lcg 10/26

Hello,

Well, we had our last class in October today

We got off to a late start due to our surprise visitor, Michael, who really wanted to be with me for a while before he went to his willow class.

We did our opening, some marching and clapping games, then worked on passing bean bags. We counted by 3's (to a tune that I've used at home with my kids) and did the calendar poem.

Then we moved into form drawing-- our first of the second grade curriculum, which will mostly focus on symmetrical or mirror forms.

We worked on recorder and singing-- some older songs and continued on "Fall."

Catherina Vandenbroeck, a lovely older friend of LCG, who has been knitting her whole life, came to join us for handwork. She enjoyed seeing the children happily knitting and talking. Melissa continued to help those who got stuck. Many projects are progressing along.

We broke for snack-- another delicious and simple treat from Alyssa and Barb. Then we went outside for jump rope. We'll take advantage of the milder weather while we can.

We stayed out a bit longer than I thought we would, so we hurried in to review our story in verse, "Belling the Cat," and we drew our pictures and worked together on writing our synopsis. We came up with several versions before we hit on a beautifully succinct one.

Those who finished early sat with me on the rug and sang "Pumpkin Pie." Those still drawing could hum or sing along too.

And that ended our day. I was a bit frazzled in the beginning of class, but being with the evergreens helped me feel quite happy by 4:00.

We hope to see most of you at Powers Farm Market tomorrow (Wed.) at 10AM.

Emma started to actually knit this week and is doing great! I was so excited to see her working on it and she was really tenacious about it.

We went to Powers Farm Market yesterday morning and it was really fun. It was field trip for the Evergreen class to get some social time and was a huge hit. Emma has hit it off big with one of our neighbors, Nat, and they had a playdate today too, after music class. They might come over on Monday to hang out with us. Nat's little sister Audrey is 6 and she adn Soren enjoy each other's company so I look forward to a long friendship. Their mom, Lauren, and I, seem to be hitting it off as well, and it's great to have a nice family so close by! They also have a 4 yo daughter, Nora, who is so sweet and adorable :).

Soren had a good time at Willow class. She is making friends and was having a blast with her friend Iris. Her separation anxiety is waning a bit, and she's seeming so big and *6*! We sent out bday party invitations last week. Her class is doing a lot of rhymes. They did more woodworking and finger knitting. Her interst in knitting seems to have waned. I'd like to see her get started with some needles.

The girls watched the lunar eclipse last night and were fascinated!

Emma had gymnastics wed. and tonight. she's tired!

We went to the downtown library today, visited the secret room and got out a book on voting. Emma's rereading Matilda by Roald Dahl and Soren got a couple of Cynthia Rylant books as well. They're both really into reading these days.

Soren and I did some grade 2 math the other night - places (units, tens, hundreds) and greater than and less than. She found it all rather boring and easy.

Emma did more cursive.

On Monday we went to Strong Museum for a field trip with RAHA and saw a lot of different things. Soren and Emma both did some art work in the Arthur exhibit. Soren made a collage upstairs. She was also fascinated with the dance lab and both girls spent time in the radio room, where you can recreate old radio shows and commercials. Emma made a paper doll. We actually got to go for free b/c they were supposed to provide a tour and dropped the ball, so refunded everyone's money!

On Tuesday morning we took Jude to the doctor and followed up on his UTI, then Lilac.

I'm sure there's more, but it;s late and Jude is tired.

catching up

I have zero blogging time, even to journal about hsing, let alone life. Geez. A quick synopsis, since we've had a busy week:

Tuesday they had LCG, which I posted the Evergreen update for. Soren's main teacher has been out the last two weeks visiting her new grandbaby, so no updates, although Soren is doing well and still finger knitting like crazy. She also made another felt mouse named Pinky. They made applesauce and did some woodworking.

Emma and I discussed political platforms and read more of our book on politics, which Soren is now into too.

Emma started learning to knit.

Yesterday, I got Soren to start a journal, in some part, to identify feelings and talk about different parts of her day. She also practiced subtratction of 1 and 2s and I picked up some manipulatives to help with this.

Emma did 4 pages of cursive, incl. F an L and reviewed the 8 letters she's learned so far. We played a multipliation card game and used the mult. chart I bought to start to help her memorize them. Soren really wanted to play but wasn't quick enough to keep up with Emma and got *really* frustrated. I'll have to work on her sub and add to get her up to speed I guess.


Soren and I did some work on word families "ace" and "ade", they played dress up and some creative play games.

Today we went to birth circle and Soren played doctor on Jude ;). Then we baked 2 loaves of banana bread separately. Each girl had to read the recipe, measure everything and mix! Turned out yummy and was lots of fun. Jude cooperated by sleeping the whole time we were baking!

That's the scoop for now. Tomorrow we have a midwife appointment, turn in the LCG newsletter to Lynn, and then visit Jenny and the twins (s). Saturday we're going to a dance recital at the Art Gallery and Sunday we're carving pumpkins.

LCG 10/19

Hello all,

Another Tuesday has come and gone. I just took my little after-dinner nap, so I'm ready to report.

After our opening verse, we did some marching games and clapping games. Then we moved into another running form that looked a bit like a cat (which fit in well with our story). We spent extra time drawing in the air and with our fingers. They all made nice form drawings, and were able to focus on their work.

Then we did a bit of recorder, playing the somewhat difficult song "Fall." We were visited by the Wolverines (Julia's 9-10 class) who introduced us to the song "Pumpkin Pie." We'll master that song, and hopefully celebrate with some pie later. Barb G- do you have recipes for gluten free pie crust? Or maybe Alyssa can just have the custard part.

Then Melissa came in for handwork. I think we are all knitting now. It is a lovely experience to sit in a circle, with some quiet whispering, and knit away. There are some lovely projects being worked on. We welcome any knitters to come in and sit among us. We usually do handwork from 2-2:30.

Then we broke for snack and had a surprise visit from Christy (last year's teacher) and daughter Iris. The children were thrilled to see her. She stayed with us for snack, and we finally got to do jump rope in the room, and Christy taught me one of their favorite rhymes.

We settled in for story-- a brief one in verse called "Belling the Cat." Then we had very animated acting out of the story. We have some ferocious beasts in our midst!

We quieted down to end the class with some bean bag passing to our story in verse.

I'd like to be able to do a bit more with decorating the room. Does anyone have a tablecloth or piece of material that we could use for a while? I'd like to be able to cover our cabinet, and also wouldn't mind being able to drape something simple over the curtain rod.

thursday 10/14

Yesterday we had tribe music class in the morning and learned a Hawaiian song, a German song, a british finger play and did a round in 2, 3, and 4 parts. It was great fun! The girls have been practicing doing rounds ever since.

We've also listened to a bunch more of A Wrinkle In Time.

Soren did about 8 pages in a reading/writing workbooks for K-1, and Emma did 4 pages of printing, 4 pages of cursive, and 2 pages of multiplication tables - 4, 5, 6 and 7. I want to go and get some flashcards.

today we're heading out to visit their dad.

LCG 10/12

We opened and started with our bean bag name game, then moved right into marching with "I left my wife and 48 children..." and counting by 2's to 24 while marching forward and backward.

We did some clapping games, and then went down to show the Maple Class our clapping games, and also did some with the children in that class. It was fun for the Evergreens to be the teachers.

We came back to class and did our first painting of the year (thanks to Sue Donahue for helping set up). We did a "color party" where we introduced the primary colors, and then saw what they made as they danced with each other. All of the paintings were beautiful, and very different.

We moved onto handwork. Most of the children are knitting now, and have projects they are working on. Thanks to Julie Cosgrove for her knitting help today. We could use more help next week-- I think Melissa is going to be with the Maple Class for an extended time next week. Can anyone come in next week from 2-2:30?

We had a delicious gluten-free snack (thank you Catherine and Erin), and celebrated Erin's 8th birthday. She brought in some adorable baby pictures, and we all gave her our birthday wishes. I am very touched by the deep and genuine wishes the children give.

The day was flying by, so we got to our Main Lesson. We re-told the story of the Lion and the Hare, and the children enthusiastically asked to act it out. It was a lively re-telling. Then we finished our drawings in our main lesson book, and wrote a synopsis of the story.

We managed to squeeze in a bit of singing at the end of class. We're continuing with our fall songs, and the children seem to enjoy an oldie, "Today."

It was a high energy day at LCG today. The evergreens seem to really enjoy each other a lot. But I am thinking of asking for more silent time from them so we can channel more of our energy into our work. I'm also wondering if parents might be interested in an out-of-class gathering-- perhaps apple picking or to a pumpkin farm? I think they are so happy to be together, it might be nice if we could have just social time together outside of our LCG time.

Would anyone be interested in pursuing this?

Let me know.

Thanks and have a good week,
Lynn

Today, Emma worked on building with Brio trains. That's got to count for something. Right now I sent them out to play. We're also working on organizing our time more efficiently in the mornings!

math and such

we studied some math today. soren worked in a first grade workbook and studied symmetry. She made 2 butterflies. She also studied congruence, counting, counting in series and reviewed the associative property. We also did some addition drills.

Soren and I also talked about singular vs. plural and the fact that y changes to ie when plural.

Emma did addition of columns with up to 4 numbers, some algebra, comparisons, transferring numbers using a key, and substitutions.

Then we played a set game called Yummy that uses numbers and strategy.

They also went to LCG today, but no updates from teachers yet.

Alphabets and Politics

Soren finished her K-1 Alphabet workbook.

Emma and I read an article from the D&C on local politics and how people are getting really ugly about the presidential election. Then we started reading the book I got them from the library about politica parties. She was *really* into it! We read the intro and chapter 1 and she had a lot of good questions.

Soren is now practicing typing with a typing tutor on her computer, has finger knitted at least a couple more things - a bracelet for Jude and a "wormie" for Catherine, who was visting this weekend; and she is still IMing daily with both David and I.

Emma went to Strong Museum with her friend Emma, who is moving tomorrow :(.

Let's see, there was a whole list of things I wanted to write down:

1. We're listening to A Wrinkle In Time on audio tape on all our trips in the car. Emma had started to read it and I read some aloud, but she kind of lost interest.

2. We played Great States yesterday, which went fine as long as I was there and then degenerated into cheating and beating after I left, but they both learned the directions well (N,S,E & W) and learned where New England is, in addition to some facts about different states. The neighbor kids even stopped by and played a few hands with us, as they had traveled across the country a couple of times and were intersted in what we were doing.

3. Soren learned how to wrap a present.

4. They both went to Jude's doctor appointment and found out how one gets a urine sample from a baby/small child. They also learned what an aortic aneurism looks like from looking at an illustrated book of medical terms in the office while we were waiting. We also read a community service story in Highlights about a boy who rebuilt computers for needy kids in his community.

5. Soren has read 6 chapters of Tigers at Twilight to me. Her reading is amazing. I rarely have to help her with a word now!

6. Emma is reading some mystery/ghost story that is really long and she's really into it. She's also reading this month's USAG magazine which has interviews with all the olympic gymnasts.

I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of anymore.

finger knitting

we are deep in the throes of finger knitting. Emma is frustrated because everytime she takes a break, she loses her stitches and ends up having to start over.

Soren on the other hand, just made a (basket handle? very thin scarf for Twiggy?) about 2 feet long in the last 45 minutes or so. She is entranced with the whole idea and just loves to show me her progress, which is difficult to sit and watch for more than 30 seconds w/o wanting to pull my hair out ;), but I'm trying to be encouraging.

This morning we had our first tribe music lesson which was awesome. There were a wide variety of ages, from about 10 months to 8 or so. There was one 10 yo but he didn't participate in class. One of Emma's friends from LCG was there and she ended up going to their house to play for an hour afterwards while I came home with Soren and gathered up our library books.

We went to the library and Emma definitely wants a subscription to New Moon for Solstice. http://www.newmoon.org.

We got out some great books - Emma is still into scary stories so got a couple of those, and Soren is into chapter books and got some other longer books for me to read to her, in addition to two picture books.

I also got them a book on the political parties since voting is around the corner.

Then we went to the park and came home and are getting out fall clothes, and Soren is much dismayed actually, to see how much she's grown since spring! I'm glad Karen and Catherine are coming so I can pass on some of these dresses to them.

I'm tired.

lcg 10/5 - edited 10/7

Soren did much better w/ me leaving today, and I stayed for Circle time. They did a short skit about a story they read last week, "The Littlest Gnome," and Soren was the Littlest Gnome. She was wonderful at repeating back the lines and walking around the room - a little shy, but I can tell she loves doing it. A place for the drama queen!

