We returned from our break with some wonderful sharing opportunities. One child brought a book from home for us to read as a group; another brought some blackberries she had picked with her grandmother last summer and then frozen. Not only did we have a delicious treat with our morning snack, but a conversation arose regarding berry picking and then, where the children like to go with their parents. On my end, this was very fun to listen to. The children's stories of what they did on their spring break revealed what was important to them during those times (and not necessarily what their parents might have remembered!), and it sounded like everyone had a good time.
Getting back into the school swing of things takes a little getting used to again, and so we picked up where we left off, with our triangles. We taped a large piece of tracing paper onto the table and had several paper triangles to place beneath it for the children to trace around. One child traced the triangles and then moved them to trace again. One child was happier tracing the shape and then scribbling over it; another made one triangle and declared he was all done and signed with the first letter of his name. We then taped it up in our library area for all to see.
Because our tulips are up, as well as so many flowers, we traced each child's hands on two pieces of paper; one set was for the children to do with as they wished and take home; the other is for making a "hand flower collage" which we will work on next week. We'll have some bright flowers on our wall soon.
We also tried out marble painting. The children picked out a color of paper,placed it in a box and added marbles with different colors of paint on them. Then we covered the little box and they shook, shook, shook it, causing the marbles to track through the paint blobs. This was a very popular activity that we are sure to repeat again.
Puzzles have been the ongoing theme at school this week. We moved the rice tub out of the kitchen in favor of some large space for floor puzzle work. Each day we had at least one time where we all worked together on the large puzzles; the newly introduced barn puzzle with its animals, tractor and silo is a treat. The kids had questions about the names of the animals, the parts of the barn (hayloft, silo) and the tools and other farm ephemera (bushel baskets of apples, sacks of grain, pitchforks).
We also had available a bowl of small beach treasures--smooth shells and rocks--to practice spooning and dumping into other little dishes. The children really liked this activity. On the first day they imported it into their kitchen play and stirred it into a soup full of wooden vegetables, felt noodles and nuts. The next day I explained that it was a separate activity and that it needed to stay on its own little table. The children really took this to heart. As tempting as it was, I'm sure, to spirit it away to the soup-making that happens daily, everyone exhibited an admirable amount of self-regulation and willpower and kept the activity in its place.
Some other lovely moments:
The two girls pretending to be "crawly alligators" and wriggling around, laughing.
One child offering to "read" a story to her friend, and then sitting down with him and telling the story from memory, pointing to the pictures.
Making sandcastles in the new sandbox, and climbing up on the large, new cedar rounds in the backyard.
The children picking the withered primroses from the plants to put into their Flower Soup. Pinecone Soup was the next day's Soup du Jour outdoors.
Our new wooden train and familiar puzzle blocks train going around the rug on a "track": the dark border of the rug. The children built several stations with blocks. The train carried nuts, blue glass 'gems' and stones this week.
Making playdough lollipops, pretzels, ravioli and a few other treats we read about in Eric Carle's "Walter the Baker". There is more practice going on with rolling out the dough and cutting shapes with cutters; the children are expanding their playdough skills.
Let's hope for a little more blue sky next week, and I do hope that you all have a moment to get out and see all the other colors out in the gardens around us. This is such a great time to take a walk under an umbrella and examine the flowers and budding plants in the neighborhood...just don't forget the boots for puddlestomping!
