Morning Meeting:

Today we sang the alphabet in a new way. It is healthy for the brain children to cross the midline of their bodies with their limbs while exercising. Amy got the kids to do this by going through the alphabet and calling the next letter while touching alternating legs. She read 'The Knight and the Dragon' to the kids, which had many pages without any text at all. On these pages the children got to tell the story themselves, and so there was a lot of conversation about dragons. They all sang the Fishies counting songs afterward. To end, while the young children were washing their hands the older students sat and listened to a story on tape.

Snack Time:

We had goldfish and butter crackers- the kids were crazy about the crackers and asked for seconds and thirds. We washed it all down with apple cider- yum.

Outside Play:

It was very cold today so we went outside for only a few moments before we came back inside for studio time.

Project Work:

We tried some printmaking today. Monotypes are prints that never look the same, so that's what we did. Each child had a piece of plexiglas, and we all had to share squirt bottles with paint. They chose a few colors and let the paint drip onto their plexiglas. They were provided with different objects that they used to smear around in their paint in order to achieve different textures. When they had it just how they liked it, they laid a piece of paper down on top, and then peeled it up to reveal their custom image. There was a flurry of activity as each child pulled multiple prints. Everyone really enjoyed this and we had some intense studio time for about a half and hour. Everyone finished up at the same time, then washed up for lunch. We are going to hang some of these in the windows around the school, they're too pretty not to display.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Amy started off focus time by taking a handful of river rocks and having individual children count the stones. She then took them behind her back and split them into two handfulls. She revealed one of the collections of stone and had them count the stones again. They had to figure out how many rocks were missing, and in this way had some wonderful addition and subtraction practice. Pearson, Sam, and Elijah all participated. When that was over it was time to do written work. They all did a dot to dot of a dragon (the theme for the day) and colored it in. Then they did their journals which were also monsters. Sam drew a picture of his dad on his journal. While Elijah and Pearson were finishing up Amy helped Sam put together an alphabet puzzle.

Free Play:

In the morning after Lily got her Lion King CD in, Pearson listened to the 'Little Gingerbread Man' and followed along in a book. Elijah drew in the middle of the floor, instructing Lily who looked on. Addison played with her stick doll she made last year, and Ethan, our explorer, explored. Several kids also laid on the floor in the morning drawing pictures together on their bellies. Elijah and Lily stayed together in this way for a long time, talking to each other about their drawings. Later Elijah made a big sculpture out of blocks that started out being an oversized smiley face on the ground, but it became something more while Pearson played with plastic tinker toys. This was at the end of the day, and afterward Elijah did a big painting while Pearson listened to a story in the listening station as everyone was waking up.