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“I know – we’re in the garden studying kinder.”
“I know I talk a lot but do you think if I eat alphabet soup, I’ll talk even more?”
~Alex
The kids have had so many questions lately that we decided to make a list of them and then during morning circle, talk about one of the many questions.
Today’s question and the thoughts the kids had:
“How are people made?”
- “We come from monkey’s. My mom told me.” ~Violet
- “My mom told me too. I think I’m from monkey’s because I still have a lot of monkey in me.” ~Asher
- “That’s called evolution.” ~Amalie
- “It’s kind of like a caterpillar and a butterfly. ~Isabel
- “No, God made us.” ~Anya
- “I have a book that shows that we come from circles (cells) that grow and make more circles until we’re a whole person.” ~Isabel
We then talked about how different people have different beliefs but that we do know that we are made of cells and then we looked up cell division in a book and looked at microscopic pictures of cell division happening.
The day started off with Flynn bringing her kitten, Lulu, in for a visit.
Then we were off to the bus stop where we played in the falling leaves.
On the bus: Alex’s first bus ride.
Brigit’s first bus ride without her mom (Kathleen was our parent volunteer last year.)
Lincoln Park: The zip swing.
Flying.
Monkeying around.
The Beach.
Crabs.
A crab party.
We were looking for some sand to play in but the only sand near had a sign that said, “Private.” But we decided that it didn’t seem fair that you can buy sand and water so we went anyway for just a few moments. Jackson and Asher refused to “break the law” so they played on the rocks near by.
We found a giant dead crab on the “private” beach.
A little anarchy never hurt anybody!
It is one of the best parenting/teaching articles around:
“Five Reasons to Stop Saying ‘Good Job!’”, by Alfie Kohn, Young Children, September 2001
Every Tuesday during math, we have Cooking with Kathleen and this Tuesday we made blueberry muffins. Last year we made blueberry muffins with coconut.
Flynn said she didn’t like blueberry muffins but she couldn’t resist.
This week we started our Explode the Code books. Paul’s group, The Earthworms, is working on book A,B and C, which are the kindergarten set. They explore the alphabet, letters and sounds.
My group, The Tigers are working on books 1-3, the first/second grade set. We are exploring word families and short rhyming words, starting with the (at) word family. Everyone LOVES Explode the Code books – we are having a great time reading, writing, singing and rhyming.
The day we started Explode the Code, during open classroom, I looked up to see Brigit practicing the word families (at) and (it) on the white board…
…just like I had written earlier in the day.
She said, “I do these with my grandma all the time too, she LOVES word families.”
Brigit, who just itches to sew every minute of open classroom, works on her wrap skirt:
Alex works on his long shirt, which he decided kind of looked like armor:
Flynn works on her glamorous purse design:
Talin was so inspired by Flynn’s purse that he decided he wanted to make a wallet, which caught fire in the classroom, inspiring Joey and Isaac to also make red, satin wallets, each with their own flair.
Yesterday we received a letter from Renee, our summer assistant who attends George Washington University. Everyone misses her so much. She was such a part of our classroom.
We decided to write back as soon as we read her letter.
During art class today, Trisha continued with the self-portraits from last week and what beauty to behold!
There will be a rotating art gallery just outside our classroom, so that we can display our art class adventures.
Thank you Trisha for bringing a bit of professional art to our classroom.
I know we’re a non-competitive type of school but OUR TOILET won the Second Use Transform A Toilet contest!!!
Congratulations Mystery Bay on all that hard work. We will have it on display in the big yard for years to come.
And we get $125.00 worth of supplies from Second Use! YEAH!!!
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