Spreading Peace

We began working on four new Peace Sticks today. We are going to share them with the big kids who helped us to think about meanness and the opposite of meanness. They looked quite magical by the time the Turtles were finished!

 We also worked more with clay. Today's challenge was to make it into new shapes like rolls and ball.

In the Block Area, we extended the work with the marbles by adding wooden marble tracks. The Turtles used them in many creative, cooperative ways!

Mimi brought in yummy pretzels for St. Patrick's Day. They were dipped in green chocolate!

We got mail from Ireland today! It came just in time for St. Patrick's Day, and it turns out that it was a Happy St. Patrick's Day card sent by Caimin's grandparents!

Other happenings:

the Clean-Up Train

helping younger friends on the playground

Tommy and the Leprechauns

The Turtles began their morning cozying up in front of a fire roasting marshmallows.  We pitched our tents and even turned on some Indigo Girls for camping music.

While some of us were camping, others were making intricate routes for the marbles to travel through.

Some things we did during Choice Time included reading a few books that Ella brought in to share in the book corner and working with more patterns. We also experimented with more clay, but this time the clay was much harder which made the Turtles have to work harder too!

Then we were off to look for the pot of gold the leprechauns had hidden in Jenny's class.  First, Jenny told us a story about St. Patrick's Day and how a boy named Tommy went searching for the pot of gold that the leprechauns had hidden under a tree.  Every time Tommy found the leprechauns in the clearing making their shoes, they ran away from him before he got the chance to ask them where they had hidden the gold.  After finally catching the leprechauns, the leprechauns told Tommy that the gold was under the tree that had a scarf on it, but when Tommy looked for the tree with the scarf, they realized all the trees had scarves.  Tommy was tricked!  The Turtles listened intently to the story and even got the chance to act out the story!

Tommy 1, Tommy 2

Tree

Catching the leprechaun 

The pot of gold!

Naturally, the Turtles then wanted to dance, so using the scarves we had a dance party!

Then it was back to the playground!

Riding backwards to the moon.

Reading off a recipe to make some food.

Going to the clouds and moon.  Tomorrow's trip will be to outer space!

The Turtles Know How To Party

The weather has been so unbelievable recently that the Turtles came into the room in a good mood! When Fran told them that it was Tamara's birthday and that we got to decorate our own (gluten-free!) cupcakes, the excitement was palpable! There was icing and dancing and singing and hugging.

And the day had just barely begun! Fueled by cupcakes and pretzels, we set off to the Art Walk in the woods at Abington Art Center. There we saw all kinds of signs of spring!

What a perfect day!