Hello all!
“Letter Z is for Zebra” week was better than anyone could have ever expected! The students had such a blast learning about the letter Z and all about zebras – one student even transformed into a zebra!
The students brought in some great shares to start off the week. Some of our shares included: Zebras, zippers, zeros, books/pictures of the students at the zoo, and even zapatos (i.e. shoes in Spanish). On Monday and Tuesday, the students worked on tracing and writing the letter Z as well as identifying and coloring in some Z-word pictures! During the afternoon(s), they brainstormed a list of letter Z words. They also discussed the big fun word, onomatopoeia, when sound words like ZAP! and ZOOM! made the list. The students thought the word onomatopoeia was too silly to be a real word, even after the teachers assured them it was! I guess they will believe the teachers one day- perhaps later on in their English courses!
On Wednesday, the students created the first letter Z craft of the week – a zebra puppet! The students turned paper bags into life-like zebras by adding ears, eyes, eyelashes and a big black snout. Once all of the pieces had been glued on, the puppet looked more like a French bulldog than a zebra. This was not the case for long! The students painted black stripes on their puppets. The dog puppets quickly transformed into authentic looking zebras!
In the afternoon on both Wednesday and Thursday, the students participated in Spanish class where they continued to expand their La Comida vocabulary! After learning that the word for juice is Jugo and the word for apple is Manzana, the students learned that Apple Juice is called Jugo de Manzana. The students were a bit skeptical when Miss Karina informed them that they could use their previously learned vocabulary to help them figure out new vocabulary. To prove it to them, Miss Karina asked the following question –
?Cómo se dice “Orange Juice” en Español?
(How do you say Orange Juice in Spanish?)
See if you can follow the picture chart below to figure it out.
On Thursday, the students came over to the art table to see an animal that looked just like a plain white horse. The students were perplexed as to why they were making horses on letter Z week. Things became even wackier when the teachers brought out marbles and colored paint. The teachers then modeled how to turn the white horse into a ZaNy ZeBrA! Watch below as one student creates her ZaNy ZeBrA’s stripes!
Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing
The students did an amazing job striping their zebra’s body. When the ZaNy ZeBrAs had dried, the students added a colorful googly eye. They were so proud of their work!
Friday began with a read aloud of a book from one of PPA’s favorite series – Life-Size Zoo! As one can probably tell from the name, Life-Size Zoo features various zoo animals photographs taken by acclaimed wildlife photographer, Toyofumi Fukuda, who visited Japan’s premier zoos to capture remarkably vivid, close-up, life-sized photographs of 21 animals! The photos include pandas and meerkats to giraffes, zebras, and even elephants (adult and baby). Each photograph is accompanied by a profile including body length, weight, and natural habitat, as well as fun facts about the animal! Take a look at the photograph below to see just how special this book really is!
Can you believe how big an adult zebra’s head is? Much bigger than people (human) heads for sure! To remember all that they learned about Zebras, the students made their own mini-zebra head – but you will not believe how they did it! With the help of some white and black paint, the teachers painted the students hands white and stamped the paper to make a mini-zebra head (side profile). The students then used a thin paint brush to stripe their zebra. They finished it off by adding a googly eye and writing a Z in the word Zebra! Despite not being “Life-Sized”, the hand zebras were still adorable!
During the afternoon on Friday, the students participated in a technology presentation all about – you guessed it – Zebras! The teachers showed the students pictures of zebras in Africa. When asked why zebras have stripes, one student said, “Because they couldn’t make up their mind what they wanted to wear”. Another guess was, “to scare the lions” and another was “for camouflage”. Various high definition photographs of zebras standing together in herds certainly helped answer the question. The teachers explained that all zebras have unique stripe markings similar to fingerprints on a human. The students also learned that zebras travel in herds and their stripe markings help protect them from predators, animals trying to attack them. All of the zebras in the herd run close together so that it is hard for the predators to attack them. When zebras run, the moving striped patterns on their bodies make it very difficult to see where one zebra begins and another one ends. The students experienced this first hand thanks to some amazing footage from various nature websites! By far, the silliest/most exciting part of the presentation was when the students learned what sounds zebras make! Click the link below to hear! It will surely surprise you!
Zebra Sounds
Letter Z week was such a great week to wrap up our alphabet curriculum! Next week we will move onto the review week where we will be reviewing the entire alphabet with some fun activities including: alphabet bingo, letter hunting, and more! It is bound to be an excellent week! See you then!
-PPA
REMINDERS:
NEXT SCHOOL CLOSING:
Monday, May 27, 2013
Observation of Memorial Day
THEME FOR NEXT WEEK:
