How is it possible that we’ve reached the end of our alphabet curriculum?! It seems not so long ago that we were exploring apples, bouncing balls, and conducting celery experiments. While it feels like time has flown, quite a lot has happened between A week and our current Z week. We’ve been making zebra Zs and studying zeros with the 13 families who have joined us in just a few short months, doubling the size of our community! As our enrollment has increased, so too have our energy and volume levels, which could be seen at our Spring Party this Thursday. With 22 of our 26 students in attendance, along with their families, we enjoyed delicious breakfast foods, read a silly spring time story, and hunted for eggs (labeled with each child’s pattern, of course!) out in the Bremen St. Park. The amazing and talented Edson photographed the event, and the beautiful photographs are coming soon!
During project time this week, we alternated between celebrating spring and exploring our seldom-used letter of the week. We talked a lot about zoo animals and imagined what sort of fantastical creatures we would create if we could combine different animals. We rolled marbles in black paint, then rolled them across white paper to make our Zs look like zebras. We also talked about the number zero, what it means and how different its value is from other numbers.
Our most exciting project of the week was contributed by our parent helper on Thursday, Andrew. Andrew shared his love of mechanics and motorcycles with the Tugboats by designing a lesson on electricity! He brought a motorcycle battery, wires, and some moto-parts and began the project by explaining that while the materials he brought for us were safe, the children should never touch these items without a parent if they should happen upon them outside of school. He cut the plastic casing to show us the copper wires inside, twisted them together, then touched to ends together to make a bulb light up! Each child took a turn (with Andrew’s help) turning the light on. Once we had all taken a turn, Andrew brought out an old car horn! He held it to his stomach to muffle the sound and each child got to make the horn go off. Many of them noticed that the horn didn’t sound quite like the horns in their own cars. I hope the neighbors weren’t alarmed!
