5 years, 1 month/2 years, 11 months.

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 11 months.

Happy Easter!  The Easter Bunny came, leaving baskets full of toys & treats (thanks Grammy and Nana for your many contributions to the baskets!), Connor's first scooter and a bigger scooter for Graham, and an egg hunt in the living/dining rooms!  After breakfast, we headed to Propsect Park for more egg-hunting with OFNS friends.  After naps, we went to the playground so that Connor could give his scooter a test-run.  He's a natural!

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 11 months.

We dyed a few eggs blue earlier in the week for Graham's lunchbox, but did the majority of our egg dying at the 11th hour this year.  Zero eggs survived the dying process intact.

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 11 months.

On an unseasonably warm Good Friday, the boys built a fort at the nature playground.  They did not want visitors or observers.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "Guitar tar tar tar":

Dear parents,

We began the week painting our guitar boxes. Tuesday we added four
rubber bands each. Some people placed theirs in a color pattern. We
strummed and plucked. We took turns making patterns and tried to play
and sing at the same time. We had Lava twice this week. During the
first Lava we listened to How The Turtle Got His Shell again because
of requests. We drummed along and roared at all the right places.
People were seen attempting handstands against the wall during Lava
class!

Katherine came in to read a book and teach us a song about Texas.  She
showed us pictures of things they eat in Texas, a cowboy, and the
Texan flag. We sang the song and stomped our feet, Texan style.

We had three new friends (interviewees) visit the class and a fourth
scheduled for next week. The class welcomed them all warmly. They were
all helpful and lovely, making the decision harder.

We made goodbye cards for Henry C. and gave him a copy of our spring
tree photo which we snapped this week. We decided to have mini bagels
for his last day in case he can't get them in Texas. We all gave him
hugs goodbye. And Donna too. Sniff sniff. The children dictated the
sweetest goodbye book ever.

Our buttercups we planted in the fall have multiplied each day. We
changed our calendar to say spring, hung up our spring tree picture
and counted the seasons we've had since school began. We noticed the
seasons are a pattern too.

Thursday we looked up the word vibrations in the dictionary. We felt
our necks again for vibrations, and dropped things in a bucket and a
bowl of water to watch for vibrations. We saw some. Then we made a
laughing train, told some jokes, and felt the vibrations of each other
while we giggled.

Next week we make kazoos.

Have a laughing weekend,
Therese

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 11 months.

Tree-climber!

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 10 months.

Nana thought the boys' egg-hunting skills would benefit from a tune-up before the Easter Bunny's official visit, so Graham and Connor headed down to Philly for some quality Nana time and Easter fun this weekend.

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 10 months.

While the car got an oil change and state inspection, we discovered rainbow bagels at the local bagel shop!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "Drum drum drum drum":

Dear mamas and papas,

This week we march to the sound of a different drummer. Each child
chose a container to decorate with tape and then we had our first
drummer's circle. We took turns making patterns. We used our eyes to
watch the patterns, ears to listen, and hands to feel the beats. Who
knew we had so many excellent drummers! We banged hard and loud, and
soft and quiet. Before snack everyone got a turn to hit the big
gathering drum that Beanie and Tilly loaned the class.

The drums are a big hit! Pun pun pun pun intended. In addition to our
own drums that each child made, we have added another kind of drum
each day. Some involve sticks and others we use our hands. People have
been cooperatively taking turns with the drums. We listened to a
perfect story tape called How The Turtle Got Its Shell. The story had
many drums. We listened to the narrator and drummed along. The
children have been enthusiastically drumming all week.

In the yard we have been noticing buds on branches, blooming flowers
on our tree, and that our bulbs we planted in the fall are blooming.
The children are writing with rocks, making sand cakes and pies, and
swinging to the tree tops.

On Friday, Nan, Niall's grandmother came in and told us tales of
leprechauns. The class knew bunches about them too. She showed us a
picture of a house her parents lived in, in Ireland. She also shared
some delicious Irish soda bread. Not one crumb was left. Niall also
shared a funny knock knock joke.

It was a pleasure meeting with everyone to talk about your offspring
this week during the conferences.

Next week we begin making guitars.

Please oh please, if you would like to come share your musical talents
with us we'd Love to have you. Book your gig with us. The pay is low
but the appreciation is great!

Have a musical repetitive weekend,
Therese

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 10 months.

Graham's turn with the 24-hour bug.  After a day of barfing yesterday, he is feeling much better today.  This was a good opportunity to review the Boy Who Cried Wolf story--Graham often says he feels sick when he's tired/doesn't want to share/etc. and so we didn't realize he was actually sick until the first barf.

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 10 months.

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 10 months.

Climbers!  Neither kid would climb this play structure last year.  Now they're all over it.  Graham also discovered "drop-downs," where you jump down from the highest point of the climbing structure.  Fearless Connor wanted to do that too, so I spent our playground trip running around under the climbing structure, catching him as he jumped/fell.

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 10 months.

It took a lot of cajoling to get Connor to eat his chicken and mac & cheese at Dinosaur BBQ, but much less to get him to eat his ice cream at Ample Hills.

5 years, 1 month/2 years, 10 months.

Connor and I spent a spring-y morning looking at bugs and throwing sticks and rocks into the lake.  While we were looking at a bug and letting him climb from one stick to another, another child came up and started poking the bug with a stick.  Connor said, "Don't hurt the bug!  Gentle!"

