Games with Friends

Dear Parents,

We played several games this week with our friends. We began with Red Light, Green Light. We hopped like frogs, slithered like snakes, raced like cheetahs, ran like humans, crawled like house cats, tigers, and lions. Everyone had different interpretations of crawling like crabs.
We read Pig Pig Grows Up, I Like Me, The Selfish Crocodile, It’s Mine! and My Tree and Me.

We played two rounds of Duck, Duck, Goose. Everyone remembered how to play from the first time. We looked at our chart on the wall and remembered that we sit in a circle. We ran around and around and afterwards went outside to play. While we were outside, we saw some tiny snowflakes.

While half the class posed in yoga class with Amanda, the rest of us read Little Blue, Little Yellow. Then we worked in pairs using blue and yellow paint. The children quickly noticed all our pictures turning green, just like in the book! We painted together and then everyone painted their own green painting.

Quiet time has been pretty quiet with half (or more) of the class sleeping regularly.

On Thursday we played outside the whole morning. In the sandbox friends made pies, mountains with security cameras, traps, and tunnels. During circle we read Frederick and The Greedy Python.

We read When I Feel Angry, Steps and Stones again, I Was So Mad, When Sophie Gets Angry, and Frog and Toad Are Friends. We have been talking a lot about what to do when we feel angry. We have learned from our books and from experience: take deep breaths, walk away, talk about our feelings, ask for help, count to ten, take a few minutes alone, and go for a run.

On Friday we played with our new play dough that we made earlier in the week, painted at the easel, and played a game of kickball. We looked at our picture from when we played before, and recalled the colors of the balls we used: red, orange, rainbow, dark blue, and bumpy blue. We began with one ball and added three more. We kicked up a storm, laughed a little, and went out to the yard to dig in the sandbox, climb, slide, swing, and run.

It was a good, active week,

Therese

Our Family Tree and Feast

Dear Parents,

We cooked every day this week preparing for our tiny feast. On Monday we examined raw cranberries. The children guessed they were grapes, cherries, or pomegranates. They said they felt hard and some wondered if there were seeds inside. We broke one open to see. We took turns helping put them in a bowl, wash them, add water, and a little bit of sugar. Then everyone had turns to stir. We put them on our hot plate to cook. The children knew that when we plugged it in it would get hot. The class watched the berries change as we added heat. They noticed that the cranberries got softer and that the water turned red. We set them to cool and went outside to play.

We took turns using our hole punch and strong hands to add green stems to our apples. We sang Way Down Yonder By the Apple Tree, every day, to get ready to hang our apples on the tree with our families.

We counted our sweet potatoes as we took turns washing them. One potato, two potato...there were six potatoes. The class said they felt hard and wet. We took turns going down to the kitchen to watch the potatoes boil on the stove top. We skinned the hot potatoes, and everyone added dry and wet ingredients: brown sugar, cinnamon, a little milk, and some of the butter we made last week. We took turns using an electric hand mixer and then (almost) everyone wanted a taste. Yum! One person told us that he had a mixer at home that turns by itself.

We made a chart last week naming two positive and two negative feelings. The children said mad and sad feel bad, happy and excited feel good. We gave each feeling a color: happy was red, mad was black, sad was blue, and excited was yellow. The children told us about times when they felt these feelings. They felt sad when they fell down, had to leave the beach or the pool, lost a pirate hat, or when someone’s mama left. Friends felt happy and excited about playing with toys, seeing mama or babysitters after school, and going to the beach.

We’ve been reading many feeling books about how to deal with our feelings: When Sophie Gets Angry, Steps and Stones, Get Happy, When You're Mad/Happy/Shy and You Know It, and Sometimes I Feel Awful.

Our feast was delicious! Thanks to everyone for sharing your recipes.

Have a thankful weekend,

Therese