6 years/3 years, 10 months.

Res ipsa.

6 years/3 years, 10 months.

February isn't quite as scenic in Prospect Park as on the beach in Mexico, but we made do.

6 years/3 years, 10 months.

Farewell, Playa Mujeres!  We had an amazing trip!

6 years, 3 years, 10 months.

Graham had plenty of energy for the floating obstacle course, but Connor had enough and needed to take a poolside snooze.

6 years, 3 years, 9 months.

books, slides, target practice, starfish.

6 years, 3 years, 9 months.

Beach, children's play area, adult's play area, hibachi, ole!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Three, two, one, BLAST OFF!!" (sadly we missed the blast off):

Dear parents,

We had our first Blast Off rehearsal Monday, we went to the moon and
back.   The children did fantastically considering it was our first
trip. Only two oxygen tanks broke. Afterwards, we played in the big
room on wheels and axles among other things. We made little flags to
take on our next trip to plant on the moon.

Susanna the construction worker from Spellbound came and constructed
with the class. The children got to pretend as electricians,
bulldozers, or cement mixers. In the end we had a tall structure and
each child had their own shiny new helmet. Lauren returned two days
later to let the children use the crane and take turns picking up
books. They also had more time to play with the special cement sand.
It was constructive fun.

We added fire to the last section of our rocket ship. The children
wondered why we couldn't build it tall like a real rocket ship instead
of laying it down on the ground. Someone answered, "We might fall
out."

We read The Moon, The Night Sky, and Is There Life In Outer Space? We
talked about the year that man first walked on the moon. We looked at
pictures of a real rocket ship right before our Friday Blast Off! The
children, or rather the astronauts, did a phenomenal job on the trip
to the moon. Everyone planted their flags and headed back home.
Afterwards, we ate star toast with tiny planets. The children said the
tiny planets were Pluto. We also ate real astronaut ice cream.

Then the astronauts played in the big room. They built with blocks,
large and small, played basketball, family, baby animals, tricycles,
went for a ride in the boat to France, California, and Europe.

When we return from break we will begin a study of Earth animals.

Have a week off,
Therese

6 years/3 years, 9 months.

Swim-up bar, check.

Fresh coconuts, check.

Iguanas in the grass, check.

Beach, beach, beach, check.

6 years/3 years, 9 months.

Mexico or bust!

6 years/3 years, 9 months.

Miraculously, we escaped a Valentine's day trip to the liquor store for Daddy gifts without paying for any broken bottles.  Thank you for the new hooded towels, Nana!  The boys love them!

6 years/3 years, 9 months.

Leave no snowbank untrampled.

6 years/3 years, 9 months.

The sleepover guests woke up a little before 7, which we were pretty happy about.  We would have taken it easy, except that today is Ellis' birthday, so we were off to Graham's first karaoke party (which he did not really care for, aside from the ice cream cake).

6 years/3 years, 9 months.

Happy 6th birthday, Graham!  Graham had about a dozen of his friends over for a Star Wars birthday, complete with pool noodle light sabers and an appearance from Darth Vader (Will).  Lily, Jacob and Ellis stayed after the party for a sleepover.  They watched Ratatouille (which got mediocre reviews from the kids) and fell asleep around 11.  Success!

  

5 years, 11 months/3 years, 9 months.

Graham requested glazed and chocolate donut holes for his school birthday party.  Connor and I came in for the party and told the story of Graham's head surgery.  Various parents asked me about it over the next week, so the story must have made enough of an impression to be brought home.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Why is Mars red?":

Dear Earthlings,

We began building our spaceship. The children were absolutely thrilled
to board the ship and try it on for size. Except for one person who
wanted only to observe from afar. We practiced putting on our pretend
moon boots, buckling seat belts, and counting backwards. We asked what
color is a real rocket ship? The children agreed to paint ours white
like a real one. It takes a lot of focus to paint a ship big enough
for the whole class but they did it.

