3 years, 11 months/1 year, 9 months.

Sickie alert.  Poor Connor woke up with a fever and was so sleepy that he fell asleep in my arms while we were reading books.  He didn't even wake up when I bundled him up to get Graham from school.  He rallied after taking a good nap, though, and got to work with the train set.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Outasite Outer Space": 

Hi all,

This week we made our Jackson Pollock outer space mural. We started
with all black and added drips of white and sparkles for the stars,
comets and meteorites. It is super challenging for some to paint
without touching the paper but the result is outasite and hanging in
the classroom with the beginning of our solar system. We asked the
children to tell us what they know about outer space; the sun is hot,
it causes the summer to be hot, our outer space is beautiful, and an
astronaut goes in space.

After reading In The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak someone said,
"The Milky Way is lots of milk and lots of stars."

Shhhhhhhh, seven sleepers on Thursday. (!) Four and five on other
days. Eight on Friday. Crazy eight.

People were seen hopping, squatting, and freezing in Capoeira. Some
children showed us moves they learned.

We made a black hole using a piece of our black mural and tiny
toothpicks to let bits of light shine through. We will hang a light
inside of it, to light the way. We have also been experimenting and
playing with magnets.

Mikkel brought in a chunk of icy snow Friday morning. We put it in a
bowl to see how long it would last, not long after many people with
hot little hands handled it. We also made a moon mobile using model
magic, a soft squishy moon-like substance. People made moons, a
rocket, a propeller, a snake, a snowman, and other moonish things.
They added pipe cleaners to them so we could add them to the mobile.
It is orbiting the classroom.

In the big room, in addition to our regular dress up, tricycles,
babies, climbing and running, we have been playing some Ring Around
The Rosie. We have also been  playing running and walking games. And
singing. And laughing.

Next week we will add more planets to our sky. And make moon cakes.
And eat them.

Have a super weekend,
Therese

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 9 months.

The boys had to say goodbye to the chicks, who were due back at the farm, today.  The full dozen survived their birth & stay at Old First Nursery School!

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 9 months.

No school, no work, official snow day!  We sledded until the sun set.

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 9 months.

Two farmers visited Graham's school last week with a dozen eggs, an incubator, and mama and daddy chickens.  After introducing the parent chickens to the children, the farmers left the eggs and incubator in the classroom.  The kids have been rotating the eggs ever since, and they all hatched over the weekend!  A few of the children were scared, but Graham was thrilled.

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 9 months.

Connor looks deceptively secure on this swing, if you know what I'm saying.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Mr. Sun is hot":

Dear parents,

Our week began slowly but surely. We read The Sun and talked about what we remembered from the book.  We made our sun much in the same way we made the Earth, but bigger and hotter. We added glitter and sparkles to make it shine down on us. And it only took us two days to create.

We talked to the children about our faulty incubator that overheated our eggs and that farmer Tom would pick them up as planned and bring us new eggs next week. Someone said when they get back to the farm, Ruby, the mama hen can sit on them some more.

We have been working on our fine motor and pre-writing skills by pinching sand and glitter, cutting paper and fabric with scissors, snapping snaps, and working with magnet letters. We are constantly examining letters, sounding them out and working on letter recognition. It is common for the first word they recognize to be their own name and then their friends names.

We are always working on using our sense of hearing to listen to friends words. We are also practicing using our own voices to ask friends for a turn or to let them know if we want them to stop doing something. We are making steady progress.

Our first Capoeira class was exciting. Gabriel, our capoeira master, gave positive feedback. The children were smiling when they returned to the classroom. While half the class was in capoeira, the other half read about magnets and did marble rolling art using the earths magnetism to pull the marble around.

We have been able to play outside lots this week due to the milder weather. Also because people are cleaning up from quiet time quickly and helping each other. Cooperative as a chicken coop.

Friday we did an experiment from our Magnets book. We made a compass using a needle, two foam pieces and a bowl of water. It pointed the same direction every time we turned it around.

We got our new and improved chick eggs! And a working incubator. They will begin hatching Monday. They will hatch. Yes they will. We wrote a list of how to treat the baby chicks. Gentle and with still bodies sitting criss-cross applesauce.

Next week we begin creating our outer space mural.

Have an outa site weekend,
Therese

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 9 months.

After a little balancing practice, Lily and Jacob came over for a drop-off playdate.  Everyone played happily with the kinetic sand for about 5 minutes, then abandoned ship, leaving a beach's worth of sand scattered in their wake.

