Saying Goodbye to the Winter and Hello to the Spring…..
Over the last several weeks we have been quite busy and having lots of fun at school. Here are a couple of photos from Valentine’s Day and a painting day in March. Please remember to click on the picture to see more pictures.
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| Valentine's 2011 |
Here the kids are actually performing a puppet show of the story we did in February. It is Mashenka and the Bear. Here are photos of them acting it out in a play, we did that for a couple of weeks and it was great fun.
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| Mashenka Play |
Winter circle to early spring circle, learning about the process of making maple syrup.
The children have been busy going out on our daily adventure into the woods and through the snow to find the maple trees, strong and tall. We learn that during the sunny warm days and the frosty cold nights, that’s when sugaring time is right. We work hard to chop wood for the stove, take just the right tools with us to hang our bucket and spout on the tree and wait for the sap to drip out. We have been reading books and looking at real photos of family maple sugaring farms, the children are very excited about it. (Beck even says he has a maple tree at home and makes maple syrup all the time….we thought it would be fun to come and see, hahaha).
The children have been learning about the lazy gnome. While all of the other gnomes are working hard preparing the earth for the work to come in the spring, the lazy gnome decides he would rather be lazy and just play around. Therefore, he is sent out of the kingdom until he is willing to do work with his brothers. He goes and sleeps in a hollow tree trunk and the wakes up and sees the flower fairies and he wants to play with them. They can not play because they are busy working hard. The gnome then meets the fairies working with the water at the waterfall and they appear to be having so much fun that he asks to play with them. They tell the gnome they can not play with him because they are busy working very hard sending the water up into the air so that the clouds can bring it around the land and make beautiful rainbows. He then meets the sky fairies in the night and sees them bringing stardust across the sky. He asks if he can play with them and they tell him they are not playing, that they are working and that he is a creature of the earth and can not join them. Later along his journey, he hears a song from his brothers who are busily working beneath the earth. He feels lonely and it sounds like they are having so much fun. He decides to join them and work side by side and he was never lazy again.
Thank you to Sedona and Jack for bringing the large bag of navel oranges from Nana’s house, what a treat for all the children.
Happy birthday to Nathanial and Wyatt, they turned 3 last week! We will celebrate their birthday at school this week, though they did bring a cake in on Friday of last week and the children all got to sing for them. Here are some photos from their birthday.
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| N & W Birthday |
Leprechaun day and all of the preparations that went along with it kept us very busy. The children worked hard to build the leprechaun trap and make a lovely invitation to lure Liam the Leprechaun into our room this year. We came up with lots of brilliant ideas to catch him and we all thought about what we would do with him when we did. We decided we were going to sit that naughty little guy down and give him a good talking to about traipsing around the country side and making off with everyone’s treasures. What a surprise when we came into the class on Thursday morning to find that not only had the leprechaun been in our room during the night, he played with all our toys and built towers of chairs up on our tabletops. He lost his shoe while in the classroom playing, and left us a letter asking us to use our spying eyes and help him find it. He promised to leave us each a treasure if we could find his shoe. We are waiting for him to return for his shoe and leave us something…oh, the anticipation. Maybe we will get our hands on the little guy when he returns. Here are some great photos from our visits.
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| Leprechaun |
What glorious weather we are having, it’s so nice to spend so much more time in the back garden swinging, running, playing. We really can feel joy in the air! We have been working in the gardens clearing the new weeds that have decided to take over the gardens. There is much work to be done and we look forward to coming back after our spring break and planting lots of fun things! We are singing songs of planting in our gardens, the rain fairies bringing water to the plants, father sun shining down his warmth so that the little seeds planted in the earth will wake up. But watch out, here come those little brown rabbits popping their heads out of the grass looking for gardens to munch, munch, munch!
We planted our spring garden baskets this week, each child has his or her own basket they chose and we planted wheatberry and oat seeds in them. We will water them each day and hope that by next week we will see some sprouts popping their heads out to see the wonderful outside world.
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| Spring Baskets 2011 |
We are excited about spring and having been singing songs about spring coming. One of the favorites is:
Spring is coming, spring is coming
Birdies build your nest
Weave together straw and feather, each one doing his best.
Spring is coming, spring is coming
Flowers everywhere
Roses lilies, daffodillies
All are coming through
Spring is coming, spring is coming
joy is in the air
shimmer glimmer on the river
love is everywhere.
Next week we hope too that the Easter Hare just might make an early visit and leave something for us in our baskets!
Matteo gets the Morning Song cycler of the century award….he rode his bike to school on Wednesday all the way from Sausalito! Wouldn’t it be fun for a few more friends to meet up with him and ride to school sometime too? He was so proud of himself and for great reason.
Important Reminders:
Dear parents (on sunny days) please leave the front garden children’s sitting benches free of carseats and other things so that when we bring the train of children out, the benches are available. Thank you for your cooperation.