We read A Trip To Mars and looked at real photographs of Mars in a
magazine.  We asked the children what we needed to add to our
spaceship: a flag, buttons, an engine, and a rocket booster with fire.
We looked at the control panels in pictures to get ideas for buttons.
The children took turns drawing buttons inside the ship while others
drew a flag and wrote USA on the outside.

The children painted their space helmets and oxygen tanks white in
preparation for our trip. We talked about what planet to travel to.
Some want to go to Mars, some Pluto, and some children want to visit
all the planets.

We have been reading Roaring Rockets, I Want To Be An Astronaut, and
Harry And Horsie over and over.

Aside from our space talk we have been talking about using kind words
at school, listening to friends, and talking instead of yelling at
friends. We are also working on using our own heads to think about
what we want and not just copying people. We are reminding the class
about our Acts of Kindness list and will continue adding to it by
catching people being good friends.

Next week we have an in class performance and workshop about simple
machines by Spellbound.

Friday is our Blast Off! Departure is set for 9:15am. Please arrive at
the usual time so we have a few minutes to prepare in the classroom
with ground control.

Signing off,
Therese

5 years, 11 months/3 years, 9 months.

Stuffing the piñata is the birthday equivalent of putting cookies out for Santa.

5 years, 11 months/3 years, 9 months.

After practicing hard with Daddy over the weekend, Connor showed off his new pumping skills at the OFNS swings.  He is very proud (and so are we).  Then, in the wilds of Prospect Park, we spotted this beautiful red-tailed hawk hot on the trail of a great blue heron.  

5 years, 11 months/3 years, 9 months.

Amazingly, this rough-housing session didn't end in tears.  I think we have two budding wrestlers at 782 President. The boys are getting better at knowing each other's limits and stopping when someone is unhappy.

5 years, 11 months/3 years, 9 months.

We spent a cozy winter morning working on Graham's "physics carnival" and Connor's rainbow kiwi/koala crates.  Connor spent a long time picking out the sunniest window to hang his stained glass art project.  Thank you Grammy!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Here comes the sun":

Dear all,

We began our week talking about what keeps us warm. The children said
mittens, the radiator, warm showers, fire, scarves, and the sun. We
then worked in small groups to paint the sun. We mixed red and yellow
to get a new color, added gold, sparkles, and some rays. The children
said it should be bigger than all our planets. It is.

We got to walk in snow flurries to Puppetworks to see Puss N' Boots.
After returning to school, we compared the puppet show with our two
books we've been reading. The children recalled some similarities but
many differences. Before the show we stuffed our sun with crumpled
paper so it would be even bigger still.

Some children helped twist pipe cleaners together in long strands to
gently wrap around a balloon. We formed our Jupiter until the balloon
popped! We continued wrapping and wrapping pipe cleaners to use as our
largest planet.

Pajama Day was super comfortable and a little bit silly. Every single
person fell asleep during circle. (Not really). However, we did
attempt a one minute meditation. It was almost entirely quiet. Many
children calmly sat criss cross applesauce with closed eyes and
straight backs.

We worked in two groups to create two more planets in our solar
system. We crushed recycled paper and took turns taping it into the
shape of a ball. We looked at the letters of each planet and sounded
them out to write the names. We read The Sleepy Men by Margaret Wise
Brown.

We had our second tumbling class. Some tumbled while a couple rumbled.
We reminded the rumblers to use listening ears and looking eyes to see
what Alexis is teaching.

We made the two smallest planets on Friday. The children said Mercury
is hot because it's closest to the sun. Someone said red is a hot
color so we connected and twisted red sparkly pipe cleaners together.
We hung Mercury and Pluto and counted all our planets. We talked about
Pluto being demoted but added it anyway.

We read the page about Saturn in three different books to figure out
how many moons and rings it has. The children helped twist more more
more pipe cleaners to wrap around Saturn. We learned it has eighteen
moons.

Next week we will build a spaceship and decide what planets we want to visit.

Then, we're outta here!

We will have an official Blast Off! on Friday, February 17th.
Departure will be about 9:15am and parents are invited to wave bye. It
should last no more than 15 minutes.

Have a twinkling weekend,
Therese