Wet and Cold

What a wet and cold day today has been. I am SO ready for REAL spring weather so we can get outside more. Some of the activities I had planned for this week are " no go's" because of the weather. Enjoy some pictures of some of our fun today.

Artwork? Yea.. we do it. But , I keep it and file it . I know... you're jealous.

Wind Socks !

I love walking into a room and seeing something like this. Total..... comfort.

This is ANOTHER of the MANY reasons I hate worksheets. This is a weekly reader. If you skip the back which is usually a worksheet, it is a pretty good publication. Although, I am a little anal and would LOVE for them to send a year at a time instead of assuming I am focusing on farm in March. Any who... When you receive this at home usually the back is blank- we havent filled it in. Why ? Worksheets are NOT Age appropriate for 3 and 4 year olds. But let's just look at this ONE sheet. IF I...had made this worksheet what is the first thing I would have done differently ? We teach our kids all year... green means go. When they look at a stop light automatically they think.. green means go. SO WHY.. WHY... would this publisher put NO in green. No doesnt mean go.. it means STOP. Why confuse the kids ? Little things.. that irk me. :)

After talking more about wind today we made wind socks.

I love Nolans drawing on this wind sock. The sad faced little boy is his brother. I asked why. He said " He misses me.." How sweet.

Then you have the kid on the ball in the classroom ! " Look ! I made a pattern. "

The boys did a great job making a city today!

In addition to all our normal stuff we do, the kids took a walk today to look for wind. They didnt SEE wind but they saw the affects of it. They saw a flag blowing. They saw a tree's baby leaves blowing. They saw a whirly gig.... giggin.. : ) When we came in to do our journals Rosanna said " Ms Debbie, I cant draw wind." GREAT CONVERSATION STARTER! We talked again about why and what she might draw that would show wind. I think she decided on a tree bent over as though the wind was blowing it.

Have I said lately how brilliant my kids are and how much I love them ?

Back in town !

Being on Spring Break might have been a LITTLE more fun had it been warm. Randy , Geneviette and I headed to Kansas City, Mo. Which, by the way is an excellent place to hang out with grandkids during cold days. Our hotel, the Westin , had a link that went to most anything that we wanted to do and much of it was free. Below you see one of the first dinner stops. It was FRITZ's railway station. You used the phone to call in your order and it is delivered by a model train that goes around the top of the room on a track. When it gets to your table it drops. I'm not 5 but I was still impressed !

Advice- dont promise your grandchild swimming until you make SURE it is an indoor pool. The brochure said " heated". It was .. and outside. They said that people swim in it year round. So.. we did. The cold was NOTHING compared to having to go out there with a glass window from the athletic room surrounding the pool like a TV. Ugh.....

G had her first cab ride that she can remember !

Maturity is optional.

Before we got out of town we found this field of flowers/ weeds and had to take some pictures. G loved it .

Toy Story 3 Disney on Ice. Carry a BIG wallet and do not make eye contact with the hawkers.

TREX Cafe-- this was our last stop and one of our favorites. This is a must for preschool kiddos!

Yesterday I was in meetings all day. I left town at 6:30 to get to Fort Smith. I was in a budget meeting for Arkansas Better Chance funding. Organizing finances are MY least favorite thing to do. I am the queen of losing receipts. Not... a good... day.

After that meeting was over I headed to Bentonville and met Randy for another training on quality environment rating scales. As always, good information on how to create better learning opportunities for our kiddos! Home at 10 pm. :)

All in a days work.

FINALLY we have made it to today ! We were excited to see the city workers arrive to fix the alley. If you have HATED driving through there - you will be excited too. The great thing about this alley fix is that they kids got to watch the machines work . BONUS!

We are slowly getting into our spring unit. Today we talked about wind. Can you see it? Can you hear it ? Can you feel it ? We used a fan to do some experiments with air. Will a wooden egg float in the air when the fan is turned on ? Will a scarf ? Why ? We also used air from our bodies to do some nice blow art. During circle time we blew up a swimming ring. It was clear on the front. As I blew it up we talked about how it was getting bigger but we couldnt see anything inside. The kids put their hands on their chest. We took a deep breath in... our best rose. Why ? We talked about our lungs. Our lungs are a lot like a balloon or a swimming ring... air goes in and it gets bigger or raises ( like our chest ) when the air goes out it goes down.

