No, not Teacher Peter.  🙂  Today’s parent teacher was Liz, Isa’s mom, and she brought in her family copy of Peter and the Wolf.  This book has been in Liz’s family for 40 years!  As one of Isa’s favorite books from home, it was an obvious choice to share at snack time.  The children were riveted as Liz read the tale of young Peter and his quest through the forest to hunt down a wolf with the help of some animal friends.  After reading the story, we talked about the musical version of the story, in which each animal’s “voice” is played by a different instrument.  I expected the children to be interested in the idea, but not for very long.  Clearly, I underestimated them!  As they finished their snacks and listened to the entirely instrumental story, no one wanted to get up from the table, even after their food was finished!  They loved listening for the different sounds and guessing which animal each instrument represented.  The flute and the oboe were far and away the most popular.  Having seen the illustrations certainly helped, but they were clearly imagining the bits of the story as they listened tot he music.  Many of the children used their hands to represent the types of movement that they felt corresponded to the music.  It was incredible!

We also enjoyed listening to Peter and the Wolf as we used feathers to paint our letter F stencils today.  Some of the children loved the soft, light application of watercolors with the feathers, while others were frustrated and wanted a more concentrated application.  For those friends, we recommended using their fingers!  Using either tool, we got some very interesting additions to our stencil alphabet.

The weeks seem to be going by faster and faster as the year rolls along!  My apologies for missing a couple of blog updates earlier this week and at the end of last week; I was having a technology malfunction, but we’re all clear now and I’d love to share some highlights from our day on Monday along with today’s fun.

On Monday, we had the pleasure of welcoming Sophia’s mom, Lena into the classroom as our parent teacher.  Now that we’ve entered our second month of parent teachers in the classroom, many families are beginning to feel more comfortable sharing parts of their lives with the class.  Lena brought her violin (which we later learned is also called a fiddle in other styles of music–more Fs!) and played a few tunes for us at Circle Time.  She even played the tune of our “Days of the Week” song so that we could sing along!  The highlight of the morning was certainly when each child had a chance to play the violin with Lena’s help–what a special treat!  Not only did the group at large gain valuable exposure to an instrument some of them had never seen, but Sophia was also able to demonstrate pride and excitement about her unique family experiences.  Thanks for sharing, Lena!

Yesterday, after the blog post had gone up, Peter alerted me to some impromptu F fun that could not go undocumented:  a class fishing expedition!  During nap time, children who do not sleep or wake up early participate in quiet activities while the class finishes napping.  Yesterday’s crew was exploring the straw connectors when one of them noticed that, when connected into long lines, the straw connectors looked like fishing rods, which starts with the letter F!  Check out how much fun they had!

Today’s group enjoyed continuing to collage our turkey feathers using cardboard and scraps of fabric, paper, and ribbon.  On Monday, we decorate two large red fathers and we added yellow and orange today.  Like many of our art projects, the children strengthen their fine motor skills by experiencing a variety of materials.  When using glue sticks, they use their hands differently than when they use liquid glue.  They also use different methods of selecting and grasping depending upon the material they are adding to the collage: paper, fabric, ribbon, or button.  Finally, working on these large feathers in small groups helps to foster team work and develops the children’s ability to work together to accomplish a goal.

Happy Tuesday, folks!

This week, we begin our exploration of the letter F!  Yesterday, we collaged very large cardboard “turkey feathers” using a variety of red materials.  We’ll create feathers in yellow, orange, and green later this week.  Today we investigated those silly things that keep falling off the trees: Leaves!

The Tugboats examined a collection of dried leaves and practiced describing their colors and shapes.  Our first task was to sort the leaves by color.  Many of the leaves were more than one color, while others were completely different colors on one side than on the other.  What a challenge!  After we had sorted the leaves, we investigated them as a group, counting each group, and determined that some leaves could simply be counted in multiple groups.

Once we had mastered color-sorting and counting, the group began sorting by shape.  Each bin was labeled with the traced outline of the 4 different types of leaves in the pile.  The children selected leaves, then held them up to the 4 outlines, testing to see which leaves fit in which bins.

These sorting activities help the children develop fine motor skills as they carefully pick up the leaves without crushing or breaking them, often by the tiny little stem.  They also foster pre-math skills like categorization.  They begin to understand that while the entire group is one large category of leaves, they also fall into smaller categories by color, shape, and size.  Changing the category changes how they are sorted, but does not change the fact that they are leaves.  In addition, it’s super fun!

Today’s E projects involved as much physical activity as we could today!  While today’s projects were planned over a week ago, it just worked out perfectly that these activities were necessary on a rainy day!

Earlier this week, Peter developed “The E Street Project.”  While it sounds like our tribute to Bruce Springsteen, it is actually a cooperative building project.  The letter E is taped out on the floor and functions as a road.  Around the E are different color-tape shapes that function as a hospital, firehouse, and zoo.  The E Street Project takes up so much floor space that it has to be a group building activity.  It encourages team work and communication, as the children must talk to each other about their ideas and how they intersect with one another.  This is a very popular choice during morning free time.

During Circle Time, we sit right on top of the E Street Project, so it lent itself perfectly for our next activity: human letters!  Developed by curriculum team member and parent, Kristy, the human letter project also involves teamwork.  The children use their bodies to form the shape of the letter on the floor.  With the tape already down from E Street, the children simply had to fill the space with themselves!  Check it out!

Finally, after spending some rainy time on the playground, we came indoors to do some more exercising!  The children used large spoons and musical shakers shaped like eggs to have an in-class egg-and-spoon race!  The shaker eggs were perfect because they had the weight and stability of real eggs with less risk of breakage and mess.  The large spoons scaffolded the children for greater success, although there were still a few dropped eggs.  Finally, the children were racing in teams, so they had an opportunity to practice cheering and encouraging one another!

What an exciting morning it has been!  As some of you may know, Mayor Menino was in the neighborhood today celebrating the extension of the East Boston Greenway, which is just a few steps from our front door here are Harbor City School.  After our trip to the playground, we walked down to the gate that leads to the extension to hear the speakers.  We also threw on a few HCS t-shirts, so we looked extra special!  The children were so well-behaved as we sat on the sidewalk hearing about all of the wonderful reasons to connect the neighborhoods of East Boston, along with the plans for the new library being built in the Bremen St. park.  The Tugboats love any reason to applaud, so I think each change of speaker was welcome to them!  I noticed a few press photographers snapping up shots of the cutest kids I know, so keep your eyes peeled for some free press!  After the speeches, the children played Duck Duck Goose in the community garden while I took an opportunity to thank Mayor Menino on behalf of all the families at HCS.  I also had a chance to chat with our friends in City Hall, Councilor Sal LaMattina and Neighborhood Coordinator Ernani DeAraujo, and to thank them for their support in getting the new stop signs installed.

In addition to all the political hullaballoo, our new on-call substitute teacher, Dana came by to spend a few hours getting to know us.  Dana joined us for snack, our time outside, as well as lunch.  The children demonstrated some of the conversation skills we’ve been practicing at lunch and snack: waiting their turn to speak, asking polite questions, and listening to one another’s answers.  I think we are all looking forward to spending more time with Dana on Friday and Monday while Peter is away!