Connor, who has the sweetest of sweet teeth, was very impressed with the ice cream sandwich he got for eating a good dinner.

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 9 months.

1 and 3/4 years old today, and attempting to walk the balance beam by himself!

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 8 months.

Happy birthday Honor!  Graham had a great time at the party, although it took him a little while to feel comfortable with the group, which was mostly Honor's school friends, who Graham doesn't know.

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 8 months.

Connor figured out how to do a two-footed jump today!  He must have been working on it in the other room, because he ran to find me and then showed me his jump over and over again, looking very proud of himself.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Earth chicks":

Greetings Earthlings,

Our chick eggs did arrive to much delight Monday morning. Farmer Tom gave us all the dos and dont's  before letting us pet Max and Ruby, the proud parents of twelve perfectly still eggs. He showed us how Max makes himself look bigger to scare off foxes who might be interested in eggs for breakfast.

Tuesday we began creating our version of Earth by squishing up newspapers into a ball and adding layers of color for the water and land. We examined all the pictures of Earth in our books before beginning. We noticed the shape, size, and colors varied from book to book.

We examined landscapes in our books about the Earth. After looking at pictures of different terrains in The Yellow Balloon we created sand pictures with sands of a different color. The next day we read Easy Answers To Hard Questions. Why is the sky blue? What makes the rain? We also read Clouds and made blue skies to go with our desert sands. They are hanging in the classroom next to our winter storm.

We have been looking at and waiting on our eggs to hatch. The eggs have been turned right round, right round baby. Patience is a virtue. Yep.

Next week we continue our space study by making a sun. To heat things up.

Quiet time is mostly still and quiet with a few reminders.

People are super helpful when it comes to cleaning up. A few even start putting things away early. We read Pigsty this week and talked about putting our toys away in the proper places so we know where to find them the next day. Lots of pats on the backs and pretend awards have been given out for great helpers.

Our new friends are slowly but surely making their way and beginning to contribute to circle and to games in the big room. It was a good week.

Have a long weekend,
Therese

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 8 months.

Turtle lover at the Brooklyn Children's Museum.

3 years, 11 months/1 year, 8 months.

Making thank-you notes is messy business.

3 years, 10 months/1 year, 8 months.

It's taken almost 2 weeks, but Graham is finally really back!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Mud Pie In Your Eye":

Dear mamas and papas,

We started our study of the planet Earth. Lulu donated a musical globe and some children said, "It's a map." Other comments: "It's a planet" and, "That's Brooklyn!" We talked about the shape of our planet and that most of it is water. We read A Snowy Day and put a snowball in a towel to see if the same thing would happen to ours that happened to Peter's. We talked about water and ice and snow.

After emptying the sand from our sand table we filled it with water and used cups to practice pouring skills. Then everyone made predictions about different objects and whether they would sink or float when we put them in the water. We used a wooden block, a foam block, a plastic spoon, a metal spoon, a set of keys and a metal hole puncher.

In the big room we played Spider-Man, Cinderella and various other everyday people with and without magical powers.

Wednesday we looked at the planet Earth and agreed the colorful parts were the land. We read farm animals and noticed that one animal likes to wallow in mud. Each person then got a turn scooping dirt that we had dug up from our yard earlier in the week. We filled small tins to make mud pies. Several people asked if we could eat them? We didn't have to answer, other classmates quickly responded. We mixed dirt, water, leaves, rocks, and pine needles for spice. It was nice.

We read Going On A Bear Hunt and then did just that in the big room. Everyone had to roll or tumble, balance, crawl through a cave of bears, climb over a mountain and bring back two matching bears. It was a hoot!

Friday we made Earth animal footprints with stamps and black paint. Afterwards in the big room, we built towers with blocks, drove cars til they ran out of gas, sold each other food, talked on the banana phone, played at the water table, dressed up, took care of babies, and so on and so forth.

Next week we continue our study of the Earth by welcoming some baby chicks into our classroom. We will also create an Earth of our own.

Have a fantastic smiling weekend,
Therese

3 years, 10 months/1 year, 8 months.

After 5 very sad days of very sick Graham and about 15 viewings of "Toy Story 2," Graham is feeling quite a bit better.  He's barely eaten since last Sunday, though, so we tried to fatten him up with a milkshake at Shake Shack while we were out running errands and getting some fresh air.