She brought home a lovely form drawing of fire and wind; I will try to scan it later, and she finger knitted me a lovely blue and white head band. She wants to make David a bandana. Emma did some half finger knitting/half on a knitting needle, but it kept falling out, much to her dismay. They both bought a fairy picture for $.05 after class, to support their friend who is trying to adopt an animal at the zoo. They also want to do this, and are going to save $$ from our recyclables.

Here's an update from her class teachers (this is the edited part since I just got it today!)

Dear Parents, We have had a very wonderful start to our year despite the flooding and dislocation.

The children are getting to know our daily rhythm and once we're back in our own classroom this will be even easier. For those of you who weren't able to be at the meeting and who haven't had a chance to sit in we're including the rhythm we're using right now so you'll have a better understanding.

We greet the children and invite them to join us on the rug making things from pipecleaners connected to our season.

Once everyone has arrived we unwind the pipecleaners, return them to the basket, and begin our circle time. During circle time we do verses, songs, finger plays, and circle "plays" that capture an aspect of the season we're in.

Right now we're working with the song The Farmer Arose at the Break of Day to bring us closer to the experience of harvesting. Each week we add another verse and the motions that go with it. The children have been enthusiastic at circle and are slowly internalizing the words and movements of circle time songs and verses.

We end circle with Oh Golden Sun and the following verse: May the light of this flame go into our hearts and warm our day.

Each week a child is then chosen to snuff out the candle and we all begin to work or play. Some start their play straight away, some go to handwork and others just observe from a vantage point of their choice. During handwork time children have been engaged in various tasks.

Some have started to finger knit, some have sewn mice, others have made gnome kings, and some have begun to make lanterns. This is a very creative class and whiskers appeared on some of the mice for the first time in the Willow Class.

Play time during the first and second weeks was quite subdued as is often the case with children who are new to each other often. This past week was notable, however, for the children were quite lively with themes of orphans, robbers, knights, and soup makers. Capes went on and capes went off as the children's play flowed from one topic to the next.

We also acted out our first week's story of The Littlest Gnome this week just before play time began which may have given play time a little more momentum. It was wonderful to see how self knowing the children were as they accepted parts or chose to be in the audience.

We signal the end of play time and the coming of cleanup time in five minutes with a simple tune stating just that. The winding down of play and finishing of sewing or knitting is attended to and then we begin to pick up our room. We sing all the way through cleaning up as it helps us restore our room to its original order. With a sense of pride we survey our work and proceed to wash up and spread our blanket for snack. Snack time begins with a simple song of Grace that offers joy and love to the Earth and Sun for our food that is so ripe and good. The tone is quiet and the children speak to neighbors or to the group. It's a soothing time and the children are finding lots to share with their friends.

We pick up from snack and prepare for story. Most of the children chose to bring home their drawing from the retelling of Michael and the Star Children this past week. We will continue to work with this story throughout the autumn as we dye silks and work with bulbs. The ending of story signals time to gather our things to go out to play.

Just before leaving we do our closing verse and a good bye song which is helping all of us learn each others names. And another delightful day comes to a close. Thank you to all who have helped make the beginning of school so smooth and enjoyable. Thank you for sharing your beautiful children with us. Many Blessings, Karen and Lynne

Today we're visiting a friend and going for a hike along Irondiquoit Creek. It's a beautiful day for it. Later Emma has gymnastics and Soren and I can do some lessons hopefully. She stays much more on task 1:1.

Emma did a really cool exercise on fractions yesterday - she had to decode a message using fractions of words and I taught her how to multiply and divide to make equal fractions - like how do you make 1/4 into x/8. She picked it up quickly and finished the 35 problems of the decoding within 1/2 hour! It was fun. I need to find more fun lessons like this for Soren for math. She did a few pages of adding/subtractions and creating her own problems using the cuisenaire rods.

Here is the update from Lynn, Emma's LCG teacher:

Hello parents,

We had a nice day today-- we are finding our rhythm and were able to do a lot today.

We started with our opening verse, then did some beanbag passing-- with names, saying a nursery rhyme, and counting by 2's and 5's. I hope to expand on this in the weeks to come.

