New Sensations

Our day began with a chance to play with the new flubber we made yesterday. It is a particularly bright and stretchy batch, so the Turtles found many ways to play with it.

Then, much to our surprise, the Copenhagen Girls Choir showed up at our door! They were here visiting AFS, so we immediately invited them in to our room and they graced us with an amazingly beautiful song. What an unexpected gift it was.

We sent an energetic band of superheroes outside to check on the weather and they returned with the decision that we should take our snack outside. We munched at the picnic table and then did some super swinging and biking. Once again, we managed to beat the rain.

While some friends stayed outside, others went inside to bake the first round of treats for tonight's art show.

The rice krispie treats were even gooier than the flubber!

At Morning Meeting we put up the world map and talked a bit about where we live and where we've traveled. Then, Julian came up to show us where his father is now (Australia), and to share some photos he has sent to the Turtles from his trip. The Turtles recognized the Sydney Opera House from a book on architecture that we read yesterday.

Authors, Scientists and Superheroes

Today the Turtles were full of energy - superheroes and villains bounded around the room. So, early on we headed outside to vanquish any bad guys and run around. 

We had a picnic al fresco and then had continued our lively game of superheroes, and learned how to play Squish the Lemon on the slide.

Meanwhile, Carol took a small group inside to begin work on our first digital story. First she recorded them telling a round-robin story. Then they used sharpies and water colors to illustrate the story. The last step will be combining the two into a digital story book. Stay tuned!

We came back inside for Morning Meeting, and Matthew shared the treasures from the Treasure Box. He showed his friends an action figure and his rock collection, and they loved looking at the different cool rocks.

At Choice Time, we measured and mixed up a new batch of flubber, read some books, and worked on choosing our characters for the big digital storybook we are working on!

More Turtle Arts

The Turtles today began working with ink and liquid water colors. Many illustrators use this technique for books, and the Turtles were excited to try it out. They worked with great attention to detail and color with this new medium.

We also continued working on the characters for the book we are writing.  Friends used their developing literacy skills to match pictures to the name cards we generated yesterday, and then glued them on.

At Morning Meeting, we have started a new name game. We are now working on recognizing our own and each other's last names! It is amazing that some of the children are already recognizing the sounds and letters of the names!

Beating Out the Rain

After some of the Turtles completed one of their favorite morning rituals - Ring Around Daniel (Maggie's dad), we realized that the threatened bad weather had not yet arrived, and decided to spend our early morning outside!

In addition to plenty of running and swinging, we also began work on the stand for our grow light.

All year, the Turtles have been building with imaginary tools to construct their rockets and boats. Today, they got a chance to use a real saw and hammer, and were very excited to have some hands-on experience with real tools.

As we sat down for snack, it started to drizzle. However, led by Robby, the children began to chant, "Rain, rain go away, come again some other day!" Miraculously, the rain held off until we finished eating and headed back inside.

At Morning Meeting, Tamara introduced the kids to peat pots and, during our Moment of Silence, we watched as they soaked up water, changed colors and expanded. We then talked about planting seed, which would be part of Choice Time.

Kailyn took a seat on the Storyteller's Stool to share what she had brought in the Treasure Box.

She read a story to her friends, and then answered questions about the items she had shared with her friends.

Then the Turtles talked about our new project - Writing a Book! The Turtles will be the authors and the illustrators and the readers (because our book will be a Digital Story when we are done). We introduced the idea of "brainstorming" today, and all of the Turtles started thinking of possible characters for our story.

At Choice Time, we planted seeds, continued to work on characters, did puzzles and engaged in the current favorite dramatic play - the family and their pets.

Carol read a new book called, But Excuse Me, That Is My Book, which received many enthusiastic thumbs up from the audience.