Everybody's feeling great :)

Happy Thursday! Today Sophie and Noah arrived first, at the same time. We all headed outside and Sophie started playing with a digger. Noah walked around the playground holding onto his water bottle and sipping it every once in a while.

                Shortly afterwards, Gage arrived and had a great drop off. We’re so glad to see how well he’s adjusting to his new class. He hung out with Arielle for a little bit, then walked over to Noah and Sophie to see what they were up to. Paislie arrived and he caught her eye. She kneeled down to talk to him and rubbed his belly. She is a great older friend for him!

                Clara arrived next and was holding a finger trap which she received as a party favor. She eventually dropped it and we put it away. She walked to the top of the playscape and enthusiastically announced, “hi” to everybody below. Then she cuddled with Lizzie for a while.

                The playscape was a popular destination, as always. Olive went up and down the stairs. Gage growled from the top.

                Noah was interested in some plants Lizzie brought outside from the primary room. Sophie played on top of the sensory table (it was flipped upside down.) Gage came down off the playscape and joined her. At that time Ancel and Wynn arrived, so we decided to go in for snack after a few minutes of letting them play outside. Olive was very excited to go inside to eat.

                Once inside we ate snack and did the calendar and weather. After snack we had circle time on the blue rug and every tot sat down on their own personal carpet square (on their own!) We sang the hello song and then the ABCs. Then we talked about pigs, made pig sounds, looked at books with pictures of pigs, looked at a flash card of a pig and two photos of pigs, and played with the pig toys. Then our puppet gave everybody kisses and sang Old McDonald (had a pig.) Then the puppet asked them to clean up the books they had gotten out before circle time, before going outside. Arielle helped the tots pick them up and put them on the shelf (held their hands and guided them through the process of doing the routine by themselves.) Sophie did a fantastic job of cleaning up all by herself.

                We went to the playground this morning instead of the deck, in order to change up the routine a little bit. Out on the playground Cherokee read two books in Spanish and English to them. One was titled Quiero un Beso (I want a kiss) and the other was Baby Palabras (words).

                Sophie played with empty bubble containers she found on the ground, Clara drew with chalk, Olive looked at books with Cherokee, and Wynn, Ancel, and Noah took turns going down the small slide into the sand box. Gage explored the sandbox.

                We went inside after a while for lunch. This week we’re letting the sprouts practice eating their yogurt and apple sauce by themselves with a spoon. We had been spoon-feeding these types of messy, runny foods to them, but they did a great job at using the spoon!

                Everybody crashed out quickly at naptime. They all remained laying down on their own, which was a sign of awesome progress! Wynn especially impressed us, as he likes to spend that time trying to get up and play (who can blame him?)

                After nap we plan to do some play-doh and draw with chalk. Our good friend Leona is coming to sing some fun Spanish songs with us. We always love when she’s here. It’s been a great day so far!