Water, Magic and Memories

The excitement level was palpable this morning, so it wasn't long before we had a brief Morning Meeting and opened the door for our final Inside Outside Day. We brought our snack outside and burned up some energy.

Next, we got out the hose and, with the excuse of cleaning toys and furniture, began a wild romp in the water. Pretty much everyone got soaked!

Then the Turtles insisted on putting on another show. This one was very loosely cast, with a fluid kind of script. Next, it was time for our Magical Adventure!

With our recorders playing, we marched out to the grove, where we sat together on a blanket and had our Moment of Silence. Next, Tamara and Carol told the story of their amazing journey to visit the Old Turtle and get some magic for their Turtles - for Being Brave in the future and Remembering Turtleland. Each Turtle then took a turn putting something in the center that they wanted to remember. Out of the velvet bag came a Turtle Shell full of Magic Necklaces, and the Turtle's sang a magic chant:

"Turtle, Turtle, brave and true

____________ is a Turtle and we love you!"

Each Turtle's name was filled in as they received their necklace.

With a magical potion, we drank a toast to the year we've had, and the future we wish for all our kids. Again playing our recorders, we marched back to our classroom.

There, we got to preview the movies for tomorrow. It was a lovely final day.

WE WILL MISS YOU TURTLES!!!

The Name is Nothing (or The Sound of Music)*

Tamara tried to stump the Turtles again today, with written double digit numbers and subtraction!

With the help of some blocks, they were not fooled.

At Morning Meeting, we talked about our summer plans. Many of the Turtles have started to think (and some to worry), about ending our time together and what will be coming next. We plan to have lots of talks about transitions in the coming days.

Inside Outside time was much more pleasant today, so we had snack outside and much running, riding and swinging.

Inside we built, mixed colors and worked on our books.

*As named by The Turtles

The Big Double Bike

The Bun Bun Blog

Hop Hop Hop

Beating the Heat

The Turtles were unfazed by the heat, opting to begin Inside Outside day early and switch to Inside Inside Day once it heated up. We are working on several projects at the moment, including a top secret project for our Moving On Day.

The work on the digital story book has also continued. The illustrations are just about done, and the narration has begun!

The dramatic play at Choice Time was amazing, involving herds of wild cats, princesses, overnights, wild trips, pillow jumping, firefighters, and cowboys. The ease with which the children play with each other is a joy to watch, they work hard at figuring out how to keep the play going when there is a problem, and they effortless pick up each others ideas. This is truly a group of  Master Players!

Solving Problems, Washing Babies and Making Books

Today we got out the new playdough - there's nothing like fresh purple playdough to start the day off right.

At Morning Meeting, we practiced our nearly perfected Moment of Silence. The Turtles have learned a lot about holding their bodies and their minds very still.

We also worked on solving the many problems in our story. With one more edit (to see if we want to add or change anything), the writing part is very near completion.

For Inside Outside time, we had our snack outside. We also brought out our library books to look at one more time before we take them back tomorrow. 

Inside, we began creating the illustrations for our story, using washes of watercolor and permanent marker. We also had magnetic mosaics, puzzles and dramatic play indoors.

We brought magnatiles outside, and the Caterpillars brought out babies to wash. As it turned out, the Caterpillars decided that the magnatiles were more fun and the Turtles preferred the babies. The Turtles really enjoy the rhythm of Inside Outside day now - it allows them to get involved with a broad spectrum of activities, and to self monitor their need for a slower or faster pace.