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "Sing a song - and Lice - ":

Hi all,

This warm week we sang songs. We hummed, we listened for patterns, we
clapped, and repeated. We sang old songs and new. We noticed patterns
in the songs and that they're similar to poems. We felt our necks for
vibrations when singing. We sang high and low and noticed more
vibrations when singing low. Friday we sang songs that included
dancing: Hokey Pokey, Go Bananas!, and London Bridge. There were
smiles and laughter.

We asked everyone the first letter of their name and chanted our
letters simultaneously to create the Swamp Song. We sang it high and
low. We tried singing it medium but it turns out it can't be done.
It's not as much fun.

We looked for patterns in other places. We found many in nature: on a
pecan, a walnut inside and out, on a strawberry, an orange, and a
rose. Each person got one dried rose to take apart and discover
patterns. The next day we reviewed our patterns in nature list and
searched for patterns in our classroom. The children found many. The
ceiling, the floor, the block shelf, the radiator, and even our snack
crackers had patterns.

We played in the big room with our parachute. Does it have patterns?
It does. Did we sing songs with patterns? We did. The children had
turns going on top of the parachute while we sang London Bridge. We
sang I'm Being Swallowed By A Boa Constrictor and went under the
parachute. We sang and played til we were pretty much out of breath.

We found a louse in the class on Friday. Yes lice. We are sending all
quiet time blankets home to be washed. And please do checks and comb
through. Please bring clean sheets on Monday.

Next week we will make drums. And beat them.

That is what it's all about,
Therese

5 years/2 years, 10 months.

Connor made a quick recovery and felt well enough to crash a daycare's bear hunt at the playground.  In the evening, the boys very carefully organized the animals according to a classification system I couldn't quite decipher.

5 years/2 years, 10 months.

Sickie alert.  Connor woke up barfing this morning and needed lots of snuggles.  Thankfully, he instantly understood the barf bucket concept and had a quiet day of resting on the couch.

5 years/2 years, 10 months.

Back to the Bronx Zoo!  Connor thought the Gila monster looked like a dragon.  Connor was very excited to see the lions and the tigers.  Graham was thrilled/scared by the tigers.  We lasted at the zoo a record 4 hours of constant movement.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "Poets among us":

Hi all,

We continued this week, to add to our rhyming wall. The children are
rhyming up a storm. We wrote poems together. They are hanging in the
classroom.

Dr. Seuss has assisted our rhyming so we are making up silly rhymes as
well as real-word rhymes. We turned our rhymes into a game using a
rhyming basket, which was a basket filled with pictures and objects
from our classroom. A child would pick an item and then find the
picture or object that rhymed with the original item. Everyone had a
turn and some children wanted to play multiple times. Everyone
practiced being patient listeners while we played the game. We
realized that we can find rhymes anywhere, including people's names.

Niall, crocodile. Lily, Tilly. Graham, lamb. Bear, chair.

Sadly we did not have Lava on Thursday, but that gave us more time to
read quietly on the carpet and draw in our drawing books. We have been
drawing and creating like mad. At drop-off several people have been
asking for tape to create books. One person made a book about the
weather and made a picture "hot for summer."  Another person made a
book about the seasons. Someone else created a book with their name on
it, filled with blank pages to capture her creativity whenever it may
strike.

Before playing in the big room on Thursday, Elizabeth led the class in
the sun salutation pose. We stretched and greeted the sun and then
made our own poses. It warmed us up before getting down to business in
the big room. We have been doing loads of scooting, jumping, wheeling
and dealing, scooping rice, running, dancing, singing, spinning, and
free styling lately. We are still encouraging people to use their
words and have heard many people help their friends to find the right
words when they are having a difficult time. We are talking about what
our hands can do, instead of hitting of grabbing. Some ideas were:
clapping, sharing, waving hi and bye, high fives and fist bumping, and
playing, just to name a few.

On Friday we Marched Forth with our rhyming and read Dr. Seuss' My
Many Colored Days.  After reading the title someone exclaimed, "Oh
yeah! Dr. Seuss! This is going to have silly rhymes." We noticed that
this Dr. Seuss book didn't have the same illustrations as the other
Dr. Seuss books we have been reading. Someone suggested the
illustrator "painted the pictures instead of drawing them."  After
snack we played a rhyming pairs game; each child was given a picture
or object and had to find their corresponding rhyme by matching it
with an item one of their friends had.  As we tried to figure out the
rhymes on the table, a few people were creating new rhymes to match
the pairs.

Many people were helping, caring, and sharing with their friends this
week. When someone was sad at the start of quiet time, a few children
came over to give him a hug to cheer him up.
We are figuring out how to share our new balls. It's tempting to keep
one all to ourselves but much more fun to share with a friend, and it
causes smiles.

Friday was a snowy, sleepy day. Half the class fell asleep during quiet time.

See you all Monday,
Therese and Kiera

5 years/2 years, 10 months.

I never want to forget the little boy giggles.

Graham has a stuffed penguin named, aptly, Penguin.  Penguin is an imaginary friend, a way of telling all sorts of tall tales, and Graham's way of trying to sort out the concept of God.   Penguin is an all-powerful being who can count to infinity-nine, fly, and who can only eat sugar--no regular foods at all.  Graham talks constantly about his adventures at the Antarctic with Penguin, and anytime we tell Graham something we've done (e.g., scuba dive), he tells us that Penguin has also done that thing.

5 years/2 years, 10 months.

5 years/2 years, 10 months.

The top picture is 2 bunnies.  The third picture was done by folding down the corners of the paper and tracing the new shapes formed by the folds.  Many of the bottom pictures are maps.  Graham's art is frequently very repetitive right now--he will draw nearly the exact same picture over and over and over again.  He likes to present a pile of these pictures to us as presents (usually 45 minutes after bedtime).