Morning Meeting:

Our morning meeting was a bit odd this time. First we sang our morning songs, along with twinkle twinkle. Then Dalila put back on our fish movie briefly to study the water once more before going into our project work today. We paid special attention to the water color, and had a bit of conversation while the movie was one. We had some counting practice this morning, so we skipped the calendar and went straight to snack.

Snack Time:

Addison was our snack helper today. She counted all of the students, and then handed out napkins. We had goldfish and water for snack.

Outside Play:

In the sandbox Lindsey started shoveling sand into a bucket. Addison became curious and asked what she was doing- they decided together that they were making a cake. It turned quickly into Addison's birthday cake. Soon Elijah, Pearson, and Willow had joined in the game and started adding eggs, vanilla, flour, etc. to the 'batter'. When the bucket was full of sand we stuck some sticks in the top for candels and sang "happy birthday" to Addison (it was her fourth birthday). We served sand to everyone on plates. We came inside a bit early today because it was cold- which was a good thing because it gave us enough time to finish our intense project work.

Project Work:

We created an ocean today. The first step was to look at the colors we mixed in a previous class period which matched water tones. We had squirt bottles filled with white, black, green, yellow, and blue. The kids had a number of cups which they used to mix larger quantities of water tones. We purposefully mixed colors that would belong in different depths of water (i.e. the dark blue would be the the ocean floor, and the light blue would be the surface). Pearson started in with his deep dark ocean color, and decided which side of the huge paper (laid out on the floor) would be the bottom of the ocean. We used small foam brushes to speed up covering all of the paper. Soon the others had finished with their color selections, and chose different areas of the ocean to work on. Sam did most of the surface water for us, and Elijah did the very middle- which ended with his feet covered in paint. Addison and Willow helped mostly on the sides, or middle-depth, and provided us with some green shades to mix in with the blue. They worked beautifully together right up until lunch time.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Focus time started out with some free play- Elijah went to make ramps and roads out of books again, as we did yesterday. Then the other children (before they laid down) started building a city around it made out of blocks. After our nappers went to lay down Elijah played in our sensory table for a while. Afterwards he and Sam sat down to do some focus work. Elijah's sentance today which he wrote was "I like to hike." His journal entry was covered in different germ drawings (flu, flesh eating bateria, bed bugs,  etc.) Sam drew a representation of Godzilla- sharp teeth and all- on his daily journal. Pearson soon appeared and did his own focus work. Today, among other things, he traced and read "cat" and "bat," as well as the numbers 14 and 15. After the focus work was finished we got out some magazines about cells and the body, as well as ocean books. Lindsey provided transperancy paper for them to use in order to trace images out of the books. Pearson and Elijah worked for a long time tracing micro-organisms and sea creatures. 

Free Play:

This morning Willow did a painting first thing, on the easel. Pearson immediately dressed up like Darth Vadar. Elijah, Willow. and Pearson all went into the quiet room to listen the Beatles cranked up loud, and had a lovely time with some privacy (they didn't even break any school rules in there by themselves). Addison hung out with Lindsey who helped Addison to write her name on a sheet of paper. Addison was able to make more than one letter 'A', perfectly, on her own. She drew and cut out the letters. Pearson came into the studio and presented the jar of human teeth that we have. We examined them closely- Lindsey opened her mouth to show them the similarities. They wondered how many teeth are in the mouth, so Elijah counted every one of Lindsey's teeth on her bottom jaw. He counted 17- so we wondered what that number doubled was. So we counted out 17 objects into a basket twice (added 17 and 17 objects)- then counted again the entire number of objects. Lots of counting!

Morning Meeting:

Because of our monster play this morning, we sang the morning song in monster voices- very silly. We sang twinkle twinkle, the “monster went over the mountain,” and “mamma mia” for Addison (with fast couples dancing). Then we turned off the light and pretended to be cows. The lights came on for the calendar, which Addison and Elijah helped us with- we counted the numbers in English and Spanish. Then we sang the Spanish song. Afterwards Dalila reviewed images of our water color sprectrum paint mixing project and we had a bit of conversation about what we were doing in studio today. We also looked at some pictures in the ocean book with good images of water, and we talked about the color of it.

Snack Time:

We had lots of snack helpers again today. Elijah got cups for everyone, and Pearson and Addison helped with napkins. We had pretzels- we had a lot of fun biting the pretzles into letter shapes and spelling

Outside Play:

Pearson went right back to making “ice cream” in the sandbox. All of our little ones enjoyed the swings for a bit, and then almost everyone ended up in the sandbox. Addison started wheeling, and even carrying around the wheel barrow. Lily put Lala (her comfort blanket) inside the wheel barrow and Addison wheeled it around.

Project Work:

We used our water tints and shades to make paintings of ocean water. They were tempted to put creatures in the water, but that's step number two. Once that was settled they were able to focus on their water paintings. We looked at the ocean book for different ways that water appears in different contexts. Pearson used dark colors to represent the deep ocean where the bioluminescent fish live. Elijah painted the bottom of his page dark, and the top light blue with different shades of green to show how the water gets lighter at the top, and darker as the light is filtered out where it is deep. Addison used many different shades of light blues and greens, which makes it look like the surface of the water. Pearson was daunted by the thought of covering his whole page with paint, but worked hard and was proud of his painting in the end. This was practice for when we paint a collaborative ocean.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Elijah did his focus work, as did Kieran who has been earning himself a greater number of worksheets as his focus and ability improves. When Kieran was done he got the bright idea to use some of the focus binders on the shelf as a ramp for the toy cars. Elijah put the words 'Godzilla', 'Like', and 'Sinbad' into his special word folder. Pearson got to decorate one of his own with stickers, and put 'cat' and 'spider' inside it. Afterwards the older boys joined Kieran with the cars and started adding more binders. Lindsey redirected them to use books and blocks to build ramps over the carpet. Elijah, of course, made his so large that the other boys just added their ramps onto his so they were all sharing. They made a long road of books with tall ramps on either end. They had a great time playing like this together until it was time to clean up and go outside.

Free Play:

This morning when Kieran came in he found a flashlight. He started studying the light it made and how it changed as he moved it around on different surfaces. He went into the quiet room where it was dark to see the light better. When the others arrived they became excited about the flashlights as well, so Dalila went to fetch enough for a group of children to each have one. The kids spent the majority of their time this morning in the quiet room with the shades drawn pretending to be monsters. Pearson, Elijah, Kieran, and Maya all spent time either drawing or painting in the studio, as well. Kieran and Elijah also looked at our beautiful ocean book from yesterday, with Elijah explaining what he knew about the images to Kieran.

Morning Meeting:

After the morning songs we sang the Bear Went Over the Mountain along to a march. Then we acted like fish and swam around the room. Then we looked at some books together and had quite a bit of conversation about them which was spurred by an observation about Pearson's Star Wars shirt. We also put up the numbers on the calendar and counted multiple times because we had more than one person who wanted to help out.

Snack Time:

Addison, Pearson, and Elijah all wanted to help with snack, so they each gave out a couple of napkins. We had goldfish and water for snack.

Outside Play:

Some of our kids found the remains of a fire that happened in our fire pit over the weekend. Elijah, Lily, and Draven all ended up playing in the ashes until they got a bit too dirty to continue. Luckily ash dust comes off easily. Pearson started the idea of making ice cream in the sandbox. He started scooping sand into the wheel barrow and announced what he was doing. Soon Draven, and even Maya were all “making ice cream.” Addison enjoyed playing in the leafs, as did Elijah. They moved our zip line stool closer to the pile, and jumped off of it directly into the pile.

Project Work:

Miss Judith brought us some hard work today for music class! We used a big hard cardboard tube, some nails, and a mallet to create a huge rain stick. We started the nails for them most of the time (Pearson had some success hammering a nail in completely on his own) and let them drive the nails all the way in. We added many nails, and closed off one end. Each child poured in a bit of rice, and then when we had enough, we closed the other end. Before we even mentioned the name of the instrument Pearson commented “it sounds like rain.” We worked hard all the way up until lunch.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Elijah got some free play while he was building his “animal hotel” out of blocks. When he was done, Sam and he sat down at the table for some focus work. They completed their work and then Lindsey had Sam do a couple of easel paintings. Then Pearson came out of the quiet room, and started to do focus work. It didn't happen for Pearson today, though, because he and Lindsey and Elijah got very distracted talking about the globe, equator, north and south poles, rain forests, and the oceans. We got on the internet and started looking at videos of different amazing creatures such as eels, lion fish, and iguanas. Afterwards we sat down and looked through a beautiful book of ocean images- they got so excited they wanted to make their own oceans. We decided to use sand, rocks, and water to make a life-like ocean setup in the sensory table. We had to do a bit of experimenting to get it just right.

Free Play:

The girls enjoyed dressing up like princesses today. Lily talked on the phone to her mommy quiet a bit, and worked hard in the writing station. There was actually a bustle of activity in the writing area today- and by the end of it, was covered in drawings by ever person in the school almost. This morning Lindsey's mother, Gal, came to visit us and brought her tiny chihuahua! The kids held and pet him- so precious! The kids crowded around gal at the lunch table, and she helped them to put together a counting floor puzzle which took up most of the table.

Morning Meeting:

We started out with our morning songs, the Spanish song, and the ABC's. Then Dalila got everyone up acting out different insects. It ended with a whole classroom full of spiders climbing on top of Dalila! Then everyone got up and jumped as high as they could, played ring around the rosy, and ran in place as fast as they could. Then we turned out the light and everyone laid down to relax for a bit. Then Dalila talked about the letter G, and read the little G book. She wrote G-words on the board and let the kids write a bit. Then it was time for the calendar, and Lily put up the number for us today, then everyone counted the days together. Inside the magic box we discovered a beautiful fish streamer decoration which was donated by Elijah's grandmother.

Snack Time:

First we hung up our decoration (the children unanimously chose the spot for it), then we fed the fish, and then we sat down to snack. We had popcorn and water today- yum.

Outside Play:

Elijah had so much energy today he took the outside play up a notch. He and Pearson joined forces against Sam and they ran all around the playground having a grand time. Willow showed everyone a great way to swing without needing the teachers- by kicking off the ground. There was some zip line zipping, and some sandbox play. Some of our kids, though, didn't prefer to be outside too long today due to the weather. Addison and Pearson kept popping back inside to warm up.

Project Work:

We had a late start, and lots of creativity during the morning free play, so we skipped project work today.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Today we had Willow, Sam, and Elijah at first. Later Pearson got up and joined us- a big focus work group. Elijah worked on writing sentences, spelling, number recognition, and was also introduced to simple addition, today. Pearson worked on reading some simple words, writing (now double digit) numbers, and hand coordination. Willow did her first worksheet here- she traced lower case and upper case letter “A.” She has a very good pencil grip and did a great job staying right on the line. She was very proud of herself and declared “I did it!” after every small line that she drew. She got to pick out her symbol for her cubby, and also practice coloring in shapes. Sam is a little work horse and can spit out a good number of writing worksheets pretty quickly. He practiced writing and coloring shapes, then drew one Godzilla drawing, and one of his Dad.

Free Play:

This morning we had extended free play which was a bustle of activity. Willow had many things to discover in the school, so she and Draven were all over the place. They played music, played dress up and in the kitchen, and they painted. Lily was painting and the girls came in to watch her. They decided they wanted to make some artwork too, so they drew some big marker drawings while they were waiting. Lily got off the easel and started to draw on some huge paper with markers- she covered the whole thing front and back with squigly lines. Then she went to the writing station and worked very hard there, as well. Elijah wanted to do a big drawing and ended up drawing many Godzilla creatures, each of which had their own story. There was also a bit of play in the sensory table. Elijah had a “bacteria experiment” which was a fish bowl filled with water, with blue sand inside. He used a turkey baster to move water and sand around. The other children got interested in it while he was in the studio, and had a nice time experimenting with it.

End of the Day:

Lindsey gathered the children into the reading room and read to them two stories about thanksgiving.

Morning Meeting:

Dalila started the meeting off by reviewing a clip of our Eyewitness fish movie in order to drive home some observations about fish and water for the purposes of our ongoing projects. They got excited about it all over again. After a bit of that everyone got in their places on the floor to start the meeting officially. We did the calendar and counted the days. After several fun songs Dalila asked the children “what color is the water?” We reviewed the photos of the aquarium from the field trip yesterday. We continued on this topic for a bit getting feedback from the children. Then there was a little more singing. After a book it was time for the Magic Box which contained some Swedish fish (healthy-ish gummies).

Snack Time:

Addison and Pearson helped us to pass out the napkins. We had water and animal crackers. Everyone got one Swedish fish, as well.

Outside Play:

Everyone had fun swinging and playing in the sandbox while Elijah searched for insects underneath rocks. Pearson and Addison came across a large stink bug which Pearson played with for a while before we let it go. Maya helped Lindsey to clean the leafs out of the sandbox. We tried to go outside later in the day when it was sprinkling, but it was short lived.

Project Work:

After our conversations about the colors which one can find in different water sources, we were ready to go on a water color hunt. Lindsey had pulled out tubs and tubs of materials out of the closet and lined them all up on the light table. We looked through all of the bins and all over the school to find objects that reminded us of water. Each child had a basket to fill up, and when they were full we came back to the studio and dumped them out into trays. We looked at our colors and examined what we had found. Lindsey provided a deviled egg holder with many wells to put paint in. Each student picked one item at a time and attempted to mix paint to match the color of their choice. We made many colors- some failed experiments turned out to match other colors on our tray. It took a lot of really hard thinking and some suggestions from Lindsey but we ended up with a beautiful array of colors. We will use these paints in the future to paint water for our project.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Elijah has finally learned to spell the word Love correctly without looking at the spelling. After practicing the word he wrote two sentences without any adult help whatsoever: “I love my Mom. I love my Dad.” He is also getting a much better grasp of his double digit numbers and is close to mastering the teens. He got to decorate a small plastic (index card sized) folder case with many beautiful stickers. He is calling it his “School Purse.” This is a container for all of his special words which he as worked to learn to read and spell. He wrote the word “Love” on an index card an put it inside the case. He said that we will do another one tomorrow- which was exactly our plan. Kieran worked on his pencil grip by doing a couple worksheets. Then he drew two extensive pictures on the front and back of a sheet of paper. Afterwards he and Elijah sat down together and build a block city which ended in Elijah's comedic act to crack up Kieran. Pearson got in a good solid nap today which surprised us because he was so full of energy this morning. Lily on the other hand, stayed up and played while Pearson slept.

Free Play:

Lily played in the marbles and sand that are in the sand table right now. Kieran played with the marble machine this morning. He also played with Elijah briefly at the magnet board. There was a bit of puzzles this morning, as well. We also had translucent Leggos at the light table this morning which took up most of our morning free play. Everyone was crowded around to play with the beautiful blocks. Addison and Lily both spent a long time in the writing station making creations- which Addison, of course, wanted to stick on the wall.

Morning Meeting:

We sang the good morning songs, the bear went over the mountain, fishy song, and buenos dias. Then we looked at all of our photos from yesterday through the television. The children always get very excited to review their exploits. We skipped the magic box today and went straight to snack.

Snack Time:

Kieran wanted to help us with snack today so he handed out napkins. We had peanutbutter and also cheese crackers today. We supplemented them with some Hugs and Kisses when we ran out of those.

Outside Play:

Straight to the leaf pile today. They had a lot of fun swinging down the zip line and dropping into the leaf pile. Pearson got the wheel barrow and started getting more loads. The barrow was a popular item today and we had to do some turn taking. We also used the rake to gather the leafs that have fallen into our sandbox. We loaded the leafs into the wheel barrow and let Elijah take them away. Later in the day Elijah, Addison, Kieran, and Draven all played house together in the playhouse. They sat down and had dinner together- a meal of rocks, sand, random plants, and pieces of wood. They sat for a long time having their dinner. Just before our parents arrived Lindsey showed the kids some fun tricks that she enjoyed when she was a child. The kids were thrilled and asked to do the tricks over and over again. (walking up the legs, sack of potatoes, wheelbarrow, airplane, etc. - if you're not familiar and would like to have some fun at home just ask).

Project Work:

We made fish from clay today. They got a brief lesson on how to join together two pieces of clay so that they wont fall apart when they're dry. Pearson ended up creating a sea monster with many eyes. He put “ant eggs” in his mouth- the monsters' diet. Elijah had to make his own sea monster after he finished with his first fish. His monster was basically all eyes. Addison struggled with the clay for a while. First she made several tiny fish, then started pressing the toy fish into the clay and making a print. Draven made a smiley face head with a fin and called it done. Everyone had a very unique result- we'll see if we can fire them in the kiln once they're dry.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Elijah and Kieran sat down for some focus work after some very brief free play. Kieran got some pencil grip practice with writing, coloring, and cutting. Lindsey had 11-25 flash cards and we went over them several times to sort out his double digit recognition. He practiced writing the word “love” and then wrote two “I love my ___” sentences. Pearson practiced reading and writing the words that he learned over the past couple of class periods. All three boys did a couple drawings at the end of it. Lindsey gave Kieran sandpaper letters and we talked about the name of the letter. He had to find the same letter on the alphabet carpet and place the sandpaper letter inside that square. It was challenging for him and helped him to discern the details of different similar letters (like Z and S). Pearson was sent to the easel when Dalila took everyone else outside and he completed two lovely paintings. Addison got to do some focus work today, too. She did a lovely job on two worksheets, then she drew some crazy pictures on her journal.

Free Play:

We had many paintings on the easel today- it was a popular item all throughout the day. Draven, Kieran, Pearson, and Elijah all got one or more paintings out of it today. In the morning the children sat together putting together a difficult puzzle. Kieran, Addison, Pearson, and Elijah were all of our puzzle workers. When they were done they dumped it out to try it again. Our older boys also had fun looking at fish books together this morning.

End of the Day:

Our end of the day is written under the last part of Outside Play. Lindsey played hard with them (see end of outside play)- they were full of joy and grinning from ear to ear.

Morning Meeting:

After the morning songs Dalila read a book about a fish trying to find its mother. There was some conversation about fish afterwords. We asked the children about what they were curious, about fish, or what they'd like to learn. Then it was time for the Magic Box, which contained a wonderful Eyewitness movie about fish which we're going to watch for project time to get ideas for our leaf ocean and also become more familiar with life under the sea.

Snack Time:

First we fed the fish- everyone got to help out. Addison was our snack helper and passed out napkins. We had cheerios and peanut butter cereal today with water.

Outside Play:

In the morning we realized that it was going to rain later in the day so we went outside first thing to get in some time out there without getting wet later. We played in the sandbox and on the zipline. After snack we went out in the front yard for a bit and the kids loved to run and fly in the wind. We threw leaves into the air and said “its raining!” Elijah said “its fun to throw leaves in the wind.” In the end of the day Dalila got kid sized rakes and a wheel barrow for the children, and adult sized ones for herself. They all started raking leaves to make a huge leaf pile under our zip line. Every child got a turn riding in the wheel barrow filled with leaves. We had great fun!

Project Work:

Miss Judith had music class today- after the welcome songs everyone got up for the mulberry bush. Everyone as been really enjoying the mulberry bush and stirred up some raucous falling down when the song was done. Then it was time for the sound experiments Everyone held part of Judith's paper towel roll “snake” to get the rattley objects from one end to the other. Then she got out the percussion instruments and played either soft or loud- the children had to pay attention to her and play the same way she was. Then some other children got the chance to be the leader. Then they sang the “itsy bitsy spider” and said goodbye. Then they went to the quiet room to watch the fish movie. There was some really beautiful and amazing footage, and when it was over Pearson said he wanted to watch it again. The movie helped the children to raise some questions that they had about fish.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Elijah played with the train tracks while he listened to his headphones and Sam put together a puzzle. After a bit of that they sat down to do some focus work. Lindsey helped Elijah to work on his recognition of double digit numbers. Sam had lots of writing practice and we worked on his pencil grip. He drew a picture of some Godzilla creatures fighting. Pearson got to work on reading and now will tell you that he can read 8 words. We worked long and hard, and when Dalila came out she relieved them to the outdoors.

Free Play:

When everyone was outside first thing this morning Addison came inside early due to a tummy ache. Lindsey caught her and showed her how to make rubbings of leaves with chalk pastels through parchment paper. There was a display of beautiful leafs on the light table which Addison was attracted to. She did several rubbings, then wwhile we were out front she found a leaf that she was very taken with. While everyone played she ran inside to do a rubbing of it, she held it up and gingerly said “look!”

End of the Day:

Our end of the day is written under the last part of Outside Play. We played with the leafs until our parents arrived.

Morning Meeting:

We sang the morning songs and also a counting song about a shark eating a fish which the children really enjoyed. Then we all pretended to be fish in the ocean and Dalila was the shark and went around catching the fish. Then Elijah had something to show everyone which was a bag of books which he brought today. After exploring them Dalila brought out the sandpaper letter “F” and read them the little F book. Then we got out the chalk

Snack Time:

Draven was the snack helper today and passed out the napkins for us. We had animal crackers to munch on.

Outside Play:

Kirso, Dalila's dog, came to play with us today. He had a little bone and every time the children came near he took off running in a different direction. This sparked a game of chasing Kirso all around the yard in every direction. Draven worked to build a sandcastle- and Elijah discovered a beautiful moth which he captured to take home to his insect sanctuary. A lot of play also stayed inside the playhouse, as well, going on for quite a while and involving the majority of our students. When we went outside at the end of the day Elijah and Pearson both had their own collection of insects to keep including slugs, crickets, and beetles. Dalila also had an impromptu "ring around the rosie" which they always love- falling down is apparently the best thing ever.

Project Work:

While we were outside we got out one of our lovely fish books and looked at the images with the children along side some leafs from our yard. We posed the question to the children is there any similarities between the leafs and the fish? After they pointed out a few things we gathered them to go on a nature walk in search of fish-like leafs. We found many on our block that reminded us not only of fish, but of their body parts (fins)- and some that even reminded us of specific species of fish. When we came almost back to school we spotted a friendly neighbor's yard (who has a leaf blower) who had a huge pile of leafs. Dalila was the first to dive in and soon all of the children joined her in a very Reggio experience- which was to purely and joyfully experience them, building a relationship with the experience. We romped and played until it was lunch time- you should have been there, parents! We are going to use our leaf collection to make large collaborative ocean.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Elijah and Kieran sat down for some focus work, together. After Kieran did his sheets and while Elijah was doing work on his own Lindsey had Kieran put a specific number of glass stones into different containers. First one in each, then two, then three. Then we lined them all up and counted as high as he could go- which was the mid teens. Then he sat down and drew a very complex image with markers. Elijah started writing short sentences today starting with “I love my...” He can now remember (after a sec) that “my” ends with a “Y” and that “love” has an “E” on the end. When Pearson came out to join us we noticed that our sucker fish was on the front glass so we could see his mouth and gills working. Lindsey set some chairs in front of the tank and gave the boys clip boards with paper and pencils and set them to work representing our fish. Elijah drew every fish in the tank, and Pearson figured out how to draw them after a bit of struggle. Then Pearson had to sit down for some focus work. We had the alphabet flash cards and found out that he knew almost all of the letters and their sounds that he missed yesterday. Then we practiced reading some easy words until focus time was over.

Free Play:

Our fish play picked up right where it left off, this morning. Elijah with his fish bowl and Pearson with his “ocean” in the water table. We had lots of water play this morning and looking at fish books as we discussed fish and their habits. Lily painted a lovely picture this morning with green and orange. Draven may have tried on every piece of dress up clothes that we have, just this morning. Kieran enjoyed the marble machine and was very content to do so by himself for quite a while. Pearson's beetle which he found outside spurred some good conversation between the children. 

End of the Day:

All of our families joined us this afternoon to view our daily photos on our TV with our new camera cable. This should become our new ritual and we invite our parents to view the photos with us.

Morning Meeting:

We started off the morning meeting with the question of “what was new this morning?” The answer was that we had a new beautiful fish tank donated by Kendra and family.Pearson had the question of how did we move it to the school, so Dalila explained the process. We took all of our numbers off of our calendar for the new month and put up the new month name. Then we sang our morning songs as well as “the Fish go Swimming one by one.” We all pretended to be fish and swam around the room- Pearson was a shark (he had on a shark shirt) and Elijah was a nautilus. Then all of the fish laid down to relax for a bit with the lights off.Then we did the helpers, and magic box. Inside was a book called“Don't Tease the Guppies.” At that time we had a bit more conversation about fish and that we can see fish at the Memphis Zoo-everyone agreed a field trip is a good idea. Elijah and Pearson were our fish feeders today.

Snack Time:

We fed the fish first- everyone got a turn today. Addison and Pearson were the snack helpers and gave out napkins. We had peanut butter sandwich crackers today.

Outside Play:

Kirso, Dalila's dog, came to play with us today. He had a little bone and every time the children came near he took off running in a different direction. This sparked a game of chasing Kirso all around the yard in every direction. Draven worked to build a sandcastle- and Elijah discovered a beautiful moth which he captured to take home to his insect sanctuary. A lot of play also stayed inside the playhouse, as well, going on for quite a while and involving the majority of our students. When we went outside at the end of the day Elijah and Pearson both had their own collection of insects to keep including slugs, crickets, and beetles.

Project Work:

Our studio time got bumped to post-focus work due to some time mix-ups this morning and some extended free play outside.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Sam and Elijah sat down to do some focus work that targets the pencil grip and fine motor ability.Elijah's journal was a picture of one of our new fish (he nick named this fish Sharp Tooth). Sam was prompted to draw a picture of his father on his journal, and he volunteered details on the drawing such as his dad's mustache and his very short hair. Afterwards the two boys sat down in chairs next to each other and took turn reading the pages of Elijah's easy reader books. The boys then got some free play with some tinker toys while Pearson was doing his focus work. Lindsey made some alphabet and number flash cards to see which sounds and numbers he was familiar with. He knew the name and sound of almost all of the alphabet, and was familiar with numerals 1 through 10.Then we all came into the studio to do some paintings of fish. The boys had a fish toy which they first practiced drawing, and then did watercolor paints of. Afterwards Elijah started mass producing sea life drawings of creatures in a book that was displayed.

Free Play:

When we came in for the morning we discovered a beautiful fish tank donated by Kendra, whose children are no longer with us at our school. This sparked a whole new world of inspiration for the children. First there were conversations between the children about the fish, and then they acted out the life of fish through their play. Pearson and Elijah both got a fish bowl with some toy fish and sea creatures. Pearson got the idea to fill his bowl with water so that they could swim, and so Elijah followed suite. Then Pearson moved to the water table and started taking trips from the bath tub faucet to the water table until he had created his own ocean. The idea soon spread to “feed” the fish with our fake fruit by spooning them one at a time into the water. These play ideas developed and then expanded and spread to each other all morning long- it was quite lovely. We seem to have started a fish project out of the blue. Our girls have also been drawn to the instruments a lot lately which may have been spurred by Draven. They take turns playing the harmonica for long periods of time most days.

End of the Day:

We went outside for the end of the dayto play in the back yard and came inside once our mothers arrived.

Morning Meeting:

During the morning songs it is so sweet to hear all of the little voices singing along with each other. We did Twinkle Twinkle little star. Kieran put up our calendar day for us and Maya helped us count the days. Then we talked about our Halloween party and read a Halloween alphabet book. Afterwards we counted our days in Spanish. We had fruit leather inside our MagicBox to have for snack today.

Snack Time:

Lindsey got the kids water, there wasn't much to do for snack helper for the fruit leather. After everyone finished that we got out some goldfish and ate those.

Outside Play:

We had a visitor today, Heather, who had two young children. They came outside to play with us- and spent most of their time in the sandbox with Maya. Lily and Kieran had agreat time swinging, and Pearson found out what it feels like to fly or fall, one, when he swung high with his eyes closed- he had a biggrin on his face while he was doing it. Elijah went on a bug hunt and found many insects which he kept in a jar. We spotted a big stink bug which we inspected and then let go, as well.

Project Work:

We did lunch and project work backwards today, eating before we came into the studio, because everyone was very hungry. We created scarecrow heads today by putting a face on a cloth-covered balloon. The kids first drew the shapes they needed to cut out to make their face, and colored them how they wanted it. Then they found cloth scraps that matched the colors they used. Some of the cloth was too hard to cut so the kids had to draw the shape on the cloth and then have Lindsey cut out the shape for them- but Elijah and Pearson did manage to get some shapes without any help. They are huge fans of their scarecrows. Elijah named his Scarey the scarecrow. Pearson said he wants to take his everywhere and sleep with it at night. Addison said hers was SOhappy.

Rest Time/ Focused Work:

Kieran, Pearson, and Elijah all did some worksheets at different points in time. Pearson and Elijah both had a worksheet with dotted lines in the shape of a jack-o-lantern. They worked hard to color in the face shapes and then paint watercolors over the entire sheet. The yellow shapes look like theirglowing (as Elijah pointed out) through the black paint. Elijah worked on learning to spell “nautilus” (he does on his own almost every day, anyway) and Pearson learned how to read “_at” words(at, bat, cat, sat, rat, hat) and practiced writing them. He did a picture of his scarecrow on his journal, and Elijah did a nautilus and a ghost. Kieran practiced writing straight and zig zag lines. After we finished our work we went out on the front porch and stuffed Elijah's scarecrow together.

Free Play:

The morning was fun when some of our parents hung out for a bit almost like a mini party. Kieran really enjoyed reading a book with his dad. The kids finished painting every single one of our salt cookies today front and back- amazing. We had lots of painting today mostly from Kieran who did several paintings. Elijah started a sequel to his E.T. Book through paintings. Kieran also ran around and played with everything he could get his hands on. Draven played some music and in the morning there was play with train tracks and the marble machine.

End of the Day:

We went outside for the end of the day to play in the back yard.