5 years, 10 months/3 years, 8 months.

Happy New Year!  Thanks to good friends, food & drink, we all stayed up until midnight and went it to the Grand Army Plaza fireworks.  The kids slept in until about 9:30 NYD.  Fingers crossed that the saying that what you do at New Year's, you will do all year, is true!

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 8 months.

Check out those skates!  We took the boys to the Lakeside rink for their first ice skating trip (and my & Will's first trip together).  Everyone was pretty hesitant at first, but Connor was perfectly happy to skate around holding a minimum of one grown-up hand, and Graham warmed up thanks to the penguin ice skating aid.

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 8 months.

Off to the park with Nana!  Thank you for having us and for the Christmas presents!  The boys were so happy Santa dropped by your place ;)

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 8 months.

Cousin time at Christmas part II at Nana's house!  The boys have been looking forward to visiting Nana for weeks.  We went to see the light show in the Wanamaker building, got lunch at Reading Terminal, and then headed back to Ardmore for some family time.

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 8 months.

Merry Christmas!

The big gift themes of the year were Star Wars, play-doh and board games, but the thing that held the boys' attention for the longest was the hot wheels track that Santa brought for Connor.  Once we managed to get it assembled, they spent most of the afternoon playing with it, letting me & Will read Christmas books (gifts, not themed) with the dull roar of crashing cars as white noise in the background.  I think it was the first year that they really enjoyed their gifts on Christmas instead of being overwhelmed by the chocolate/chaos.

We had a delicious steak, mushroom sauce, twice-baked potatoes, and green bean dinner, topped off with Christmas cookies.  We feel very grateful for loving family (in our house and farther-flung), good food & wine and a warm apartment, and hope all of your holidays were as merry.

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 8 months.

Christmas Eve...months of anticipation are finally coming to an end.  After mass, we went to the Dimas' house for meatballs & Christmas crowns, then came home to prepare for Santa.  Setting out the cookies is Graham's favorite activity.  He remembers that Santa doesn't usually eat every single cookie, so it's a good idea to pick cookies that he might like to eat Christmas morning.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Run run as fast as you can":

Dear parents,

We started our week with four people out sick. Wow! Thank you for
keeping them home to rest. Although we prefer their (healthy) smiling
faces at school.

The children decorated boxes and made model magic sculptures to give
as gifts this week. We asked them what is a gift? The children said it
is something you give to someone you love. They named who they wanted
to give their gifts to: mama, daddy, my cousins, Armando from La Bagel
Delight, siblings, and Stellan.

We had our last yoga class with Jovan. When we reminded them it was
our last yoga someone said, "Awwwwwww."

The children chose a color to mix in their Model Magic, pulling and
stretching to mix the colors. They sculpted a worm, snowmen, a triple
engine airplane, a snail, a bowl, and more.

We mixed gingerbread for cookies. After rolling it out the children
had turns using cookie cutters to make the men. We read The
Gingerbread Man and then went to run around the big room. As fast as
we could. We also read The Gingerbread Baby. The children asked what
was in the mix and then guessed: flour, ginger, sugar, and chocolate?
All but one were correct. We talked about molasses and being "as slow
as molasses." They decorated their cookies using blue icing. It was
super hard not to eat them while baking and decorating.

Friday we read and compared two more gingerbread men books.

Our cookie and milk party was small and sweet. The children served the
milk and cookies and gladly helped gobble them up.

Have a safe drive, train ride, or flight, a warm holiday, and merry
family time. Thank you bunches for the chocolates, cookies, coffee,
honey, gift cards, but especially for the wonderful words!! All are
greatly appreciated.

When we return we begin our simple machine unit.

See you in the new year,
Therese

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 8 months.

The boys rallied from yesterday's barf-fest in time for us to hop into an uber after school today and head to 200 West Street for the Christmas party at Daddy's office.  The boys's favorite part might have been watching our uber pull up on the uber app on my phone (we almost never ride in cars other than our own), but the bubble show, build-a-bear, and filling up glass jars with candy were close runners-up.

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 7 months.

2 barfing, puffy-eyed sickies sleeping it off.

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 7 months.

