Joy of Trust & Confidence Day 3

The day started with some very active, full-of-energy children. After they settled down a bit with some energy-burning dancing (to the joy school songs), we were able to start circle time. Eve brought the share today and showed us her beautiful red-haired cabbage patch kid in a cute pink dress (which she declared was NOT a cabbage patch kid). Eve passed the share bag to Emily for next week.

After circle and share time the children all sat down and we talked about people we can trust. I went around to each child and asked them who they thought they can trust. Eve started by saying Jesus. Emily continued the religious theme by naming Jesus' mother Mary as someone we can trust and then Isabel rounded it off with saying that we can trust God. I turned to the boys and Joseph said he can trust his mother. Grant said he trusts his father and Kai told us that he can't trust anyone. Upon further examination Kai did say that he trusts his parents. We finished our trust discussion by talking about church leaders that we can trust as well as firemen, policemen and teachers. The children then all sat at the tables and practiced writing our second letter of this unit, the letter "S." Everyone practiced writing big and little letter S. We also practiced the sound of S and some words starting with S.


The much anticipated "art project" I kept promising the children came after S practice and we made "s"unflowers. I was very impressed with how well each of them placed the petals and glued each little jewel in the black center of the flower. They all wanted to spend a lot of time perfecting their own little creations.







It was fun watching their individual techniques. Emily started by placing petals at North, South, East and West and then filled in each of the four quadrants. She then wanted her center to be packed with black gems. Joseph took a linear approach and lined up petals across the top of his paper and then formed an upward-facing sunflower. Eve worked her way around in a circle with as many petals as she could glue, creating a very dense ring of petals. Kai, Isabel and Grant opted for the exact placement and spacing of the petals in a circle and the equally exact placement of the center gems. I think the sunflowers all turned out beautiful and each was very unique.

After the sunflower art project the children were ready for outside play time.


























After play time we had snack. Again snack consisted of an attempt to get the children to try foods they have never tried before. For today's snack we had almond butter, mango, red pears, plantain chips and seaweed.

Everyone except Grant and Kai tried the pears. Everyone who tried them ate them, although no one asked for seconds. Kai, Isabel and Joseph tried the plantain chips and ate them. The mango was a big hit with almost everyone. I think Eve and Grant were lukewarm about mango but Joseph devoured it, and Emily and Isabel had healthy portions. Grant and Eve both really liked the almond butter (on Ritz crackers) and everyone ate a lot of Ritz crackers just by themselves. The only two brave enough to try the seaweed were Joseph and Kai. I don't think Kai actually ate any of his but Joseph did take a small bite. Neither of them ended up eating it. We followed snack with another art project in which we made little seascapes with sand and seashells. All the children loved doing this. Grant and Eve both very carefully chose their shells and just as carefully placed them on the sand. Kai and Joseph both wanted a large volume of shells on their little beaches. Emily and Isabel were trying to choose shells based on color coordination.

We ended our day with story time, consisting of two stories about firemen in preparation for Thursday's field trip. All the children cheered loudly when I told them about our upcoming field trip and seemed very excited. We read "At the Firehouse" and "Fire Down Below." "At the Firehouse" is a story which is actually about a school field trip to the fire station and what the children saw there. Everyone as usual thoroughly enjoyed story time.

Joy of Trust & Confidence Day 2

The second day of this unit was a lot of fun. Following circle time, we started our day with the Dr. Suess story "Horton Hatches an Egg." Everyone loved the story and some of the children already knew and had read it before. After reading the story, we watched a short video of the story, which was a great version showing pictures from the book we had just read with a theatrical narration. Everyone adored the video version (probably because I didn't act it out as well in my reading of the story as Billy Crystal did in his - my ability to do voices just didn't seem up to par). We really felt for poor Horton as he sat day after day on the birds egg (as a favor) and never gave up on his task. He suffered through bad weather, ridicule, hunters, and being sold to the circus, until finally he was rewarded for his valiant efforts with his very own little elephant bird which hatches at the end.

After reading and watching Horton, we talked about trust and what trust is. Emily gave us a great definition of "believing & knowing something will happen" and we all talked about examples of trust in our daily lives.

After our trust discussion, we practiced writing the letter "R."

We then read "Green Eggs and Ham" which all the children were very familiar with. We talked about how we don't know if we like something unless we try it. Green eggs and ham may look strange, but it may taste delicious. Eve made sure we all knew from the beginning that the character in the book was going to love the green eggs and ham at the end. We were all very relieved when she was right. After reading the story, we watched a short video version of it as well, which everyone seemed to enjoy.

After reading and watching the story, we all went to the kitchen and made our own green eggs and ham. When passing around the bowl to take turns stirring them, everyone thought they looked really awful, but Eve reminded us that they were just eggs and that they tasted the same. We also made green milkshakes in the blender. We added green jello, honeydew melon and green cookies to our snack for a green theme (in tribute to the story).
Everyone tried the green eggs and ham (except Grant) and everyone who tried them liked them (except Eve, who said she had tried them before and didn't like them very much that time - at least in keeping with the story she did try them before rendering judgment). Everyone of course loved the milkshake which was just vanilla with green dye. The green jello "tasted like skittles" according to Joseph, but most of them liked that too. Emily loved the honeydew melon and had three servings! Joseph is the only one who tried everything and ate everything (except all of his jello). Grant was the most wary when it came to the green food, but I talked him into trying almost everything.








