This blog has been moved to: http://sesatschool.blogspot.com/

This blog has been moved to: http://sesatschool.blogspot.com/

Chinese Culture

This week we have been learning about Chinese Culture.

- We read My First Chinese New Year, which explains all the Chinese New Year traditions (cleaning, oranges, money) and the Chinese New Year parade.
- It is the Year of the Snake (coming up!) and so we collaborated on a Snake. I am especially interested in us finding projects we can work on all together, interspersed with individual projects. This Snake is now hanging from the ceiling in Sesatland.
- Roxanne taught us how to make dumplings (with cabbage wrapping for the Paleo among us!). These were delicious.
- Upcoming: Next week our friends Jed and Elisa will come to show us how to do Chinese calligraphy. We are getting tickets for the Chinese New Year's Parade, and we will go out for dim sum in Chinatown.

Nurse's Song by William Blake

When the voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And every thing else is still

Then come home my children, the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies

No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly
And the hills are all coverd with sheep

Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd
And all the hills echoed

This is one of the poems that we read at circle time. There had been other poems in the Curricula that we are using, but they weren't as good as Blake. Since this stuff stays in your head for your whole life, we should make sure it's good! I still have "Once there was a elephant who tried to use the telephant, oh no I mean the elephone who tried to use the telephone..." rattling around in my head.

Getting Started

This week we will be learning about:

MONDAY:
Butterflies
- stages of growth
- identification
- male vs. female markings
- Monarch migration

WEDNESDAY: - dress to get dirty
Gardening
- worm composting
- cutting back the rosebushes
- raking up the dead stuff

Everybody will need:
- Two spiral sketchbooks
- A recorder
- Art supplies