Divide and conquer day.  Graham and I went to see the Nutcracker (our third--this year: BAM's "The Hard Nut") together while Daddy and Connor spent a chilly afternoon at the Bronx Zoo (including a warm-up stop at the 3D theater).  Graham enjoyed the ballet but I think the most memorable part of the day for him will be the free soft serve that he somehow charmed out of a Shake Shack employee during our pre-theater lunch.

And our amaryllis from Nana bloomed!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "On the road again":

Hi everyone,

Monday we reread our Acts of Kindness list we began last week. We are
looking for and finding random acts of kindness during the day to
encourage its growth.

We built in building groups again this week. The children are building
chocolate factories and tall towers among other things. Thursday in
the block area about eight children worked cooperatively to build a
giant baby bed for two sleepy babies. The babies were rushed in and
out of their sleeping quarters, around the big room in carts, and from
one bed to another. Sleeping all the while.

While people posed in yoga with Jovan we worked in the classroom
painting a street for our houses to live on. We used rollers to paint
with black and white paint. Then we drove the streets to pieces. Pot
hole city!

The children played with their houses and let some bears move in. The
bears also moved into the church. The children drove train cars in the
street they made and wanted to add grass nearby. Everyone colored the
green green grass. It was greener on our side of the fence.

We reread When Sophie Gets Angry and   paid  close attention to her
body language. The children noticed her smiling when calm and running,
loud voice, squinting eyes, when angry. We made a list of our own
bodies' actions when calm and not calm.

Quiet time has been quiet. Shhhhhh. Monday five people slept. Other
days less though lots of quiet reading and resting.

We made a giant paper bagel thank you card for La Bagel Delight.
Someone told us he loves Armando (who works there) and Armando loves
him. Armando gives him rainbow cookies every time he visits. The
children colored the big bagel rainbow colors and added a tiny bit of
red and yellow paint. Several children took turns writing "La Bagel
Delight Thank You."

Next week we will make a couple of holiday gifts. We will also make
gingerbread men cookies.

Parents are invited Friday December 23rd at 11:30 am to have cookies
and milk with us before pick up.

See you Monday morning!

5 years, 10 months/3 years, 7 months.

We decorated Christmas cookies this morning, including the very exciting step of crushing candy canes for toppings.  After all the decorating, we walked through the first snow flurries of the season to see the live version of "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Looks like we'll have amaryllis blooms for Christmas!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Old first wasn't built in a day":

Dear Mamas and Papas,

Our week began with reading Why Do Grownups Have All The Fun? It turns
out they don't.

Before going into the big room to build in groups, we talked about
what to expect. We examined the different kind of blocks each group
would use. The children identified each group of blocks included
rectangles but noticed they were different colors, sizes, materials,
weights, and densities. We built in groups of four creating structures
tall and wide. The children's descriptions are in the classroom.

While half the class had yoga with Jovan the rest of us worked on
building Old First Church. We read I Live In Brooklyn and saw a
picture of another Brooklyn neighborhood. The children took turns
placing cardboard boxes atop one another to create our own Church.
They decided which boxes would work best on the bottom and which would
work best on top by trial and error. We added glue once the structure
was sound.

While outside playing, we looked at our real church building to see
what color it is. The next morning we painted our church using red for
bricks and white for the top. People noticed a new color when mixing
the two. We also painted small boxes to use as our individual homes.
We painted inside and outside the box. We added carpet and furniture.
The children talked about what is the largest piece of furniture in
each room of their houses.

In the big room we have been tricycling like crazy, climbing up and
sliding down the jungle gym, caring for babies, and building with
blocks. The children built a tower that turned into a pirate ship that
turned into a train. We are working on putting away all the toys we
take out. It is an opportunity for sorting and identifying colors and
shapes into groups. More math skills!

We read My Friend And I, Lisa's Baby Sister, When I Feel Angry, and
other books about feelings. We made a feeling chart. The children
named two feelings that feel good and two that do not. They named
angry, sad, happy, and excited. Someone also mentioned jealous and
nervous. We asked, "What color is anger?" Most agreed on red with one
person insisting it's black. They assigned blue for sad, yellow for
happy, and green for excited. We talked about how we move around the
chart from good feelings to bad, and back to good. Three children gave
personal examples. It was wonderfully fantastical!  We looked at the
pictures in My Friend And I to see how their feelings changed back and
forth, and how and why? We asked, "What made the children in the book
go from happy to angry?" and "How did they get back to happy?" We
talked about how friends and family help us to move from negative
feelings to positive. Someone also said a warm shower helped change
her feelings once when at a pool.

