Bonjour!

This week, amid our crazy schedule, we learned about France.  We also had preschoolers visit us to ease the transition into kindergarten and prepared for a field trip Monday.  It was a busy but exciting week!

We learned about French culture and the language, foods, monuments and symbols.  We ate some French food and watched some great YouTube videos that took us to France since we couldn't hop on a plane for a field trip.  Thanks to YouTube, we climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, toured the Louvre and walked through lavender fields (with the help of a Glade air freshener).

At the math center, we measured different items from France using unifex cubes and paper clips.  We also used our "high fashion (click to download)" pieces to create addition and subtraction problems.

The Language Arts center had "iPads" for students to create apps showing things they learned about France.  After drawing the photo for the app, students wrote a sentence or 2 that went in an envelope attached to the back of the "iPad" to share the information about each app.

The art center taught us about a different French artist each day.  In the picture below, she is creating Picasso-like artwork using google images of parts of the face. There were 3 baggies; one for eyes, one for noses and one for mouths.  Students cut out the pieces and parts to create a face.  They were awesome.  More photos of artwork to come in a later post.

Their favorite center, by far, was the dramatic play center where we had a photo booth.  Students have a camera in the room that they are allowed to use to take pictures of their work.  This week it was at this center.  I hung brown bulletin board paper for them to stand in front of.  They dressed up and took pictures of one another.  Lots of language development happening here along with fun. The foam props came for this site.  They were a free download; I had to trace them, cut them out then attach to dowel rods.  E6000 worked well; they held up all week.

Next week we will get out our passports and head to Italy, China and Mexico as we visit the classrooms of my teammates and learn about the countries they studied.  They will also come to us and learn about France.  This was a great way to keep the learning going during a time when the kiddos can be a little crazy; we have just under 3 weeks of school left.  I'll post more about the art we did (it is hanging in our own little "Louvre") and the the other countries we visited soon.

I'd love to hear what you learned about this week.  Any other ideas to add to our country study next year?   Please comment below!