All Together

We're back! This is the first week in the past few that we've had all of our students - no one out sick. And what a joy it was to be all together. There was definitely excitement and energy in the air, and so much playing! With a rainy start to the week we did some of our small groups inside, reviewing rules, doing some focused work on friendship skills, and reading some fun math books (ask your child what happens in Mouse Counts). We also embarked on a seed-to-table project, making pancakes. After reading multiple versions of the classic folk tale The Little Red Hen, we harvested buckwheat from our school garden, threshed it, ground it into flour, and made pancakes! Big thanks to our amazing farm to school coordinator Sarah Rosow for planting the buckwheat seeds for us this summer.

A couple of new additions to our wish list:

We're looking for pumpkins! Do you have any extras in your garden, or are you willing to pick one up for us? We'll be getting into some fun pumpkin projects next week.
Have any old clothes that would be fun for a scarecrow? The pre-k is entering the Scarecrows in the Park competition at the Guilford Playscape, and need some good clothing so we can start our construction.
Do you have old board books or lift-the-flap books that you're no longer using at home? We'd happily take them off your hands.

Thank you for your amazing support!

Enjoy some pictures from the week, and don't forget that it's a long weekend. We'll see your children on Wednesday!

This was a popular rainy day activity: two kids, one dropper, and some watercolor paints and paper. What a great opportunity to practice turn-taking!

Buddies working together

Another little fort under construction

We've been enjoying some indoor playtime at the end of rest. This kiddo is counting how many blocks are in his tower.

A butterfly emerged from the chrysalis on the traffic cone!

Transporting the butterfly to some garden flowers

We also had a butterfly emerge from one of our table chrysalises!

Our art table is a popular spot with stamps, stencils, tape, crayons and pencils.

Even more fun in the field - thanks to Cyrus's mom and dad for building the awesome rope ladder!

Some musical experimentation

A small group doing some rain drawings

We had a large puddle on Monday and Tuesday that was perfect for supplying the mud kitchen.

We're so lucky to have town librarian Cathi Wilken come and read with us every Thursday. This was her first week, and she had many eager listeners.

We finally put up our hammocks! It's so nice to have a place just for one. The children loved taking turns trying them out.

The Inquiry Basket continues to be incredibly popular. Here children examine a birds nest that Kristine brought in, with many wonderful questions and observations.

When the sun came out on Wednesday it was time to harvest our buckwheat.

After harvesting we brought the buckwheat back to the forest for threshing. We whacked the grains on the tarp and they all came flying off, ready for collecting!