Next week we will work more on building with blocks while building
cooperative relationships in our classroom. We will paint a street for
our homes and church to live on.

Have a crisp weekend,
Therese

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 7 months.

Happy St. Nicholas day!  St. Nick left Christmas tree ornaments in the boys' shoes this morning.

After school, we rode the subway to 34th St. to visit the Macy's Santa.  The boys were not particularly impressed by Santa (they didn't seem nervous to see him, didn't ask any questions about Christmas magic, etc., didn't have anything they wanted to ask him for) but they did really like the Macy's Christmas windows, especially this one, which was a Santa's workshop/video game hybrid which matched children with the perfect presents, and another which was a giant pinball game.

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 7 months.

The last tree Will sawed today was our own!  Our resident lumberjack carried home this beautiful fraser which the children then enthusiastically decorated.  No casualties!

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 7 months.

 The amaryllis Nana gave us is starting to grow!  We should probably take this opportunity to take down the Halloween window stickers.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Home sweet home":

Hi all,

We began our week reading In Our House and looking for shapes in
pictures of homes. The children said they saw large and small
rectangles, squares, and triangles. Everyone chose a rectangular paper
to use as the base of their house and added a roof, windows, doors,
and some chimneys. We also read The Wonderful House and Tar Beach to
search for other types of houses. We noticed that some houses stand
alone and some are attached. We also noticed that dog houses and bird
houses look like our houses. We read ABC Homes and learned about
bamboo houses, house boats, castles, and igloos.

We are also reading When Sophie Gets Angry, My Friend And I, Play With
Me, The Selfish Crocodile, I Was So Mad, I Am A Wrecking Ball, and
many more books that enable us to talk about feelings, and how to
negotiate and cooperate with our friends. It is a constant
conversation in the classroom that includes  positive credit when we
see people working together and sharing. We continue to talk about
using our words, listening to friends' words, and differences between
kind and unkind words.

Our bagel trip was informative and tasty. We saw bagels in a giant
bubbling pot of water, with a cold bath afterwards, followed by a
piping hot oven. We got twenty bagels to bring back to school but we
could have eaten more more more. We ate them with the butter we made.

The children counted how many people live in their homes and chose
paper cutouts to represent each family member. We spent a day
decorating them and a day gluing them into our homes. Afterwards we
read Where You Came From.

We had another successful fire drill. The children quickly and quietly
lined up and went outside. And then we played in the yard.

Kay Gordon, our educational consultant, will be visiting the classroom
next week. She is on staff to assist on an as-needed basis, but
usually visits once or twice to get familiar with the students and
classroom. She also occasionally serves as a substitute.

As the year progresses, so does our curriculum.  Each unit is an
extension of me: all about me, friends and family, classroom, and now
neighborhood. The goals remain to foster self-esteem while encouraging
self-regulation, promote analytical thinking, negotiating with friends
while forming bonds, and allowing each person their small or great
successes in a safe, thoughtful classroom environment.

Next week we will work in building groups, creating temporary
structures. And some permanent ones.

Have a lovely weekend,
Therese

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 7 months.

We took the kids to a delicious local Korean BBQ restaurant, Insa, for dinner tonight.  They did amazingly great eating, Connor in particular--he even ate all the kimchi.  Bibimbap, korean fried chicken, seafood scallion pancake, japchae (see video), oh my!

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 7 months.

Graham's class is working on art and story-telling.  We were pretty impressed with Graham's ambitions until we got some hints that this profession had been suggested to him by his assistant teacher.  Still, great artwork and kindergarten spelling!

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 7 months.

Graham wrapped up the long weekend with Kaiden's ghostbuster-themed birthday party.  This is Graham's stay-puft marshmallow man.

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 7 months.

Graham, Connor, and Hazel burned off their pumpkin pie with a huge leaf fight outside of the Prospect Park Zoo.  Oh, and we saw some animals too.

The boys are having the greatest time hosting Hazel who is, as far as they are concerned, a multi-night sleepover buddy.  They definitely have their game faces on...Graham in particular is really pulling out the charm.