It was a good day.

Some of the new materials out this week are spring themed erasers for sorting.

Flower gardens !

Spring Break... Broke

No cute pictures.

No life changing observations.

I have vacationitis...

See you on Monday!

Spring Break... not really !

Today we had 11 kids show up for school out of 16.

I was able to spend some quiet time watching the kids play and was really touched by their kind spirits. That doesnt mean that everyone was happy all the time and got along but for the most part it was calm and we all played nicely. As I watched a group of kids play " house" I was reminded of the innocence of childhood. Where everything is perfect and mommies and daddies dont yell at you and there is always a warm blanket to cover up with. When does that all change? How do kids learn to be mean to people ? How do kids learn to use gruff tones and angry words? The sad part is... from us... adults. Please remember that your child is watching and listening to everything you say and do..whether you think so or not. It will never be ok to be mean others if it isnt ok now... if we .. never make it acceptable.

We did a science experiment today. After reading the book " Rain Rain Everywhere" and singing a few songs about rain we made a graph. A graph compares things. We compared who likes rain and who does not.

From the do NOT like rain group I heard:

We cant go outside.

It gets me wet.

From the DO like rain group I heard:

It helps flowers grow.

We can get out the rainy day toys.

It makes a rainbow.

And lots of other well thought out answers!

The experiment we did was making rain in the house. I asked the children did they think we could and of course they said no. I proceeded to show them how. We took a bowl of warm water . We noticed the vapors ( gases) coming out . Then we placed a bowl of ice water on top of the hot bowl. The vapors continued to go up and form water droplets on the bottom of the top bowl AND IT RAINED!

Good day. We do miss our friends.

Learning Outside ! OH YEAH!

What a beautiful wonderful fantastic ( any more great adjectives I can throw in there ) day it has been today. Days like this renew my spirit and make my heart smile. When the weather is warmer many days we meet the kids outside in the fence to get a little play time outside before we head in for breakfast. Today, when it was time all I heard we GROANS..... So, I smiled and said " Ok, lets go in to eat breakfast and then we will decide where we want to play." If course, after the kids wolfed down their english muffins , green apples and milk they were ready to head back to the play yard. I grabbed our theme box and out we went !

My day did start with this HUGE bow made from newspaper that Mary ( Williams mom ) made for me. Everyone else got paper hats yesterday and she knows how I am about hats so she made me this bow ! CUTE!

The kids LOVE this little toy that Kayla is playing with . I think it is called a " Pop-up." You pop the ball up and try to catch it in the basket part as it comes down.

Randy also took out the parachute. I found my parachute book . Did you know that just like any other teaching aid there is a METHOD for using a parachute. There are 8 sessions. The first one we did today . ( Up until this point I guess Randy just let them bounce balls in it.) The lesson today was teaching the " thumbs up" grip. Some of the games in the book call for thumbs up others for thumbs down. So, we practiced thumbs up and sang " Where is Thumbkin" while we did it. Then we practiced " the wave." The wave is created simply by going up and down with our arms in the thumbs up position. We tried it fast and slow and listening when the teacher calls freeze. The kids loved it.

Periodically I would ring the bell two short times. That was a call for the children to come to the porch and talk or read or sing. Randy was getting lunch on the table during this time so Geneviette took a picture of me reading . I think she may grow up to be a photographer. She handed me the camera and said " I took two. I took one of Nolan and Dillion." When I looked at the pictures I smile. What a sweet picture to take of the boys.

We can see rainbows on demand !

Kimber is going to be so excited come May. We will be doing a huge Farm unit. Today he was playing with the tractor on the porch . I loved the way he had his food in the trailer pulling it.

And last but not least... You do know that leprechauns will run away if you blink. So, we practiced staring.

Here is your Friday Flick.