We did our marching games-- "I left my wife..." and our counting game-- counting while marching forward and backward. We'll eventually expand this to counting by 2's, 5's, etc.

We moved right into our form drawing-- another running form. The children had a good grasp of it and made some nice drawings.

Then we went into singing and recorder. We're doing a number of songs about Fall. We began a more difficult song on the recorder, "Fall," that we've been singing each week. The class enjoys sharing their own musical compositions. Please have your child bring a recorder each week.

Melissa came in and we continued working on knitting. I'm hoping those who weren't able to finish their knitting needles at home last week can finish them this week. Melissa will not be in class next week, as she'll be doing a special handwork project with Sarah's class (Melissa doesn't go to Sarah's class each week). Thankfully Julie Cosgrove will be in to help. If anyone other knitters are available from 2-2:30 next week (or in future weeks), we'd love to have you.

Then it was on to snack. Our snack family forgot, but we had some spare pretzels, so we were able to hold off starvation. The children are full of all kinds of stories, and love to share them. (Note to the Wilcoxes-- we're learning a lot about Adam!) Please see the snack/clean-up schedule below.

We went outside for some good jump-roping-- got the blood moving. Then it was back inside for our next story-- "The Lion and the Hare." We did beeswax modelling, then began our drawing. We'll finish the drawings next week, and write our synopses.

I would like to paint next week. Sue Donahue and Barb Guzik-Hammond are our paint helpers-- let me know which of you would like to help next week.

We'll celebrate Erin's birthday next week. Our birthday celebrations are quite simple-- if the birthday child would like to share a baby picture, we'd love to see it. We light our special birthday candle, we all give birthday wishes, and sing a birthday song.

I really enjoy spending Tuesday afternoon with your children. They are all quite interesting and lively.

weekend 10/2

The girls had a visit with David who came to visit with HIS dad. They went to RMSC and the Hilton Apple Festival. David, tell us what they did!

Science Museum

I was in Rochester on the weekend of 10/3, and the girls and I spent about three hours at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. What an amazing place.

There's an adventure zone on the first floor with interactive exhibits. We used pulley systems to lift each other off the ground, and learned how using more pulleys makes it easier to lift, but makes the amount of rope you have to pull longer. There was a great exhibit about how chroma key works, and the girls got to see themselves superimposed on a weather map. It's harder than you'd think to point to the right place on the map. There's a surreal climbing structure supported by a net of wires that gave Soren the howling fantods because she thought the spaces between the wires were big enough that she could fall through. Emma walked her through a couple of times, though, and she ended up loving it. We learned about how sailboats position their sails to make use of the wind, even when it seems to be coming from the wrong direction.

Upstairs, there's a huge hands-on gallery with exhibits about sound, light, and electricity. Emma was off and running, so I hung out with Soren so we could proceed a little more slowly. Soren was very impressed to learn how speakers work by pushing and pulling the air. We generated electricity with a hand crank and saw how it could be stored in a capacitor. Some of the most interesting exhibits for Soren were the ones that dealt with the sense of sound. One showed how a delay made it hard to communicate, and one let you change the pitch of your voice. Soren found out that there are sounds too high and too low for humans to hear, and got to see how high and low she could hear.

On the third floor there are historical exhibits. One of these dealt with Fredrick Douglas (and slavery in general). The exhibits that hit home for Emma and Soren the most were the ones that showed different aspects of what life was like for a slave. They had real shackles, and a little room that simulated what it was like for the slaves in the tiny spaces they were crammed into on the boats to America. There was an exhibit about life in Rochester in the 1800s with a display of a dentist that made us all thankful for modern technology.

There was a twenty-minute show during the day about bats, a courtroom comedy about a man suing a bat for being nasty and destructive. The bat defended himself well, and in the process set the record straight about a lot of misconceptions concerning bats. Emma loved the show, and asked a question at the end about whether bats carried disease (she was thinking of Kelly having been bitten by a bat as a kid). The scientist explained how unlikely it is for a bat to carry rabies.

It was pretty much a whirlwind tour, but we learned some interesting things, and it gave me an idea of what all was there to be seen. It will be great to go back and spend more time poring over the things they found most intriguing. The $75 membership will definitely be worth it.