“At some given moment it happens that the child becomes deeply interested in a piece of work; we see it in the expression on his face, his intense concentration, the devotion to the exercise.” —The Discovery of the Child
Warm Welcome to Ariana, Bahman and Shazneen Sotoodian family.
Warm Birthday wishes for Galen on turning three and Josephine, on turning five years old in February.
Monday February 20: School Closed in observance of President’s Day.
Staff Update: MIA would like to extend a warm welcome to Ms. Taerim Kim. She brings a lot of experience working with young children. While in Korea she majored in Occupational therapy with specialization is sensory integration. She is continuing her Early Childhood Education while working at Rio Vista Elementary school in the mornings as a special education assistant (SEA). In this role she helps students to become mainstream in class. She is extremely excited to join MIA team and work with MIA students in all areas of their development.
In February, we will transition into the diversity curriculum starting with Chinese New Year celebrations. We are making a dragon and will be celebrating the Year of the Rabbit with a parade on Thursday February 3. Children will be tasting Chinese vegetarian spring rolls for snack. Children are welcome to dress up in red, yellow or golden color outfits or any traditional Chinese outfits.
Our diversity curriculum will introduce children to special needs people and people from all around the world.
Language: We will introduce the initial sounds of the letters: “o,p” Children are welcome to bring a small object to share at circle related to the sounds.
Mathematics: Counting with heart shapes.
Art: Children will be making friendship cards to give to each other. Card making materials will be available to them for the same. They will make “Bear paw” prints in the snow.
Practical Life: children will be sorting, pouring and counting with heart shapes. We are starting the “Tool Unit”. Children will work with puzzles, learn vocabulary like: screwdriver, hammer, pliers, wrench, scale, saw and tool box. They will hold real tools and experience the weight difference between toy and real tools.
Spanish: children will be learning same vocabulary in Spanish as the morning curriculum in the afternoon.
Heartfelt gratitude for entrusting your beautiful children with us.
Carmen’s Music Curriculum
In February the younger children will learn songs about wind and rain, like
Here Come the Clouds and It Rained a Mist. They will continue exploring
percussion instruments such as the sand blocks and shakers. They will learn
how to create quiet and loud sounds with them to explore the dynamics in
music. We will be listening to excerpts from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6
and discuss how the composer used quiet and loud music to create a picture of
a peaceful nature scene and a wild thunderstorm. Our movement activities
will be focused on synchronized movements with rainbow ribbons to a
beautiful song about the rainbow.
The older children will also sing songs about rain and wind. We will learn
beautiful songs about the wind, I can’t See the Wind and the rain, Pitter
Patter. We will create a weather story by using a variety of percussion
instruments in many creative ways. We will explore weather sounds through
musical instruments, such as the rain stick, the wind- and thunder tubes. We
will listen to music inspired by the storm, like Cloudburst from the Grand
Canyon Suite by Grofe. We will talk about how composers use musical
instruments to imitate the sound of wind, rain and thunder to create beautiful
stories of different weather patterns.
The children will continue to further explore the musical terms “piano” and
“forte” and learn the new term “mezzo forte”. They will classify sounds and And music according to their dynamic qualities.