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

The piano arrived!  It made it up with the stairs and only made a small dent in the ceiling of the stairwell....

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "What's the biggest sea creature?":

Hi All,

We started the week by asking, "What is the biggest sea creature?" The children examined our ocean puzzle and named a few different sharks and whales. We wondered how large turtles, octopus, and catfish are compared to whales. The children knew whales are larger. We narrowed our list down to the three largest and voted on which one to make to swim in our ocean.

We chose three books from our library and searched for pictures of blue whales. Several children drew their own blue whales and then we drew a huge one on mural paper. We recycled our snow mural into a giant blue whale. The children crumpled old paper to stuff in his mouth and feed him until he was larger than life. And us.  We painted him mostly blue with a while belly. The class named him Junior, though one person kept insisting that is not his name!

The snail collecting in the yard is at an all time high with some children running a snail nursery. They are gently gathering the snails, observing them at play, and attempting to feed them.

We emptied our rice table and filled it with water. Some of our sea animals are quite enjoying it.

Next week, we visit the Coney Island Aquarium.

Have a whale of a weekend,
Therese

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

Self-portrait and bumper slides.

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

Table-top kinetic sand with Archer.

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

Hits on the ball field and dress-up at home.  Connor puts some amazing outfits together.

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

Ice cream with Amelia and Oli at PS 321.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Many fish in the sea":

Hi Everyone,

We began our week Tuesday by reading Fish Eyes by Lois Ehlert. The
children predicted the number of fish on each page and added fish as
we read. We sang "1,2,3,4,5, I caught a fish alive..." and "All the
fish are swimming in the water..." We talked about the ocean and
beach. Children made drawings with glue and colored sand. We played
outside in the yard and read a fish alphabet book before quiet time.

Wednesday we continued by reading Little Star and noticing colors in
the ocean. We rolled out our mural paper and created an ocean using
rollers and brushes. It is deep and wide. We used blue, white, and
green paint. Our ocean and sand art are hanging in the classroom.
Needless to say, during circle we sang Swimming In The Swimming Pool.
Many children talked about swimming in pools over the spring break.

On Thursday while some children danced and made music with Alex,
others made self portraits with Heather. She talked to us about
shapes, lines, and other details on our faces. The new portraits are
hanging by the cubbies, next to the old self portraits.

After repotting, watering, and observing our seeds' growth, we decided
to relocate them to the yard. We had cleared an area last week to
plant our seedlings. Everybody added theirs to our garden. How does
our garden grow? We'll have to wait and see next week. After planting,
we exploded our volcano one more time in the yard and then left it to
Mother Nature.

Speaking of growth, next week we will measure everyone for the third
time this year to see how we've grown. My, how we've grown!

Have a warm sunny weekend,
Therese

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

It's hard to tell in this picture, but that is a Connor-monkey clinging to the wrong side of the play structure.  He spent all afternoon practicing this trick.

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

Light rain on Memorial Day = a deserted Governor's Island, free for the exploring!