6 years, 11 months/4 years, 9 months.

Good thing Will has these guys around to help him build his Christmas presents.

6 years, 11 months/4 years, 9 months.

We biked/jogged around Prospect Park on a crisp sunny day.  The boys made it the whole way...except for the giant hill which is for walking as far as we are concerned.

6 years, 11 months/4 years, 9 months.

Playdate with Ellis/Bryce/Evryn.  FYI in case anyone is looking for a good way to extract a barely-loose tooth--eat a rice krispie treat in below-freezing temperatures.  Worked for Graham!

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

Dear everyone,

The children all got to choose a box to use for their guitar. We
painted inside and out. We added glitter glue and glitter glitter.
Everyone chose different colored rubber bands to add for the strings.
We took turns plucking and describing what happened to the strings.
The children said they were wobbly, blurry, bouncy, fiery, wiggly,
twirly, salty, and colorful. “They look like two strings when they
pluck,” someone noticed. We talked about the word vibration. We reread
Ben’s Trumpet and saw how the drumsticks in the illustrations looked
like many sticks indicating vibration.

We counted how many cans we had to choose from for our drums. Everyone
chose a color of duct tape to decorate their drum, and cut the tape to
cover the cans. Afterwards we took turns beating patterns on our drums
and copied each other. Some children played small sounds with one
finger while others banged with whole hands loudly.

Next week we will make the much anticipated papier mache maracas.

Half the class slept on Wednesday. Quiet time remains quiet.

Have a healthy weekend!  

6 years, 11 months/4 years, 9 months.

No cavities!  Graham and Connor are taking a soccer class together, which is great in terms of scheduling and not so great in terms of sibling rivalry.  

6 years, 11 months/4 years, 9 months.

Graham is learning a lot of important things in school.  This is part of his current non-fiction study.  

6 years, 11 months/4 years, 9 months.

Party-venue scoping at Kids 'n Action.  We didn't think we could be responsible for watching a dozen 6/7 year-olds here, but still had a fun afternoon.

6 years, 11 months/4 years, 8 months.

Dogman: the morning comics of our day.  

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "How much wood?":

Dear parents,

The children worked all week with wood. They stacked, glued, stacked,
and glued some more. We used Christmas tree stumps, alphabet blocks,
spools, and other small pieces of wood. On the third day, we painted
the sculptures with metallic paint.

Friday we did the Hokey Pokey at the start of circle. We listened to
New York, New York and danced our way to snack time. We listened to
different kinds of music, jazz and acoustic Arabian, during snack time
and heard guitars, trumpets, and maracas. We read Rap A Tap Tap and
Ben’s Trumpet to get ready for the music unit starting next week.

In the big room we played babies and fire, and ran, ran, ran many laps
saving babies.

A few children decided they had boo-boos on their fingers and walked
around with a tissue to soak up the pretend blood from the cuts. Maybe
inspired by a bloody hangnail a few days ago.

We listened to a few stories at lunch, and everyone had good listening
ears and chewing mouths.  We read and sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider
before quiet time with quiet voices, everyone loved the long story
version of the song. By popular demand, we finished We Built A
Climber. A few kids remembered exactly where we left off the day
before.

Thanks for the boxes. We have plenty!

Have a fantastic weekend,
Therese and Anna

6 years, 11 months/4 years, 8 months.

Parkour at the "Brooklyn Zoo" for Noah's 7th birthday.  Connor did the death drop with assistance...Graham stayed on the trampoline. 

The video is Connor doing "Going on a Treasure Hunt": Going on a treasure hunt/X marks the spot/two big boulders/one tiny rock/spiders crawling up your back/bite, blood dripping down/spiders crawling up your back/bite, blood dripping down/quick breeze, tight squeeze/now you've got the shiver-ees."

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Not Cassius Clay":

Hello all,

This week we are using different types of clay everyday. Monday we
started with a little (Model) magic. The children rolled, squeezed,
squished, stretched, and patted it flat. Everyone got to choose a
color to add to theirs and then after breaking it and sticking it back
together repeatedly, they mixed the color in. Some decided to share
pieces of their Model Magic so they each had two colors. In the end
everyone made a sculpture.

After setting them out to dry, we played in the big room. Block
building, tricycles, and jungle gym were the top choices.

We mixed glue, water, and Borax to get our second non-clay-ish medium.
The children helped mix and chose green and yellow food coloring to
add. They noticed it was white and then greenish, that it felt cold,
and moved slowly. We played with it for a bit before snacks. Some
children rolled it into worms, some made thick islands, while others
held it up and watched it  s l o w l y  fall to the table.

Wednesday we used modeling clay. The children said it was harder to
shape. It is a great hand strengthening tool, as are all these
mediums. We counted the number of people in our class, and broke the
clay rectangle in halves, counting and recounting, until they equaled
the same number as students. Four rows of four. We started with red
and added yellow. Some people kept the colors separate, some twisted
them together, and two kids mixed it so well, they came up with a new
color.

Thursday we used gray clay. The children surmised it was heavy, moist,
and hard just by looking at it and listening to it drop. They used
strong hands to manipulate the clay into snakes, mountains, snowmen,
dinosaurs, and caterpillars. While the sculptures dried we played in
the big room. The next day we painted them.

Sightings in the big room: children were playing Mary Poppins, using
the cash register, pushing grocery carts together,  pretending to be
dinosaur/cannonballs on trikes, ROARING, hopping on “those blue
things” (bean bags), pretend eating, wearing goggles and helmets,
sharing the computer keyboard, hiding keys in high places, wearing
construction hats, playing ball, and caring for babies. Whew! Lots of
activity.

We continue to talk about and remind friends of the Golden Rule: do
unto others as you would have them do unto you; if you don’t like it,
don’t do  it. This includes thinking about not hurting friends’
feelings or bodies.

Next week we work on wood sculptures.

Shoeboxes please. More shoeboxes.

Stay warm,
Therese

6 years, 11 months/4 years, 8 months.

Down another tooth!  Graham needs to start growing some new ones if he doesn't want to be on a liquid diet.

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Every walk home is through an obstacle course.

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Grey snow season.

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Slumbie with the Josts!

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

Dear families,

Whew! The week flew by. The children were hard at work all week
beading, painting, mixing, and decorating gifts for you all. We beaded
necklaces. We painted boxes. We decorated bags. We mixed cookie dough.
We rolled it out and cut cookies. We also managed to have time to run
in the big room. All work and all play.

We read six versions of The Gingerbread Boy and hoped that our cookies
would not try to get away from us. They did not! We compared and
contrasted our different storybooks of the demise of the cookie. The
children noticed different noses on the gingerbread boy; some had
buttons, others not. One story had a bear; only in one story did the
old man and old woman have a son. All stories had a river but one, and
only one had the pursuers sitting down to rest. They also noticed the
different sizes of the books.

Friday the children served our gingerbread men cookies to mamas,
papas, babas, grandparents, siblings, and babysitters. It took three
days to make them and three minutes to eat them.

When we return we will be working on more block building, leading into
sculptures.

Thanks a million for the cookies, gifts, and kind words! All are truly
appreciated.

Have a peaceful holiday,

Therese

6 years, 10 months/4 years, 8 months.

Snow day!  Thanking our lucky stars that we have the Old First "big room" to hang out in on days like this--way too windy to be out for long (but just right for hot chocolate).