“Feelings and Friendship Week” Blog Recap!

Hello all,

“Feelings and Friendship Week” was full of just that, Feelings and Friendship! Through play, hard work, and discussion, the students practiced identifying and recognizing all sorts of feelings and ways to be a friend throughout the entire week! Read on below to learn about all the fun that was had and learning that took place!

Monday morning began with a whole class read aloud of a book that is a definite PPA favorite, How Are You Peeling? Foods With Moods, written by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elfers. In the story, all different types of feelings are discussed but the illustrations are what really steal the show! Every illustration is created using actual food! Take a look below to see just how detailed, imaginative, and fun these illustrations are!

Drawing some inspiration from the book, the students created a “Feeling Faces” Photo Album for their morning work on Monday and Tuesday! One by one, the students came over to have their photograph taken showing one of the following feelings: Happy, Sad, Angry, or Silly! The students blew the teachers away with their ability to show each feeling with such extremely expressive faces! Here are some of the AMAZING photos from the students “Feeling Faces” activity.

The students enjoyed listening to another PPA favorite on Tuesday – Mo Willem’s Pigeon series. The Pigeon, the star of one of author Mo Willem’s children’s book series, is by far the silliest character in PPA’s entire library! The returning students are very familiar with the Pigeon and his silly ways, while the new students of PPA have just begun to get to know him. To help show how silly the Pigeon really is, the teachers brought out the Pigeon’s most well-known story titled, Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus!

In the story, we meet the Bus Driver who needs to leave for a while. Before leaving, he asks the readers to do him a very important favor – Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive The Bus! Shortly after, the Pigeon makes his very loud and very persistent debut. From the title, you can probably tell that the Pigeon really wants to drive the bus! Thankfully the readers are there to remind him that he cannot drive the bus and before long the bus driver returns. Throughout the story, the Pigeon expresses his feelings of Happiness, Silliness, Sadness, Anger and Frustration very clearly. So who better to make a “Feelings and Emotion Week” craft in honor of?

During the afternoons of “Feelings and Friendship Week”, the students discussed each feeling by creating a list for a few of the more common feelings. Here are the lists that the students came up with for what makes them feel happy and what makes them feel sad.

After some in depth investigation of feelings at the start of the week, Wednesday’s focus shifted to the other half of this week’s theme – Friendship! The day began with a reading of Marcus Pfister’s classic tale, The Rainbow Fish. In the story, we meet the rainbow fish and learn that he was covered in beautiful shiny, shimmery scales! Well, as beautiful as he may be, none of the other fish want to play with him because he refuses to share with anyone. After speaking with the wise octopus, the rainbow fish learns that sharing his beautiful shiny scales with his friends will not only make everyone beautiful but it will also make everyone happy. By the end of the story, the rainbow fish decides that sharing is fun and all of the fish become great friends. After reading the story, the students created their very own Rainbow Fish to remind them that sharing is caring!

The teachers began Thursday by asking a question, “Do you have to be the same to be friends?” The students voted to show what they thought. By a show of hands, it was clear that the room was split. Rather than answering the question, the teachers introduced the students to two friends – Owen and Mzee (pronounced Muh-Zay). Now, Owen and Mzee are not your ordinary duo – Owen is a young hippopotamus and Mzee is a 130 year old tortoise who met after the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, or the tsunami, hit. In small groups, the students participated in a technology presentation featuring the clip below which tells the unbelievable story about their friendship!

The students were so moved by the presentation that they could hardly contain their excitement when they learned that they would be creating either a hippo or a tortoise art project– just like Owen and Mzee!

The fun and excitement continued in the afternoons during Music Class as the students had a blast participating in what the teachers affectionately call, “Emotion Motion”. Rather than just discussing the different emotions, the students were asked to use their bodies to SHOW a particular emotion! How about you stand up and try it right now!

Skip HAPPILY around the room!

Now, March ANGRILY!

Do a super SiLLy Dance!

Way to go!

On Friday, the students arrived at school with their lunches, backpacks …. and a fruit? Yes! The students each came to school with one piece of fruit to contribute to the school-wide Friendship Fruit Salad! The students placed their assorted fruits into a basket and began their day. In the morning, the teachers sliced up all of the fruit and displayed it prominently on the table. Clearly, the most popular fruit that was sent in was an apple. The teachers asked, “If ‘Jenny’ and ‘Billy’ brought in apples, can only ‘Jenny’ and ‘Billy’ enjoy apples in their fruit salad?” The students all shook their heads in their disapproval of this idea. They exclaimed that everyone can enjoy the apples because “Jenny” and “Billy” want to share their apples with everyone – and right they were! The teachers explained that because everyone had a hand in creating the fruit salad it would be called the “Friendship Fruit Salad”. The students took turns coming up to the table and selecting which fruits they wanted to enjoy in their fruit salad. From the looks on their faces, they really enjoyed their “Friendship Fruit Salad”.

The final thing left to do before distributing the fruit salad was to sing a special song – Fruit Salad by The Wiggles!

Well, that is all for “Feelings and Friendship Week!” What an amazing (and silly) week it was! Be sure to click the link below to visit the PPA Photo Gallery and view all of the Feelings Face photographs! As always, thank you for reading. See you next week!

-PPA

Reminders:

Monthly Installment Tuition Plan is due next week

Thursday, September 26th (2 dayers)

Friday MORNING, September 27th (3 and 5 dayers)

Upcoming School Events:

Back to School Night

Wednesday, September 25th

(7:00-8:00 p.m.)

Parents Only

PPA Pumpkin Picking and Decorating Party

Friday, September 27th

(2:00-3:00 p.m.)

All PPA students and parents are welcome to attend this event.

Aftercare is not available.

School Picture Day

Wednesday, October 2nd

ALL STUDENTS (regardless of enrollment schedule) should arrive by 8:30 a.m. Individual portraits and class photographs will be taken. Students who do not attend school on Wednesdays (2 dayers) will be picked up before lunch at 11:45 p.m. Students who attend school on Wednesday will stay for the full school day.

School Closed – October 14th – Observation of Columbus Day

PPA Halloween Celebration

Thursday, October 31st