Traversing a puddle

Sophia and Kritsana on hula hoops

Check out our sunflowers, they are really growing now!

Three children playing on a makeshift teeter totter? You might think so but they are in fact refueling. James explained the whole thing to me:

"We are getting energy. It pumps the gas pipe in the ground and electricity through and into the log and into our feet and legs. The electricity goes into our legs and the gas goes into our feet because our feet need a lot of gas."

More Tricky Jumping

making windsocks

Not only has our garden been growing so much in the past few weeks, we also have these new amazing wind socks to fly or 'swim' as most of the children say-in our side yard.

Mayuko made Koi Fish wind socks with the class to celebrate Children's Day,a holiday celebrated in Japan on May 5th.

They started with pieces of fabric and everyone worked to draw the scales on and then pant in the fishes with bright colors.

Going out to find Kio Fish

While we were in the proses of making our own Koi fishwind socks we got the opportunity to take a trip out into the neighborhood to go to a fish store and see REAL Koi fish.

The Koi Fish were living in these big indoor ponds that had really high walls.

We were also in for a very unexpected surprise when we passed by tanks filled with Sting Rays and some sort of giant fish that we couldn't find a name for.

How exciting to be able to go and see all these fish right here in our own neighborhood. When we got back to our class room everyone sat down a drew pictures of what they saw on our trip. All of their drawings are currentlly posted on the wall by the snack shelf if you would like to come in and have a look.

Our sunflowers are sprouting!

Lately we have been putting a lot of thought into the design of our side yard. With all of the added garden spaces (which do look amazing) we want to make sure that there is a balance being maintained between space for them to be physical and inviting places for discovery and reflection. Watching the children play outside I have been so inspired by their creativity and ingenuity in how they have been creating physical challenges for themselves.

One of their favorite games at the moment is to set up things and see if they can jump over them. Today Liam found out that he can jump all the way over the big blue bucket.

Ethan likes to jump ove logs.
They decided to add pieces to jumping a bit trickier.

Izzy thought that the added logges were a bit too much. They mooved the logs and Izzy was able to sail right over the bucket.

Kritsana went right over too.

I wonder what their next set up will be tomorrow?

Innovations on an old standard

A new way to play Ring around the Rosie:

Could there be anything better then a hot cup of tea on a rainy day?

Earth Day work party plans

Alright here is the plan, we will be demolishing the roof and walls of the little play house.

After the walls and roof are gone we will be digging a trench all around the perimeter that will be filled in with soil and planted with sunflowers. If anyone has garden trowles they would come in very handy. The little shovels that we have right now are plastic so 'real' ones would be greta! My hope is that in a few mounths there will be a wall of sunflowes all around the deck.

We will also have another slightly more crafty project planned, we are going to be painting plant marker signs to identify all of our plants. Bring your GRUBBY clothes and/or cover up t-shirts! It's gonna get MESSY.

What A Delivery

Friday morning the kids were surprised to see this big dump truck backing into the Big Yard.

It was there to deliver a load of organic soil.

What a huge pile

Everyone was so excited to watch the truck dumping dirt.

Now to begin the major job of moving the soil from the Big Yard

to fill in the gardens in our side yard.

See you Thursday April 22nd-1 to 4pm for our Earth Day Festivities.

Simply Brilliant

To start off our first classroom blog I thought it would be perfect to share one of those simple and wonderful moments that I get to witness everyday. Today for snack we served corn chips with salsa and black olives. How you might wonder does one serve salsa when our plates are paper napkins? Well today we used these snow cone cups.

The cups were good for holding salsa but that pointy bottom was tricky.

How do you set down a cup with a point?

No problem. Just set it inside another cup with a flat bottom.