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.