6 years, 8 months/4 years, 6 months.

Happy Halloween from the Flash and an astronaut!  We trick-or-treated with the grim reaper (Raleigh), Harry Potter (Jacob), and Hermionine (Lily).  I wouldn't be surprised if we have some Harry Potter characters ourselves next year.  Connor got a lot of chuckles out of people by saying "Happy Halloween" instead of "thank you" after getting treats.  The boys still have terrible taste in candy--nerds were their favorite tonight.  More Reeses for us!

6 years, 8 months/4 years, 6 months.

Hmm.  Some of these priorities are good.  Some not so much.

6 years, 8 months/4 years, 6 months.

While I went to a meet-the-baby brunch, the boys went to the Liberty Science Center.  They came home in time to carve pumpkins (they drew the designs and helped scoop the seeds, grown-ups did the carving).  Connor seems to have picked up a mysterious 2 hour illness--he fell asleep on the couch around 5 pm and sweated so much that there was a Connor-shaped wet spot where he was lying, but otherwise seems fine.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Anger is Red!":

Dear mamas and papas and babas,

We began our week talking about feelings. We put on our thinking caps
and the children came up with two feelings that feel good and two that
do not. We asked what color would anger be? The children gave colors
to each of our four feelings and examples of what makes us feel that
way.

We read When I Feel Angry, and Dr. Seuss' My Many Colored Days. We
wrote a list of things we can do when we feel angry: we can stomp,
shake our hand in the air, move away, say stop, talk to our friends,
and ask for help.

We talked about what to expect on our trip to the fire station. The
children knew lots about fire stations. We had our second fire drill
the day before our trip. We left the building quickly and quietly. We
read Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms and other fire books. At the
fire station everyone got to get on the firetruck, spray water out of
a hose, and pick up a real ax! The fireman said,  "Don't worry, it's
not sharp." One fireman put on his jacket, boots, and helmet to show
us what we can expect to see if they ever come in our house to rescue
us. He reminded the children not to hide. The firemen said they use
their five senses to find the fires.

We played in the big room on tricycles and the jungle gym. We also
played Red Light, Green Light. First we played using our listening
ears and then we played using our eyes to see "should we stay or
should we go now?" The last round we played as crawling kitties,
however the meowing was so loud the kittens could no longer hear the
directions. So we crawled into the classroom to wait for Frank.

Yoga was quiet. And still. While half the class was in posing with
Frank, the rest of us read two books about anger. Is it okay to be
angry? Some children said yes, others answered no. After reading When
Sophie Gets Angry, we talked more about things we can do when we feel
mad. And things that are not okay. We looked at the pictures to see
how to tell if someone is mad.

We opened a new bottle of seltzer to compare Sophie's volcanic
exploding anger to the bursting water. We talked about how to calm our
feelings: taking deep breaths, talk to someone, give a hug, count, and
walk away. We added orange sparkles to the bottle to represent our
feelings and took turns shaking them up, watching them swirl around,
and then seeing them settle back down.

Lillian's firefighter uncle came to circle and answered our many
questions: Where do you get water if there's no fire hydrant? What
happens if the fire is all around you? Why do they put the saws out
everyday? What happens if the firehouse catches on fire? The fire
truck? The whole world? Did you just say the firemen have toys? (He
called their tools toys.)

We read Where Does The Wind Go? and talked about wind from our lungs
and taking deep breaths. We felt our bellies while taking breaths to
see if we could feel the air going in and out. We all got turns to
blow bubbles. We thought about if we needed big or gentle  breaths to
make bubbles. After snacks, everyone got straws to try and blow paint
across paper. We worked in groups of three. We blew thick paint, thin
watery paint, and powder paint. The children noticed as they blew that
colors were mixing together. They created some spectacular colors.

Next week, we will assemble and read our Me books. And meet Mr. Bones.

Have a spooky weekend,

Therese

6 years, 8 months/4 years, 6 months.

We have a 4-and-a-half-year-old!  We hiked to the top of "Anthony's Nose" on Bear Mountain today--the equivalent of 86 flights according to my fitbit.  At the top, the boys excavated spiders from spooky Halloween plaster-of-paris-type molds (thank you Nana!) while Will & I caught up on a little reading.  Our trip down the mountain was delayed by a hiker with heart trouble being airlifted off the mountain by a helicopter, and our drive home was delayed by so.many.things.  Thanks to the iPad, the boys didn't even notice!

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "I like when my friend...":

Dear parents,

We started our week reading I Like It When..., and You Choose.
Everyone got a turn to talk about what they like. We also read
Everybody Takes Turns. The children in the book were sharing some of
the same things we share at school. We read that even adults have to
take turns. Hmmm.

Everyone made collages to add to our Me Books. We used textures of all
sorts: soft, smooth, thick, and thin. Some decided to make more than
one.

We had our first yoga class with Frank. The children guessed what we
would do in yoga. Afterwards, we compared our list to see if we were
right. We were. We added to the list. Yoga with Frank is: fun,
exercise, bridge pose, mountain pose, and lion pose. During yoga the
children were sitting and listening, looking at cards, lying on
stomachs with hands outstretched, and crouching in little balls.

While half the class was in yoga, the rest of us worked on decorating
the covers for our books. We looked at the cover of a book on our
shelf and then got to work making covers of our own. The children used
crayons and then watercolors.

We ate lunch outside on sunny Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Quiet
time has remained as quiet as a mouse with 6-8 sleepers almost
everyday.

We asked, "I like when my friend..." and the children answered, "plays
with me, goes on a play date, listens, swings with me," and so much
more. This list becomes our classroom rules, and will be referred to
the rest of the year. It is a way of making the rules positive instead
of the alternative: no this, and no that (grabbing, hitting,
fill-in-the-blank).

