4 Teams

Well, I thought about it some more last night but was just too lazy to get to the computer. I decided on the children working in four groups -- since one painting showing everything seemed like too much detail & too much form.

Evaporation: these paintings showed a body of water, the heat source (the sun) and the steam rising into the air

Condensation: these paintings showed clouds in the sky

Precipitation: these paintings showed rain falling and some of the children chose to add rainbows

Saturation: these paintings showed large bodies of water on the ground (oceans, lakes, rivers, etc)


Today -- I am proud to say -- I got asked to stay on for the remainder of the year as the Lower Elementary teacher! This means there will be less notes about Toddler and more about reading, math, science, and social studies. Today is also my one year anniversary of leaving my marriage with an abusive partner and moving out on my own. So congratulations to me!!!

Tomorrow we are going to spend more time in Colonial Maryland with a fun script the nice people at St. Mary's City gave us as part of the follow-up activities: a "Pig Trial." In the mini play, one colonist is accusing another colonist of stealing their pig and the legal system gets involved. It will be a lot of fun to put on. Monday we are going to bake the sweet goods for Tuesday's Thanksgiving Feast (a pumpkin bread with dried fruit in it, lemon muffins with a crumble topping, and raisin bread). The raisin bread is a yeast bread so I think it will be good for the children to compare how much longer it takes than the quick breads. I carefully picked recipes that have 14 ingredients so each child can put in one. With the exception of the yeast bread which we all will help with and knead. Then I get the Thanksgiving Break to prepare my curriculum for the year! A read-aloud list, what will we do for Art History, all that good stuff.

I discovered today that we have TWO toads in our terrarium. I was so surprised last week to find one leaping frantically and hungrily against the glass. I had thought it empty! We have fish as well and I bought them some fish food a few days ago plus a really neat scrubby aquarium cleaner thing with two magnets. One magnet stays outside the tank and you pull the inside magnet along the glass as you move it. The inside magnet is covered in scrubbers so as you dance it along the aquarium walls it cleans off the algae. It is super fun and the children love it.