“Exciting” doesn’t even begin to describe the day the Tugboats have had!  Today was school picture day and, as expected, we saw a wide variety of everyone’s Fancy Pants (or skirts!)  We managed to gather all 13 of our wonders into the park for a group shot before taking individual photos.  I cannot adequately express how blown away I was by the amazing and talented Edson Dias!  Aviva’s dad took our photos and everything ran so smoothly, thanks to his wonderful way with children.  Aviva’s mom was a fantastic assistant as well and the two of them managed to get smiles out of almost all of our kiddos!  You can check out some of Edsons beautiful work here.  We all felt like such super models!  I highly recommend him!

In addition to our exciting photo shoot, the Tugboats welcomed Clara’s mom, Heather into the classroom as our parent teacher today.  Heather came ready to rock today with homemade play dough for free play in addition to a super sweet project time game!  Heather taught us a new trick about making play dough: if you use powdered drink mix instead of food coloring, you get a super fun color and the added perk of delicious-smelling play dough!

Heather’s project time activity was the piece de la resistance: pumpkin bowling!  She brought 6 empty plastic bottles and one small pumpkin, distributed numbers in which the kids took turns, and set up a bowling alley right in the classroom!  The kids had a fantastic time rolling the tiny pumpkin down the lane and knocking down pins.  A few kids even rolled Turkeys!  They all seemed most excited about being audience members, though.  The Tugboats were so supportive of one another, developing chants and cheers to encourage their friends!  They never cease to amaze me with their friendly spirits.  Check it out!

No, we did not have popcorn for snack today.  We did the Popcorn dance!  As some know and many are surprised to discover, the popular ’90s band Bare Naked Ladies (unfortunate name to be dropped on a preschool website, I know!) created an amazing CD of very clean, very catchy, very silly songs for children.  We’ve been listening to this CD occasionally in the classroom, and some of our favorites include “Allergies,” “Eraser,” and “Popcorn!”  The rain kept us inside today, so we made up for our lack of playground time by boogying down!

First, the children start as popcorn kernels:

Next, they begin to pop:

Then they pop like crazy!

Dancing in the classroom is not just a fantastic way to use up some of our kinetic energy.  It also provides an opportunity for the children to express their individuality.  All of the children have signature moves that they love to bust when the music turns on; as they observe one another, they imitate and learn new moves, at the same time feeling honored and excited that a friend is imitating their moves.  Many of our students attend ballet or other types of dance classes on days when they do not come to Harbor City.  Dancing in the classroom provides them another avenue to bring their home lives into the classroom.  They also love seeing grown-ups dance and be silly too!

It was a bit gray when we assembled for Circle Time this morning. We sang our “Weather Song,” we we usually do, and peeked out the window and agreed that today’s weather was cloudy and windy.

Well.  I think the clouds got a look at these faces and decided to call it quits:

Honestly, do we have the best jobs or what?

The Alphabet Unit continues this week with our exploration of the letter B!  In planning this curriculum, Peter and I debated over the order in which we wanted to present each letter.  Should we progress from easiest to most complicated in terms of writing?  Or difficulty in phonemic awareness?  Ultimately, we decided to simply go in alphabetic order.  Once our Tugboats enter kindergarten, their alphabetic units will be structured differently, but for now we felt it was most important to simply expose the children and begin the alphabetic conversation, all while reinforcing the alphabetic order they are learning as they sing the ABCs.

As often happens when we make decisions theoretically, we discovered the practical difficulty of our decision today!  Because it was so successful last week with the letter A, we began the week’s projects with our connect-the-dot pattern that Peter has been developing.  What I didn’t fully understand was just how much more difficult the letter B is to write than the letter A is!  Like they do, our Tugboats showed us how resilient they are in their eagerness to learn, as they quickly overcame the initial challenge of drawing such a funny-shaped letter.  They were quickly requesting more and more dotted papers to trace the letter B.  Then they began and expedition to find as many Bs as they could, even finding one on Peter’s T shirt!

We will continue to notice the letter B this week, using a stencil to paint the letter, as well as finding it in the books we read and objects we use daily.  Stay tuned for more alphabetic adventures!

The kids were also excited to welcome our third parent helper: Sienna’s Mom, Kristy!  Kristy has substituted in the classroom before, so she is a familiar face to most of the children, but it they were thrilled to have her with us while still having Peter and Carissa!  The children really enjoyed snuggling with Kristy on the couch to read stories, as well as showing her how beautifully they could trace dots to write the letter B.  We can’t wait to have Kristy join us again!

We had another amazing morning with our second parent co-op in the classroom: Eri, Myles’s mom! Myles is a bit of a lunch time superstar around here because he has a very special lunch: unigiri, made special by his mom! With that in mind, the children were so excited to welcome Eri into the classroom.

The children had a wonderful morning playing and showering Eri around the classroom. Their favorite part of the day, however, was lunch time, although not for the expected reasons. Eri brought in a very special book to share with us today and she read it at lunch time. The book is Japanese, and I do not have the English title, but the book can be found here.  In the book, a series of animals (even one of our favorite animals, a monster!) visits a little girl.  They arrive, knock on the door, and say “Konnichiwa,” which means “Hello” in Japanese.  The pages are designed with a fold-down element, so each character bows as they greet the main character.  This book was a huge hit!  Myles loved sharing one of his favorite books with his friends, and they were all eager to interact with the pages and make the characters bow.  The text is very rhythmic and repetitive, so the children were able to catch on and follow along as Eri read, even joining in on the “Konnichiwa!”

Eri’s experience is another fantastic example of why the co-op model is so valuable in early education.  Not only did the children practice words in a new language, but they also got to see a glimpse of Myles’s life at home with his family.  Myles was proud to introduce this part of his life to his friends, which will positively contribute to his self esteem.

I’m so excited for each of our students to have similar experiences on their co-op days!