Hello all,
“Letter J is for Jungle Week” was joyful, jubilant, jovial and just jazzy! Read on below to learn about the fun that was had and learning that took place!
The schedule changed a bit on Monday morning as the students welcomed a PPA Mommy to the classroom and revisited the theme of helping from “Letter H is for Helping Week”. The Mommy and owner of The Peasful Kitchen photographed below brought in various yummy supplies that the students would combine to make delicious snack baggies. The Mommy explained that she would be taking the snack baggies the students made to St. Francis Church in Hoboken, which provides daily lunch and groceries to those in need. The students were delighted to learn that their hard work would help keep a lot of bellies full. What a special way to start the week! Thank you to this PPA Mommy for spending the day with us and continuing the helping! 🙂
The remainder of Monday (and Tuesday) was spent focusing on letter J activities! The students worked one on one with the teachers to complete their Letter J identification/fine motor activity sheets. When it came time for the letter J lists and hunting in the afternoon, the students added some great words and MANY names to the list. Who knew there was so many children (and even teachers) at PPA with J-names? As was the case during letter G week, the word “Juh-Juh-raffe” (or giraffe) was suggested for the J list. Fortunately, the students remembered that some letters are super tricky and have different sounds – silly G! Here is the list from Monday’s class.
The jungle fun began on Wednesday with a story all about the most famous jungle animal of all – the KING of the jungle – the lion! When the teachers announced that the students would be learning about lions, the classroom erupted with excitement! To begin, the teachers thought it would be wise to discuss everything the students knew about jungles! Here is what they came up with.
The teachers, again reminding the students about the KING of the jungle, then decided to share some photographs of lions in the jungle. The problem was – they couldn’t find any! No matter how hard the teachers and the students searched, all of the photographs of lions were not in lush green jungles. Instead, the lions all seemed to be in dry, flat, slightly grassy land (known as a savanna). Hmmmmm, the students wondered why this could be? The teachers decided to turn to the experts to get to the bottom of this. Through their research, the students and teachers learned that a long, long, time ago (in the 18th century) people living in India used a word called “Jangala” which in a language named Sanskrit meant “uncultivated land” or empty land. In the original language, the word Jangala was meant to describe dry land (like a savanna where lions would be found) but misuse of the word by people who did not speak the language lead to some confusion. Over time, Jangala came to be thought of as “tangled up nature”. The new understanding of this word led to the description of rain forest/jungle-like places (as we would call them today) being called “Jungles”. Since the lion is such a ferocious predator (good hunter), it is considered to be the “King of the Jungle” but perhaps the “King of all Beasts” would be more fitting. How interesting!
The students were fascinated to learn this interesting fact about where the word Jungle came from and decided to create the lion art project anyway since it was so cute! The students had a blast listening to the following song while creating their tissue paper lion heads!
Upon their return to school on Thursday, the students got right to work creating another jungle-themed art project – a jungle parrot with pizazz! In order to do so, the students started by painting colorful glitter-glue onto the body of the parrot! Of course, beautiful and colored feathers were added as well!
In Spanish class on Thursday (and Friday) afternoon, the students began a new unit – Los Animales (Animals). Seeing that it was “Letter J is for Jungle Week”, the timing could not have been more perfect! Take a look below to see the long list of vocabulary the students will be learning and practicing throughout the next few weeks!
el cerdo – pig
el caballo – horse
el pájaro -bird
el oso – bear
el perro – dog
el gato – cat
la vaca – cow
la jirafa – giraffe
el león – lion
la cebra – zebra
el caiman – alligator
el cocodrilo – crocodile
el hipopótamo – hippopotamus
el rinoceronte – rhinoceros
el tigre – tiger
el elefante – elephant
el mono – monkey
la rana – frog
la tortuga – turtle
el serpiente – snake
After spending the entire week investigating all things jungle, the students created a classroom book called, “PPA’s Jungle Book” on Friday. Take a look below to see a few pages of this amazing book!
Wow! Talk about a Best-Seller! 🙂 Well, that is all for Letter J is for Jungle Week! As always, thank you for reading and have a wonderful and safe weekend! See you next week!
-PPA
REMINDERS:
Tuition due on Tuesday/Wednesday, December 19,20th
PPA Winter Holiday Celebration
Wednesday, 12/21
2:00-3:00 p.m.
All PPA Students and parent welcome!
Aftercare not available today
School Closed – Winter Recess
12/22-1/2
School Resumes Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Theme for Next Week:
