Dear Mamas and Papas, We began our week reading four, yes four, versions of The Three Little Pigs. The children compared and contrasted, recalling each story and its many differences. When sharing about the books, we are practicing: using our words to describe details from our seats, listening to our friends, taking turns talking, remembering, recalling and retelling,using our sense of sight to look at pictures and compare,comprehension and analytical thinking. These are social, cognitive,and pre-reading skills hard at work. Afterwards we made sculptures using materials similar to what the three pigs used. Gray clay from the Earth combined with hay, sticks, and stones. The children maderobots, houses, gardens, an incubator, and more. Make that six versions of The Three Little Pigs. We made a chart tolook at the differences. We realized that the wolf is bad in only half the stories, while the pigs are bad in others. We also retold The Gingerbread Man and each person got a gingerbread cutout to color, add glue, and make swim through a river of rice and cinnamon. While they laid on the riverside to dry, we ran around the big room. After reading The Princess And The Pea, we worked with model magic to mix colors and make tiny peas. We then used our tiny fine motor skills to string them into necklaces. It was challenging but everyone worked and stayed focused. Friday morning we baked bread. Some of us turned the oven on, some poured ingredients into the bowl, some mixed, one person helped read the recipe, others put the bread in the oven and took it out when we smelled the scent of freshly baked bread. We all ate the bread with the butter we had made, and leftover apple butter. Yes, it was yummy. Afterwards we read The Little Red Hen. And An Egg Is Quiet. Our eggs are very quiet but we are expecting some noise on Monday Monday. We started a retelling of The Three Little Pigs and will finish it next week. Have a quiet blizzard! Therese