the project we are going to engage in for the next couple of
months.
The Junior Kindergarten class is interested in the tree’s life, their
purpose, their role in keeping the environment and people healthy and
clean as well as the ways we can help trees and nature in general. Ms
Lily’s group has decided to engage in sand exploration. Our rooms have
been awarded with the amount of $300 to use toward purchasing tools
and/or materials we need for our project investigations. The Junior
Kindergarten room ordered a microscope, a slide maker set for it, a
plant press for our field collectables for the class herbarium, a
woodland terrarium, and books about different kinds of trees, ferns, and
biomes. For the Four’s sand exploration they ordered a big wooden
classroom sand studio set, sand of different colors and grades,
glass-like objects and books about sand. At the workshop in the museum
that took place about 20 days ago, Ms Lily and I had the opportunity
also to learn about the proper ways to document and present our project
work and we were given homework for our third meeting; we are to collect
all kinds of documentation of children’s work on the project, decide
what the most important and meaningful pieces are, and present it to the
museum on a big tri-fold board.
Since parent involvement is a big and very important
part of the project work, we want to inform you of the project’s
schedule and parent initiatives that you are asked to participate in.
The Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago has graciously provided
all of our parents with one free family pass for the museum, good until
March 2012. The passes have been distributed together and we hope
you will use this wonderful opportunity to visit the museum during the
holidays, so your children can share their experiences when we come back
to school.
Next on the schedule is the parent-and-child
process art workshop on Thursday, January 19th at 5 PM- a fun time spent together in
our classrooms, learning about art and creating paintings with your
children. The workshop will take about 30-45 minutes of your time. The
goals is for you to have some time working and playing with your
children on a “shape painting art project”. In addition to that, you
might want to try similar art activities at home. A letter explaining
the benefits of creating art together as a family as well as an
evaluation letter will be provided to you at the workshop. You will be
asked to share your art projects and bring the evaluations by end of
February, when we will present them on our third and last seminar.
On January 10, 2012, we will go on a free focused field trip to the Kohl
Children’s Museum. The Junior Kindergarten class will explore the
dimensions in art, and the Fours will engage in water art; how fun!
Later in February, we will go on a second free field trip to Kohl
Children’s Museum and focus on science. On Sunday, the 25th of March
2012, you are requested to attend the closing celebration of our project
at the Museum, when we will present our process of working on the tree
and sand projects. Only those participating in project approach
grant work will be allowed in the museum that morning, and a light
continental breakfast will be provided. Children get to bring one parent
free on that day. It will be a celebration of our exploration of
learning, and a well-deserved culmination of our inquiring minds. In
case both parents are unable to attend the parent-and-child process
workshop on Thursday, January 19th 2012, grandparents or uncles, or
aunts are welcome to substitute! Make sure to come, you won’t regret it!
I hope you realize the huge enrichment potential of this project for all
of your children. We are so proud to be a part of it, and to have
opportunity to expand our horizons!
Please check out the Project tabs on the Junior Kindergarten and
Fours websites for more information.
~~ Ms. Eva, Ms. Lily ~~ |
TINY TOT TIMES
Kohl's Children's Museum Project
