complete with a tornado, shoes turned ruby with glitter, a big map, wizard of oz tunes and sunflowers we honored our state’s 150th birthday!

the children were invited to draw with chalk on our map…more trips taken as the week goes on.  we took it as an opportunity to introduce the concepts of north, south, east and west.  there were a lot of trips to an area northeast of hays, as you may see.

oh, and a pink princess party to the east of manhattan.

it’s been a week full of fun activities…stay tuned.

that is what we call it….every time.  it’s quite a mouthful, but it has stuck.  when we sit for snack time, there is a lot of straggling in as kids finish washing hands, then we all settle and it’s loud.  then we announce what food there is more of and what has been given all out, etc.  then we announce that it is “school family conversation time.”

mr rob or i will ask a question or pose a “what would you do if…” scenario.  sometimes we’ll simply invite children to tell us whatever they would like.  it brings a warm smile to my face to hear children talk who started they school year with very few words.  in fact, the older kids catch on too and recognize the new surge of language.  such is the joy of a multi age class.

dare i say this can feel a lot like home for me?  it can be hard to listen to each other and to save our ideas, but it is important.  we started passing something around to “talking stick” style…for us it was the magic mushroom.   and really, when i hear a preschooler ask for “school family conversation time,” i remember the purpose.

not in my plans (how many times have i said that?!?!), but when i was emptying out our i spy table (which is technically a light table, but i had a piece of clear plexiglass made so that when we take the lights out, we have an i spy table), we had a bit of exploring time.  i had used salt as snow with all our wintery christmasy things.  so far there hasn’t been pain with salt in wounds or eyes.  we’re holding our breath a little.

this really is the best design for a sensory table (it isn’t intended as one).  it’s deep and small with the opening being smaller than the table.

we have a lot less salt out of the box than we usually do.  and wow, it has been a busy spot!

i’ve never been a teacher who determines how many people can do a center or activity at a time.  i’ve tried doing so after seeing it happen in other classrooms, but i can’t stick with it.  just last week i was sure that i would want to have the children take turns painting since we only had two trays of watercolor paint.  but as soon as more kids gathered around and one of the children who was painting asked for a paintbrush for a child who was waiting, i brought more out.  without a doubt the children are learning great things in navigating those situations…and teachers learn patience.

after our march, we had hot warm chocolate in honor of dr. king’s birthday.  we really needed to warm up ourselves.

a sweet ending to the day.

UPDATED 1/11/12 to add a copy of the printable!

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we made collage faces again this year starting with group painting a paper covered table.

we stepped over to another table to make hand prints (and sneak a moment with the book).

yes!  lots of brown paper:  just what we need to make our collage faces the next time we come:

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we ended the week with watercolor painting.

i had some of these little people sticks that seemed good for this week.

(tip:  when we use these kind of watercolors, i have some that are kept “clean” and some that are mixed.  some children simply are not ready to rinse each time.  we talk about “dancing the brush on the bottom of the cup” in between colors.  then a quick rinse under the tap has them all clean again.)

how honored i am to have 68 little hands in my life each week.