We read Do Unto Otters, and Be Nice, to give us more ideas of what
kind of friends we want to be.

We played our first game of Duck, Duck,  Goose. It was a hoot!

Have a seasonally appropriate weekend,

Therese

6 years, 8 months/4 years, 5 months.

Graham's field trip to the Prospect Park lake to interview a volunteer from WILD (Wildlife Interests, Learning and Development).

6 years, 8 months/4 years, 5 months.

We tackled the (first third of the...) Brooklyn Bridge today!  We all look particularly clean because our walk was preceded by official family photos.  Results pending on those!

6 years, 8 months/4 years, 5 months.

Inspired by some netflix show called "PJ Masks," Connor pretended to be a gecko the entire way home from Harmony Playground.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Our Bodies, Ourselves":

Dear everyone,

We began our week doing whole body tracings. We counted arms, hands, legs, and feet, as we traced. Everyone got turns to work in the big room using watercolor to paint their bodies. The third day we added more paint and some glitter paint. The fourth day we used glue, lots of glue, to add sparkles. We read I Like Me!, I Like Myself!, and All By Myself.

In the yard we discovered roly polies, more worms, and many colored leaves. One person decided to collect leaves to make a salad. A group of children were playing firemen, or in this case, fire women. Some were talking on their cellphones/wood-chips. In the sandbox a hole, or was it a river, was dug out. And as usual, there is tons of running, chasing, climbing, sliding, and swinging.

We will be tracking the seasons by observing a tree in the yard. We call it Our Tree. We took our first group photo, a couple weeks ago, under our tree and noticed its green summer leaves. We have been watching it each week to look for signs of fall. Someone noticed one tiny patch of yellow leaves. We're waiting, waiting, waiting for more. Meanwhile we are noticing many fallen colored leaves and acorn caps from other trees.

Next week we will write our classroom rules, talk about friends, work on "me" books, and have our first yoga class.

Have a restful weekend,
Therese

6 years, 7 months/4 years, 5 months.

Connor, Lily, and Jacob kept each other busy reading about amazing animals while Graham was at his second piano lesson.  He is very interested and engaged during the lessons but we haven't figured out a rhythm for home practice yet.  Luckily, his teacher only recommends 10 minutes/day of practice right now.

6 years, 7 months/4 years, 5 months.

Kiwi/koala crates on a rainy afternoon!  Graham's was all about perspective, so we attempted to take pictures that made it look like a 6 inch T-rex was eating the boys.

6 years, 7 months/4 years, 5 months.

Family camping trip #2!  We went for a hike in the Musconetcong Gorge Preserve and then headed to our camp site in Milford, NJ, where we fed chickens, roasted hot dogs & marshmallows, and read Harry Potter by the firelight.  Connor made friends with the 4 year old at the neighboring campsite.  We woke up to drizzling rain, so quickly de-camped and headed to a local diner for chocolate chip pancakes.

6 years, 7 months/4 years, 5 months.

"The Soccer Game" by Graham

I was playing soccer against my BFF Ellis.  My team was winning 8-7.

We were going to get a ???  The ball was rolling to Ellis' goal.

We scored 9 points.  We won!  I was so proud of my team.


Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Eye spy an eye pie":

Hello all,

This week we began studying our five senses. Makes sense. We started
the year with an All About Me unit,  and things we can do with  our
hands and feet. We continued learning about ourselves and each other
through our senses. Monday we read My Eyes, and a book appropriately
called All About Me.

We played I Spy. This game helps with looking and listening skills. It
encourages verbal and language skills as well. How many words can we
use to describe an object? What color is it? What shape? Is it high or
low? What does it feel like?

In the yard people were seen digging in the sandbox, making pies and
tea. Two were swinging up a storm trying to blast off. Five were
pretending to cut trees. Two friends were play-watching Beauty and the
Beast, silently staring at a wood chip. Some children were running and
laughing.

Quiet time is still quiet with six to eight sleepers, while others
relax and look at books.

We looked in mirrors to see what color eyes we have and everyone got a
crayon to color eyes for our Eye Pie. We guessed which color had the
most eyes and then counted to see if we were correct. We talked about
our eye parts and shapes: pupil, iris, eye lashes, eye brows, circles,
and almonds. Some children added pupils to their eyes when coloring.
One person told us their eyes were yellow.

After reading My Five Senses we took turns smelling boxes to see if we
could identify the scents. The guesses are written in the classroom.
When everyone had had a turn to smell we opened the boxes to see what
was inside. We were able to taste some of the contents using our sense
of taste.

Everyone helped make snacks Wednesday. We used our fine motor skills,
hand-eye coordination, and strong hand muscles to cut apples and
bananas. Then we used our sense of taste to eat them. We talked about
which fruit was hard or soft, crunchy or not, and what each one felt
like.

We read Listening Walk and then closed our eyes to use our sense of
hearing to listen for sounds. We heard: a car, a baby, a truck, a beep
beep, a bird, and much more.

Friday we used the Feely Box again and our sense of touch to identify
what was in the box. After all guesses were made, we looked in the
box. We played a listening game to descriptions of fruits and
vegetables. The children were great at this game!

Next week we work on our whole body tracing.

Have a pleasant weekend,
Therese

6 years, 7 months/4 years, 5 months.

Apple and pumpkin picking at Alstede Farms!  Poor toothless Graham had a hard time eating the apples but didn't seem worried about it.  Let's hope those teeth grow in quickly.  

The boys picked out pumpkins and adhered to the rule that they must be able to lift it to buy it.  

After the madhouse of fall festival weekend at the farm, we took a beautiful, quiet hike through Hacklebarney State Park, leaving from the Kay Center.  We found 5 living caterpillars and one dead vole.