💃International Women's Week 🎉

Dear Green Room Families,

"Dear Girl, Don't ever lose your sense of wonder. This book is for you. Wonderful, smart, beautiful you." - Dear Girl, by Amy Krause Rosenthal and Paris Rosenthal

This week in the Green Room, we celebrated International Women's Week. In addition to Dear Girl, we read Amelia Earhart, Jane Goodall, and Zaha Hadid, all part of Maria Isabela Sanchez Vegara’s Little People Big Dreams book series, and Little Dreamers: Visionary Women Around The World by Vashti Harrison.

On Monday, Teacher Karla took the children on a special “flight” over the California coast! This virtual field trip was inspired by Amelia Earhart, who we have been learning about in class. Vergara’s Amelia Earhart book was the perfect biography to get the children inspired and ready to learn. They discovered that Earhart was the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. We looked at a map and drew a line showing where she departed and landed.

To begin our journey, each child matched their plane ticket shape to their seat. Once everyone found their spots, the children buckled their “seat belts” and prepared for takeoff. During our fun five-minute flight, the children looked out their “windows” and saw the ocean, fluffy clouds, and tiny houses below.

When we finally arrived at our destination, the adventure continued. The children became pilots themselves and painted their own airplanes at the art center. It was a joyful and imaginative experience for everyone! 

On Tuesday, we learned about Jane Goodall, a woman of extraordinary curiosity and compassion. From a very young age, Jane knew she wanted to help animals. She eventually traveled to the Tanzanian city of Gombe in Africa, where she studied chimpanzees in the wild. There, she made an incredible discovery — and became the first scientist to observe that chimpanzees, like humans, use tools.

This discovery sparked lots of curiosity as the children looked closely at the pictures in the Jane Goodall Little People, Big Dreams book. The children asked thoughtful questions such as, “What kind of tools did they use?” We talked about how chimpanzees use stones to crack open nuts and small sticks, similar to spoons, to fish for protein-filled termites. The children were fascinated and surprised, which led to a lively and engaging classroom discussion.

Later at the Art Center, the children created their own chimpanzee habitats. They painted beautiful jungle oases using fun foam brushes to make leafy textures and paint their own chimpanzees in their native environments. It was a creative and exciting way to bring to life our learning about Jane Goodall’s amazing work with chimpanzees. The children enjoyed stopping by the local Book Fair that is visiting our TCS campus in honor of Read Across America week, a nationwide literacy celebration held in March. 

On Wednesday, the children learned about Mae Jemison, a trailblazing engineer, physician, and NASA astronaut who made history in 1992 as the first African American woman to travel in space aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour. A lifelong science lover and trained dancer, she spent over 190 hours in orbit conducting experiments on bone cells and motion sickness.

We read Roda Ahmed’s Mae Among The Stars which tells the story of a young girl named Mae who dreams of going to space. Her parents' encouragement of "If you believe it, and work hard for it, anything is possible" helps her overcome challenges and achieve her goal. It's a story aimed at children about perseverance, big dreams and STEM. The children made their own spaceships using geoshapes to blast off into space.

We learned about architect Zaha Hadid, the pioneering, award-winning architect known as the "Queen of the Curve" for designing futuristic, flowing buildings that look like they are dancing or floating. As the first woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, she broke boundaries, choosing curvy, organic shapes instead of squares. Inspired by Zaha, the children designed and built their own abstract colorful curvy buildings, using paper and glue. We loved seeing their creativity, use of STEM and thinking outside the box to build and to be little architects of their own buildings.

Fun Friday brought us a bright and sunny day for Friday 15, and the ever-so-popular Share Day!

We have enjoyed being inspired by and celebrating wonderful women all this week.

Have a great weekend,
Nancy & Karla 💚

Music with Teacher Bryan        🎼

The children learned about Mozart and heard different Mozart songs, they danced using scraves and had a whimsical time.

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Thank you