5 years, 4 months/3 years, 2 months.

Grammy is in town and escorting the kids on some good field trips!

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 2 months.

The boys encountered a strange miniature albino lion on 6th Ave today.

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 2 months.

Top, L to R: Kiera, Lily, Niall, Henry B, Graham, Milan, Ruben
Bottom, L to R: Sofia, Lulu, Freya, Tate, Mirabelle, Bear, Archer

L to R: Milan, Niall, Graham (and Penguin!), Tate, Lulu, Lily, Sofia, Ruben

Today was Graham's last day at Old First Nursery School.  Sniff sniff.  The kids put on a much better orchestrated show than last year.  Graham provided sound effects, after spending the last few months creating instruments at school.

Graham has been worrying for weeks that he'll never see Therese and Kiera again, despite our assurances that he will come back to OFNS every day to pick-up Connor from school.  (I guess his fears will be partially realized--Kiera is moving on to a head teacher position.)

Graham, you have grown so much over the past 2 years.  We are all very proud of you!

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 2 months.

The kids had an amazing time at Freya's Where the Wild Things Are-themed birthday party, complete with crowns and boat-painting.  The butterfly piñata wasn't really on-point but Connor was OK with that.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "When days are hot":

Dear Mommas and Papas,

We swam in the pool on Monday. One person was so excited when it was
his turn, he jumped in with his shoes and socks on. There were squeals
of delight and requests for "rain" from the hose.

Tuesday we swam in the pool. There was splishing and splashing. People
poured water with cups and funnels into two water bins while waiting
for turns in the pool. It "rained" again. The children made a bird
bath which quickly turned into a mud bath.

We have been acting out one of several sea stories written by the
class, and adding sound effects. Many of the children are blue whales
while others are creating sounds with the instruments they made: drums
for jumping, kazoos for breathing, soft maracas for floating away, and
so on and so forth. We are imagining what sounds different actions
make. Apparently whales are very active creatures. We also painted
flukes for the whales to swim around with ease.

Friday the beach was sunny and sandy. Someone discovered a mussel with
seaweed attached. The children remembered that the seaweed had air
bubbles because it was the same seaweed we found in the East River on
our trip to Dumbo. We also saw two seagulls enjoying a freshly caught
fish. They quickly abandoned it for two of the children to get an up
close observation. Many children were covered in sand while uncovering
seashells.

Our graduation show will begin Tuesday at 11:15am. The children will
act out one of the stories they wrote. It involves many whales and a
sort of orchestra. After the story we will give out diplomas/fish to
the seniors/whales. Then, and only then, you will all be free to go
enjoy the summer!

It has been a fantastically fun year, and an honor and a pleasure to
have the opportunity to spend time teaching all your beautiful,
intelligent, witty, strong, silly, children. Thank you, parents, for
all your support and hard work making Old First a great school!

Have a long restful summer.
I will.

Smiling faces,
Therese

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 2 months.

Connor's toy hoarding is getting a little out-of-hand and not leaving him with much room to sleep.  Thank you Granddad and Linda for the new sand toy collection!  

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 2 months.

OFNS beach day!  The kids showed amazing stamina--we stayed at the beach until 4 pm.  Graham rotated through his school friends, playing with each kid in the waves until that kid got tired, and then trading in for a new model.  He probably had the most fun with Archer, pretending to karate chop the water.

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 2 months.

Old First Nursery School memorabilia.

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 1 month.

Happy Father's Day, Will!  We all love you so much!  

We went to a Coney Island Cyclones game with the Josts to celebrate.  Everyone had fun even though no one watched the game...I think we won?  The kids got to run the bases after the game though Graham went a little off course and had to be chased off the field.  

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 1 month.

We went to Old First Nursery School this morning for Connor's class orientation.  Suddenly, Graham and his friends are the big kids who are nearly too old to be there, and Connor is no longer the little brother tagging along.  After OFNS, we picnicked at the nature park and then I attempted to enforce a nap time in the park.  I think I fell asleep for a couple minutes, but no one else was even close.  We wrapped up a big day with a delicious trip to Hometown BBQ.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "Whale of a tale":

Dear everyone,

We began our week with Dave, Niall's daddy, reading a book about three
bears in a boat. He then showed us a super exciting projected video of
our whale, Seawater, swimming in the ocean. He showed us some of the
process of how he created the image from our whale. The children were
thrilled and wanted him to jump out of the water. He did, many times.

We voted on which other sea creatures to add to our ocean. The
children decided on sea cucumber. We squished newspaper into the shape
of a cucumber after examining pictures of real ones in our books. We
painted them, rolled them in glue, sparkles, and sand before setting
them free in our ocean. We pretended our pretzels were baby sea
cucumbers during snacks.

We have spent the last two weeks working on and writing stories about
our sea creatures and their adventures. We have many creative
storytellers. The main characters are whales, sea cucumbers, turtles,
and friends. We acted out two stories. We even had an orchestra in one
of the shows where the children played sound effects on the
instruments they made. They helped decide which sounds reminded them
of which sounds in the story.

Our trip to the Brooklyn Bridge Park included a pipe fish, crabs,
barnacles, bird feet prints, a silver sided fish, jellies, and
seaweed. All these were caught in the seine which the park rangers
dragged in the shore of the East River. We had a scavenger hunt after
observing the animals. The bus ride there and back is, as usual,
almost as exciting as the trip itself.

Our birthday fish swam across the room to join our whale, Seawater,
and our sparkly sea cucumbers. First they had to stop and get some
color and scales the children had waiting for them on the tables, then
out to sea they swam.

We played at the water table this week, and water bins outside. The
children added our plastic sea animals to the water table so they
could get their feet wet.

Monday sounds sunny so please
bring children to school in bathing suits, sunscreen, and water shoes.
We shall do some laps in our wee thrilling pool.

Have a warm weekend,

Therese

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 1 month.

Definitely a 2 bath day today.  In the morning, Connor and I biked to the park where we played in the lake and explored around the woods.  In the afternoon, we met-up with friends at the nature park.  During quiet time, Connor was very focused on some naked car-driving on the couch, so I didn't have the heart to put him down for an official nap.

5 years, 4 months/3 years, 1 month.

Connor's last day of school!  He doesn't seem either happy or sad about this...but it's been a great year and he's matured so much since his first day last September.