A Grand Adventure!

After Choice Time, we headed over to the John Barnes Room for a rousing good time singing with Allison!

And then we set off on our adventure! 

We saw lots of friends, like Katie's mommy Michelle, Nancy and Steven.

 

We sang them Teaching Peace.

Then we found a huge pile of beautiful stones! It was great for mountain climbing!

One of the purposes of our trek was to find April, the Technical Theater Teacher, and see if she had wood that we could use to build our raised bed garden. She did! The board was too big though, so she cut it for us!

 The intrepid Turtle then picked up the boards and set off.

 The boards were really heavy, though, and we had to take a break.

Just then, we met Craig on his four-wheeler. We asked if he could help us, and he said sure! We loaded the boards up and he drove them back to the playground for us!

Now we are ready to make our garden!

So Much To Do

Today, the Turtles came in busy and stayed that way all day - there was barely enough time and space to contain them and the many things they set out to do.

Towers were constructed, superheroes arrived, guinea pigs were fed, maps were made, boats were built, the North Pole was conquered and Mary Poppins showed up with her young charges. All of this even before snack!

At Morning Meeting, we had a wide-ranging discussion about what the Turtles think makes for a good story. Characters, they decided, were very important, as was setting. They also realized, through their own examples, that most good stories also had a problem that needed to be solved.

Next, we reviewed the characters that each of the Turtles have chosen for our story, and some decided to change theirs (making changes and improvements as we go is part of our creative process). We began working on choosing the characters that will be having the problem, from the list we brainstormed last week.

At Choice Time, Turtles played Numbers Lotto, watercolored and continued their construction projects. We also started "sketching" our characters on the Smart Board. The Turtles have learned to look at what they want to draw and make a plan for how best to do it, that includes positioning, color choices and shapes.

We had some outside time and the Turtles got a chance to run and bike.

They also worked on a big vat of mud and stick soup, and found a worm that was rescued and relocated to our garden.

Sarah Lynne's mom, Dawn, came in to read us an especially funny story called, The Three Little Cajun Pigs, before it was time to sing goodbye to our half-day friends and have some lunch.

The Many Uses of Numbers

We had two rollicking games today, and both involved numbers! First, we played Numbers Lotto in small groups. The Turtles are working on a bunch of math skills like one-to-one correspondence, numeral recognitions, and even simple addition! When a child filled the Lotto card, the whole group would sing BINGO!

Later, we played the biggest game of hide and seek ever! The Turtles all counted to 20, while Paul hid amongst the trees in the cemetry. Again and again, we found him. He was a good hider!

We also had our first Spanish lesson! Alicia will be teaching us Spanish every Tuesday, and she came and began by teaching us two new songs in Spanish.

 Also, our seeds are sprouting! The children have noticed that many of the seeds are sending up little green sprouts!

Spring!

Today the Turtles were busy, inside and out! Inside, a group worked with Carol on our second digital story book! The Turtles got to see the "first-cut" of the first group's story, "When Are We Going on a Trip?" And the next group was eager to ger started. First, Carol led the group in doing a Round-Robin Story, with each child contributing. Then they started the ink and watercolor drawings. So far, it looks delightful!

Outside, the children worked in the garden with Tamara dividing clumps of perrinials  to make a new little garden and spread the lillies all over! It was hard an dirty work, but they soon got the hang of dividing up the clumps, digging a hole, placing the clump in and firming the soil back over the new plant.

Movement with Missy was great! We did more Tee-Ball, went on a "bear hunt," and learned a new game called Jack Be Nimble.
And today was George Katherine's Treasure Box Day! She shared a myriad of headbands, and a magic wand!