Snow Inside and Out

While some of the Turtles took a walk in the snow this morning, others stayed in and brought snow inside to play with. Snow came into the room in bins and balls, and found its way into the sandbox - where it soon became sandy snowballs, before melting away.

Our train came out again for a bit, and some of the cars became highly specialized - we even had a dance car!

Meanwhile, many of the Turtles worked on their self-portraits. Some friends who had done them yesterday eagerly came by to offer advice and opinions about which color crayons to use.

At Morning Meeting, Tamara read a story about balancing, and then demonstrated how our classroom balance works, with different sizes and numbers of buttons. The Turtle scientists worked hard to think of reasons why different items did and didn't balance.

Kids in Boxes and Faces in Mirrors

Today was a day of many boxes being many things. There were complex box trains under continuous improvement, hideaway boxes and tipping-over boxes. Boxes that moved and boxes that were houses. Boxes for one and for many. Boxes for leaping out of and boxes for hiding inside. Boxes where meals were eaten and messages written.

At Morning Meeting, the Turtles returned to a favorite activity - the telling of a Round Robin story. Today's story started with - no surprise - a Train! This one full of all kinds of creatures - animal, animated and technological. The train came upon a monster and ran away. Later, they found the monster's baby and decided to return the baby to her. She was so happy, that she invited all of them to have a party. The Turtles love telling stories this way, and are particularly good at adding all kinds of sound effects.

For Choice Time today, the Turtles had to come and find their name cards in the center of the circle - they are very proud of their ability to recognize their own and their friends names in writing. In addition to the Train and some new puzzles and books, we began working on our self portraits today.

Friends carefully studied their reflections in the mirror, matched their colors to the crayons and their features to different shapes. It is fascinating to hear the Turtles describe what they look like to themselves. This is a project that we will continue to work on over the next several days, and revisit later in the school year.

 

Adventures Through the Snow and School

This morning found our sailing ship replaced by a railroad train and several "boxcars." Many friends took a long and crowded trip in our new vehicle, taking turns in the engine and the caboose. Other Turtles continued to work on increasingly difficult puzzles - most finding that teamwork was the way to go.

After yesterday stuck indoors, we decided that today was a day for adventure. At Morning Meeting, Carol showed the Turtles a map of their adventure and everyone talked about what they would see on their route (the Turtles have been very interested in maps of late).

With boots on, we trudged through the snowy cemetary and found our way to the "Puddle Tree" (renamed the "Snow Tree" today. Carefully following the map, we made our way into the building and wound our way around to the cafeteria, where we took our coats off and had one of our fvorite snacks - soft pretzels!

Next, we went to visit Nancy Stevens in Rich Nourie's office. We sang her the "Mighty Mighty Turtles" song, and she shared some animal crackers with us.

Then, we went into the big library, where Toni (the librarian), answered some of our pressing questions - like how many books were there (30,000!) and did they have any library mice? She said it would be alright for us to explore a bit, so we went winding our way through the shelves.

Next, we went to visit Katie's mom, and she offered us some boxes - just what we needed to make our train longer! It was hard work getting all those boxes back to our room, but teamwork made it more fun. We found a mountain of snow to climb on our way to the playground and had a bit more time to play outside. It was hard not to get soaking wet in the slushy snow.

Hoisting the Sails, Hanging the Sign, Fixing the Roof

Our morning was somewhat abbreviated by the snow and ice, but the Turtles managed to pack it full of activities nonetheless. A new and quite impressive boat was built, maps were drawn and the crew set sail in monster-infested waters. At Morning Meeting, the Turtles filled Carol in on all that had transpired while she was out last week.

Then, Tamara played a new game with the Turtles - seeing whether they could recognize the letters of their names from the back to the front. It was a very tricky manuever, but the Turtles caught on quickly!

At Choice Time, we hung our new Clubhouse sign, which looks terrific. While some Turtles continued sailing, others helped clean the guinea pig's cage. We noticed that Luna and Nellie had completely eaten their roof off of their tiki hut, so we worked hard making and decorating a new one. First, we had to find a cardboard box. The one we found, however, was full of tissues, so we made a trade with Tricia - if we took all the boxes of tissues out and delivered them to all the classrooms, we could have the box. Gleefully, we did, which gave us a chance to do some math AND see what all the other kids in the building were doing.

Ann (Max's mom) came to read us some new books: Ish and The Library Mouse - which were both stories about the many ways  of being creative.