Decisions, Decisions

At Morning Meeting, some animals came to visit and discuss an important word: DECIDE. Many of the Turtles had an idea about what the word meant, and then our animal friends showed them that there were different ways to make decisions. 

The animals used each method to try and figure out what color to make their new building. Each method worked, but the animals felt different ways about the decisions. When we got to consensus, the Turtles jumped in with creative suggestions and we realized that, when you listen to everybody's ideas, sometimes you come up with new solutions!

It was Naomi's turn to share the Treasure Box, and she enjoyed talking about the items she had selected from home, and answering her friends questions.

While outside, we found that the straw bale had come apart, so the Turtles used it to build a straw house. Of course, this immediately turned in to a re-enactment of The Three Little Pigs, and the Turtles took turns playing the parts of the pigs and the wolves and running from house to house.

At Movement Class, we had another rousing game of kickball. Now that the Turtles understand the rules, they really enjoy playing as a team.

We also used the hula hoops and went through an obstacle course where the Turtles had to leap and hop.

The Shape of Many Things

Although a few children generously offered  to let the teachers sleep on their sleeping bags while the kids wrote the blog, somehow it is the teachers blogging again today. And what a great day to blog! Today we made amazing pizzas. First we added the ingredients into Carol's bread maker which magically made it into dough. Katie's mom Michelle is a pizza expert and she helped us design the pizzas.

We took the dough and each child made their own little pizza with sauce, two kinds of cheese, olives, red onions and mushrooms. Just about everybody loved them!

Morning Meeting was puppeterific today! Carol and Tamara took up their puppetry skills, and acted out some very sad scenes about two puppets being unkind to a third puppet, who would throw herself on the floor and cry very dramatically. Luckily, the Turtles helped the puppets work out their problems at the Peace Table with lots of suggestions for solutions. Learning conflict resolution techniques is a big job for three and four year olds, and the Turtles are working hard on it!

There were also several shape games today. Carol showed the Turtles how to make different animals using shapes on the Smart Board, and then we went on a Shape March, looking for circles in the hallway. And finally, we read the book, Mouse Shapes. While children can typically recognize many shapes at this age, they are still learning the attributes of the shapes (numbers of sides, corners/angels, relationships between sides, etc).