The children finished the day by coloring little "Green Eggs and Ham" magnets and drawing a picture in their journals of something each of them would like to try. For our freeplay today, because of the soggy outdoors (due to our early morning rain), the children opted to watch another story on the Dr. Suess video. They all liked it at first but we didn't see the end because it got too scary for the girls and we turned it off. Who would have known that a Dr. Suess cartoon can be "scary."

Overall, we had a fun-filled Dr. Suess day of building trust and confidence.

Joy of Trust & Confidence Day 1

Today we started with everyone saying one thing they are particularly good at. Kai said he is good at Karate; Joseph said he is good at Robots; Emily said she is good at drawing princesses; and, Grant and Isabel both said they were good at puzzles. We missed Eve (but, like the others, we're sure she's good at lots of things). They all then drew pictures in their journals of the things they are good at. Afterwards, we talked about not being afraid to try things we have never done before and that we can practice things and get better at them. To go along with this discussion, we read "Seven Diving Ducks" a story about seven ducklings, six of which jump right in and learn to swim and dive easily, while the seventh has trouble because he is afraid. With practice the seventh duckling learns to swim and dive as easily as his siblings. Everyone seemed to like the story.

We then did outside freeplay which involved several skills games for them each to practice. We practiced shooting baskets, ringtoss, beanbag toss and walking a straight line, toe to heel. All the children tried all the games and understood that they didn't have to be perfect the first time they tried, but that with practice they could get better.






















After freeplay, we had snack time which involved trying news foods. All the children were really great about trying the foods. We had kiwi, sunflower seeds (also for our letter S), chocolate covered sunflower seeds, and blood oranges. Joseph was the only one who tried (and liked) all the foods. Emily is the one one who already knew what Kiwi was and didn't want to try it again because she said she didn't like it the first time. Everyone liked the blood oranges and the sunflower seeds.















The final part of our fun first day was reading "The Little Engine That Could" which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. We finished with painting little wooden trains to remind the children that they shouldn't give up if something seems hard and that if they try their best they can accomplish great, seemingly impossible tasks just like the little engine.

Barkworks Puppy Store

The Joy of Spontaneous Delight--Day 3

Kai brought the share today--pirates. There were enough for the kids to each hold a different one. After practicing writing the letter Q, singing some fun songs and reading some silly stories, we went in the kitchen for snack. I brought the popcorn popper right down on the table, and the kids were "delighted" watching it all pop in front of them. They loved the snack, and even had to pop a second batch which they devoured as well. After outside playtime, they came into the living room to see a giant present in the middle of the room. They all sat like angels so they could be chosen to unwrap it. Grant unwrapped the box, but inside it was another wrapped box, and so on until all of the children had a turn to unwrap a box. Eve unwrapped the last box to reaveal a small treat for everyone. We then used the biggest box to play "Jack in the Box". Each kid got a turn to "pop" out of the box after we all sang "Pop Goes the Weasel". I could tell they loved it. We then talked about the delighted feeling we have whenever we see a rainbow in the sky, and then made a rainbow craft before everyone went home. It was so fun to see so many happy smiles during this unit with our activities that brought on "Spontaneous Delight"!

The Joy of Spontaneous Delight--Day 2

Today we focused on a President's Day theme (since the curriculum only had 2 days planned for this unit, we had time to spare). We sang a Singin' Smart song naming all of the US Presidents, then sang "Old Abe Lincoln". We then read "Duck for President" (same author and characters as "Giggle, Giggle, Quack"). We talked about George Washington's legend of the cherry tree before eating cherry flavored jello for snack. To go with Spontaneous Delight, we mixed baking soda with vinegar, using 6 cups each with a different color hidden in the baking soda. The kids squealed with "delight" watching them all fizz up. The kids loved making little Abe Lincoln log cabins. I could tell it was very on their level as they were so engaged the whole time and didn't need much help.

Joy of Spontaneous Delight--Day 1

We jumped right into the Spontaneous Delight unit by blowing up and playing with balloons. Everyone had their own balloon and it was a party! Isabel brought the share today--a scary dragon. We practiced writing the letter P on the chalkboards and then Joy Boy came to visit and introduce our unit. We sang, "If you're happy and you know it" accompanied by our great little instruments. After reading "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" and "Things that are Most in the World" we had a fun snack of chocolate covered valentine pretzels. We blew bubbles during playtime. We then read Grandpa's Farm story activity for the lesson, and did more letter P practice. For the craft we finger-painted with shaving cream along with a few drops of red food coloring to swirl around. The kids loved getting all messy and creating their own designs. I wasn't quite brave enough to follow the lesson's suggestion to do it with our feet! We sprinkled red glitter on top so we can cut them into Valentine hearts after drying. We then wrote in our journals before leaving--the letter P and a picture of what we did today. A fun day with the kids!