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 7 months.

Apryl, Adam, and Hazel are here for our 6th (?) annual Thanksgiving feast!  After taking a multi-year break on cooking due to some small but energetic 2-legged complications, we successfully prepared a turkey & sides this year.  Maybe next year we'll tackle desserts.  We are very thankful for such good friends and adore watching our children develop their own relationship.  Cheers!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Feast fun":

Hi families,

This week we mashed, mixed, boiled, and baked. The children counted and washed potatoes. They poured, stirred, and scooped corn bread mix into muffin tins. Wednesday we decorated our table for the feast. People drew whales with many legs, a plate, flowers, and a mama giant and baby giant. Then someone said there's no such thing as a baby giant because it is a giant already.

We played in the yard while waiting for marshmallows to melt. As parents and grandparents arrived we sang Way Down Yonder By The Cherry Tree. Everyone hung their family picture cherries on the tree and shared the delicious feast.

Thank you all for bringing such yummy fixins.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 6 months.

Some major developmental jumps must take place at 5 and 3/4 years.  Graham started swimming last week, and learned to ride his bike this week!

We've practiced biking without training wheels a few other times, but today was the first time it clicked for Graham.  He can't start or turn on his own, but he can stop and go straight all the way across the playground!  After some false starts, he managed to stop talking long enough to figure out how to correct his balance and keep pedaling!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Cherry berry and better butter":

Dear parents,

We began our week mixing paint and powder to get a redder red for our
cherries. Everyone painted their cherries for our family tree and then
used hand-eye coordination to add the stems. We used pipe cleaners to
weave through the hole and twisted to keep them from falling off.

Everyone glued their family pictures in preparation for adding them to
our growing tree.

We will add them to the tree on Wednesday before serving up our family
feast. The feast will begin promptly at 11:15am Wednesday November
23rd. As you arrive, you can hang your family's cherry on the tree,
help yourselves to the feast, and eat, drink, and be cherry!

Yoga with Jovan was quiet, loud for a moment, then quiet again.
Children were seen standing still, sitting even stiller, and lying as
still as the night.

Heather came in to work with half the class while others were in yoga.
She had the children look in the mirror for shapes in our faces.
People saw circles, squares, curvy lines, and straight lines. We
started with circles, or dark filled-in areas, or many zig-zagging
lines across the paper. Everyone looked different. The portraits are
hanging by the cubbies.

Friday we made butter. We started with heavy cream and several small
containers. We shook our sillies out, we shook them high, we shook
them low, we danced while we shook and in the end, we had butter. The
children predicted how long it would take. Guesses were: fifty times,
five hundred and fifty minutes, fourteen minutes, ten times, eighteen
minutes, two hours, and fifty hundred times. It took twenty-four
minutes!

It is always a pleasure to get to talk to you all about the progress
of your offspring during the conferences. Your kids are super and
superb.

See you at the open house!

5 years, 9 months/3 years, 6 months.

The Miller family takes on the Great White Way!  After listening to the soundtrack for a few months in preparation, we took the boys to the "Lion King" this afternoon.  We needed to do a little shushing and question-answering, and Connor got wiggly during the last half-hour or so, but over all they were great and seemed engrossed in the story.  Next up: "Waiting for Godot."  Thank you Will for getting the tickets!

Therese's e-mail of the day, entitled "We are family tree":

Hi all,

Monday we glued our leaves to our tree branches. The children
strengthened their hand muscles squeezing lots of glue. We glued felt
and paper leaves, red, yellow, and orange leaves, snowy and dead
leaves. Every single leaf was different.

We voted on which kind of fruit to hang on our tree. The children made
a list of trees they know and we narrowed it down to three. Everyone
wrote their vote using the color of the fruits: red for cherry, orange
for peach, and green for pear. One of the fruits got no votes.

Pastor Meeter took us on a tour of Old First Church. We got to see
parts of the church we don't use. We counted the windows in Pastor
Meeter's office, examined the stained glass windows, looked at
patterns on the ceiling, climbed many stairs, saw the pastor's robes,
and listened to the wind of the organ pipes.

Please oh please, if you haven't already, bring in your family
photographs. We need them for our fruit tree.

Thank you and have a calm weekend,
Therese