Cottonwood Creek

Hello Everyone!!!

Hope you enjoyed your Valentine's day!  Here at Cottonwood Creek we had a little party!  The kids brought snacks and passed out Valentines day cards that they colored and wrote out for all their fellow classmates.  I bought them cards and a little treat for them to enjoy while watching a movie! We also played bingo that they themselves colored.  Of course we did this a day before so the day of we could just play bingo.  Overall it was a fun week.  This week however we have been working on and learning about the very important issue that all of California is going through, the drought.  I know it's a complicated concept to explain to children but on my research on the Internet, I found a website that is operated by the State of California Water Conservation Department that provides free booklets, workbooks and information for kids to learn and help conserve water.  We just started working on them today but it looks like the kids are really willing to learn about the subject.  With my group of older kids (5-6 grade) we will be working on the comic book/workbook portion...we are reading a couple of pages at a time and in a group to then discuss.  I also found that I could take this time to teach this group how to take notes and condense what they are learning into smaller, more compact sentences rather than trying to rememberer everything in the book.  Over all it has been a very productive couple of weeks!  And as to the water conservation booklets, I will keep you updated as to how far along and how much we are learning!  Time for all of us to do our part to conserve this precious resource.

 

 

Sand Creek

Hello Everyone!

February is a wonderful month to create lots of Valentine craft activities using different sizes of hearts.  Other crafts children enjoy learning and making are cats, dogs, elephants, mice, butterflies, ladybugs and much more...it is amazing how many things we can create with these shapes.  Children also learn about how to enjoy life, love their family and friends.  Love and care for them not just on Valentine's day but every single day.  But of course here at Sand Creek we Celebrate Valentine's day eating hot-dogs, chips and juice and the children had an opportunity to decorate their own cupcakes. WOW!!!  I surprised them with a little present as well because I love to see them smile.  I hope everyone has enjoyed this month and we are ready to receive March.  Our Rainbow Month...at the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold:)

 

 

Lincoln Plaza

Hello to one and all,

Hope everyone had a fun and exciting Valentine's Day.  This week and last week we have begun to decorate our lab and get it ready for St. Patrick's Day.  This week we finished our leprechauns and we had lots of fun making them!!!  My students are so excited to do crafts they hardly use the computers!!!!!!  I did it....I got children to tell me, no I don't want to play on the computer I would rather do a craft.  WOW!!!  Out of the many years I have been working with children it was so amazing to hear that.  This week my students will do some sewing...we will make some beards, some hats, and some pots of gold.

Looking back at all the amazing crafts we have all done, I look back and reflect on that comment made by one of my students. Not only are we there to help with homework but we are there to keep children from going out and doing things they're not suppose to do.  In a way, we are a form of a teacher keeping our children drug free and helping them make good choices.  I have never seen a child so happy to see me pull up and then run to me asking if I need help or what craft are we doing today.  That alone should mean more to us than a thank you, that alone should make us think about why we do our jobs. So my fellow coordinators my question to all of you, why do we love our job?  It's the children...

Please enjoy the children's arts and crafts...and good luck making your own arts and crafts projects for the upcoming season.

 

 

 

 

 

Rancho Lindo

Here are the three activities I had for the week.  Our first activity was a Valentines day card which I had the students work on...the challenge was to make a flower and then glue it onto the card.  We also engaged in some fun cooking.  Now onto the arts and crafts...the children painted baking cups and popsicle sticks to form the flower.  Some supplies included a hanging frame, popsicle sticks and heart candy...they glued each candy on every corner then using string they glued them onto the words, very creative!  Finally for the heart charm we used beads and a pipe cleaner...when it was all said and done we shaped the pipe cleaner into a heart and voila!  Enjoy!!!  Have fun making your own!

 

Here are some arts and crafts that our students worked on and completed last week.  The week of read around the world celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday inspired us to create the Lorax character face using paper plates, tissue paper and construction hand cut outs...thing 1 & 2 were also created using popsicle sticks, paint and feathers...The children really enjoy reading especially when you incorporate arts/crafts...the children also used a 100 number chart in order to color in a Cat in the Hat.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

Cottonwood Creek

Hello Coordinators and Students everywhere! 

We have been busy bees here at Cottonwood Creek!  We have been working on various projects in the past few weeks.  A couple weeks ago we went over the basic rules again as a reminder for everyone especially because we have a few new kids joining us.  I decided to re-make the signs with the rules and use our "class mascot" Mr. Funny Bones to display our signs with rules of the classroom.  The kids also participated in a few team building exercises and ice breakers to get to know the new kids coming into our community.  The older kids in the group asked me if they could work on their projects from school.  Their assignment was to create a scene from an Olympic sport.  Go team USA!  It took them a whole week but they did a great job!  Take a look at the pictures below.  We have also been decorating for Valentine's day!  The girls are thrilled and the boys not so much (they are a little bit shy) but they still have been helping with decorating nonetheless.  Have a good Valentine's day and enjoy some sweets!  I will be posting about our party next time :)

 

 

Parksdale II

Hi Everyone,

Today's activity was to create a collage about the possibility of reincarnation...as you can see below the kid's chose their own representation of this novelty idea.  They discussed what animal they would like to be if they were to be reincarnated.  It was so much fun to see the children look up strengths and weaknesses of a variety of different animals in nature.  They researched land, air and sea animals and came up with what they would like to be.  They also thought about what kind of animal best survives overall in nature...where would that animal be within the food chain and so on.  As you can see from the posters below, they have everything from the availability of food to where their animals would most likely live. I hope you enjoy the posters!  It was a lot of fun to be creative in a nontraditional sense with the animal kingdom.