Morning Meeting:

Daniel, our alumni, came to visit us today. After the morning songs we assigned jobs. Addison and Lucien fed the fish, Daniel helped us to catch up on our calendar, and then Elijah put up our current calendar day. Pearson was our snack helper. We read Pearson's book about Spiderman. At the beginning Daniel said “that's not real,” but by the end of it he just said “wow, that's cool.” Even Elijah (who says he doesn't like Spiderman) seemed interested. Then it was time for our Magic Box, inside which we found baby caterpillars! These special little guys are going to turn into butterfly's for us- special thanks to Carol. Everyone got a turn holding our new tiny friends; Addison said “he's soft! He's looking at me!” Then Dalila read us book about a caterpillar which had a caterpillar finger puppet inside. Afterwards we felt the Sandpaper Letter “B” and wrote words that start with “B” on our chalk board.



Snack Time:

Pearson was very well mannered this morning, especially as he quietly distributed our snack materials. We had organic crackers (Ritz type) with water. Sam loves crackers! Lilly stayed in with Dalila to help her wash the dishes.

Outside Play:

We had some very interesting outside play today. When Daniel is around you can bet there is going to be a little house being built somewhere or sometime. This time he found some big pieces of Styrofoam, he and Pearson worked hard to build a fort by leaning the pieces up against some lawn furniture. They tried to make a second one by burying the ends of some support pieces in the sandbox, but they discovered that it did not stand up well. It was a challenge to make either structure work last long in the windy weather. Lucien, Elijah, Daniel, and Pearson all had a great time swinging on the two-seater swings.
 


Project Work:

We skipped studio time today and traded it out for our first music class with Judith. She started with a song addressing each child: “Lets sing a song for Daniel, Lets sing a song for Daniel, Lets sing a song for Daniel, we're glad to have you here...” and then she sang her Welcome Song where she got the kids singing a long and clapping in time and they sang it several times. Another song was added wiggling toes, walking in place (going to the park), marching, jumping, swaying, shaking, and stretching. Then came time for the instruments and we made the sounds of a storm. Then we listened to some slightly spooky music where we acted out being piranhas and “swam” around to the eerie music. Afterwards it was time for the goodbye song and our music class was over. We still had some time left before lunch so everyone came into the studio and used water soluble packing peanuts and painted water onto them and stuck them together in order to make little sculptures. Lindsey made a little man out of them as an example, and Pearson copied it exactly! Elijah was inspired by Daniel's sculptures of Wall-E, and made one himself. The others enjoyed making “sandwiches” by piling them on top of each other long ways.



Rest Time/ Focused Work:
 
First Lindsey put quantities of different kinds of materials (glass stones, plastic animals, small movable letters, etc.) into separate containers. We had a basket with six cups attached, where Lindsey had written numbers on paper and put them in the bottom of each cup. Elijah and Sam took turns counting out the materials and putting the appropriate number inside. Numbers went as high as 21 (they had to read the number themselves). Then we used the plastic letters- each boy drew a number out of a container, and then sculpted that letter out of play dough. Then we took the letters and spread them out over the table. We put together different words and sounded them out. Sam can read almost as well as Elijah- he's doing great; we tried many different words and they were able to read every one. Daniel paid us a visit from next door about that time, so each boy got a caterpillar out of the jar and got to know him for a while.  Afterwards we went out on the front porch and found Kirso (Dalila's dog), so Sam, Elijah, and Lindsey took him for a walk up the street. On our walk we discovered some little red bugs, a Eucalyptus tree, and a huge stick which Kirso bit into many pieces. We sat on the porch swing and read a Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle book, and when we came back inside they got some free play.



Free Play:

There was much enjoyment out of the caterpillars, and a lot of fun looking at butterfly books and our rubber spiders. The caterpillars have definitely gotten our boys more interested in butterfly's than they were before. Daniel was shocked and amazed by the images of butterfly's every time we turned the page of one book. A lot of our free play ended up out doors today. Elijah and Pearson shared the trains today and joined the track into one big circle so they would both have plenty of room to play. Sam looked through a book about Sharks and learned that sharks come it all shapes, sizes, and colors.

End of the Day:

We tried the light table for a bit which projected objects onto the wall. Everyone was pretty thrilled by Elijah's plastic-encased bugs when they were projected on the wall; their shadows were much larger than the bugs themselves. Once we turned the projector off we read a wonderful book about Leonardo Da Vinci called “Leonardo and the Flying Boy,” which is a wonderful way to introduce the children to some of the most famous artists (there is a whole series).