Our Weekend Adventures and Our Week Begins

Every day, Carol and Tamara try and outsmart the Turtles by having them guess, in some tricky way, how many minutes until clean-up. We have tried flashing numbers very quickly and having the Turtles have to add up fingers and written numbers. Today, Tamara had the Turtles subtract written numbers, and we still didn't fool them!

At Morning Meeting, we went around the circle to hear from each Turtle what they did this weekend. Here is what they said:
Kailyn: I do this weekend, I saw the silly bands; they go on your fingers. I got them from my grandpa. That's all.
GK: I don't remember. I ate lunch with the rhymers.
Katie: My mom went to where my birthday is going to be to get my cards that I put in my friends boxes.
Noah: My friend Wawa came from New York. She played with me and she left little things for me, like little pieces of paper and Easter eggs, and that was all.
Max: I went to Giggleberry Fair. And it was fun to climb. And I went to it a few years ago and a couple days. And when it was time to leave, I left.
Maggie: I played with my dolls. I played with the doll house.
Robby: This weekend I went to ski camp. And remember we were also here doing summer camp? It was snowy so we only skiied. We stayed in a line. That's the place called Jackson Hole.
Naomi: I went in my car and I saw Noah in my car.  And then we went to the park and then I got a soft pretzel and then we went home and then my babysitter came and then we went to bed.
Carol: this weekend I went out with a big saw and a big set of pruners and I cut down some big trees in the yard. I felt like a lumber jack.

Then it was time for Robby to share his Treasure Box.

At Choice Time, some of the Turtles worked on stories with Tamara, while others worked on drawing their characters on the Smart Board.

 Friends are enjoying drawing on the Smart Board, because it allows them to undo and rework their pictures until they get them looking a way that satisfies them.

At Movement class, we played t-ball and everyone took turns hitting and running the bases.

Missy also blew bubbles using the fan. The Turtles ran and laughed and popped them.

Outside time was lots of fun, as everyone enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Frogs and Dirt and Bugs...A Perfect Friday

Another busy day in Turtleland. Early on, Kailyn gave her teacher frog drawing lessons (in great detail), using her stuffed frog as a model. Then, she and GK both drew beautiful frogs. Then, we all started off doing the many tasks necessary to care for our space and the things living in it - like watering our seedlings and cleaning out the guinea pigs cage. Then, the Turtles decided we should go out and get Luna and Nellie some grass. When we were pulling grass, Sarah Lynne pulled out what looked like some tiny onions. At first, the Turtles thought it was the onion grass, but Tamara told us it wasn't. So, we headed back out with a shovel to find some onion grass to see if it had little onions on it, too.

When we got back inside with our roots and dirt, we realized that there were other creatures that we'd brought in with us! At first, we thought we had a worm, then maybe a caterpillar and then Tamara found  a bug book and now we're thinking it is a beetle larva.

We found other bugs in our dirt clod and decided to make a bug home for them.

At Morning Meeting, Tamara told a story about children having a conflict around including/excluding another child, and the Turtles helped her find solutions for the problem.

We had our snack outside and then began to work on the raised bed for our seedlings.

It was hard work, but the Turtles were eager to drill and dig and put screws in and haul dirt and rocks.

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.