The day started off brisk but that didn't stop our friends from wanting to be outside. The first order of business was tag. All of our primary class joined in along with some toddlers like Joey and paisley. The pass week has been amazing outside and today was no exception do we decided to have snack as a school outside. Both the toddlers and primary kids sat on a blanket in the grass and had snack together. It was nice watching our newer primary friends such as Miya interacting with her old class and older primary kids like Leina helping toddlers get seconds of snack. While Lizzie organized posters for our party tomorrow nick was in charge if rearranging kids on the dome when they wanted to be higher or got scared of being too high.
Once we had our fill of outside we entered our classroom to construct Halloween paper chains. It took a bit of instructing but once everyone got the hang of it nobody wanted to stop. After about 15 minutes Paige, Colette, and Miya felt satisfied with their work, however Leina and Zoey took all the time we had to continue making chains for our school. Following our art project we took a trip out to our deck for some dramatic play. Everyone still had a lot of energy to expend so our play was rather fast paced. We went through three different scenarios, one was everyone sitting in two chairs watching different kinds of movies. Another one Zoey acting like a crocodile and having to escape from her. Our time on deck was short but we had a lot of fun acting out different scenarios.
Coming inside meant it was lunch time and then nap.
Waking up from nap was a slow process, but that's ok. Lizzie and Nick took about 5 minutes just hanging out with everyone on the floor until we were ready to eat snack. We had bell peppers, tomatoes and hummus, which come to find out Paige hates tomatoes and bell peppers. To remedy this situation everyone got a rice cake in addition, which seemed to placate the masses.
Once we were done snacking we did some alphabet work, we wernt even going to sing the alphabet song but everyone felt inclined to show off their knowledge and master of the song one by one. After some work we decided to have a dance party right before we headed outside. As usual, the only thing they wanted to hear was "let's get physical", we even brought out our disco balls which everyone got a turn using, and blacked out the windows on the deck. It was Another great day in the primary class and so we went outside for mommy and daddy to pick everyone up.

It started off as a beautiful day today. We got a new delivery of mulch for our backyard so nick put loads in the wheel barrow and our friends helped unload and spread it around. After quite a few trips the kids started grabbing handfuls at a time from the wheelbarrow and scattering it across the playground. This was fine with nick because it gave him a needed break. We decided to have snack outside so we found a blanket and passed out bowls to fill with oranges, bananas and prunes. Our friends did not want to go inside so we broke our normal schedule and stayed out longer and did some work in our garden and around the playground. After a few hula hoop competitions and games of ball we went inside for lunch. Again they did not want to be inside for lunch so we had a picnic on the deck. We talked about a lot of things during our little picnic, such as what stars are made of and how big the universe is. They also wanted to know how things in their lunch got made, for example almond butter, cheese, and goldfish. It was a very fun lunch time, and once everyone was done we played a few games on the deck.
With the end of lunch and the beginning of nap, Paige our nap mat helper, assisted nick with setting up nap mats for our friends. Once all the mats were set Lizzie read a book Miya brought for show and tell. Everyone was very attentive and sat quietly. Once we turned the lights off every head hit their pillow and were out within 10 minutes. Our friends used a lot of energy today and looks like they needed some rest.
Upon waking we had our afternoon snack and talked about what we want to make for tomorrow's cooking project, no one could agree on any one thing so we left the decision for tomorrow morning.
Since everyone wanted to stay outside this morning we missed show and tell, so we made our way to the carpet with our glorious items, ready to tell everyone about it. We let our friends say a little more about their toys than normal because we had only four friends today. Arielle found some cool art and drafting supplies which greensprout used for show and tell, and once we were finished talking about it we moved to the art table to test out this new discovery. The set. Was massive and everyone was so interested in what they could do with it that I one wanted to clean up for Spanish class. However mrs. Leona arrived and we had to hurry to put everything away and sit on the carpet for Spanish. With such few friends, everyone wanted to see each other show and tell so it took a bit of work to get seated again. We sang a new song today which they seemed to like, "three little monkeys jumping on the bed", and they got a kick out of jumping around pretending they where on their beds. We took the rest of the half hour singing our old favorites and it was quickly time to head outside.

The day started off with a little drizzle during our morning outside time, so we didn't know what kind of day to expect. Tuesdays and Thursdays are a smaller class than the rest of the week so we headed inside with our five friends for the day to have some bananas and Cheerios. After snack we had circle time and talked about why water comes out of clouds, and named other types of weather and places you see it around the world. Then we talked about things that remind us of halloween and what we are going to dress up as. With the end of circle time we made our way to the big table an we made beaded bracelets and necklaces. We had an all girl class so this was a big hit with everyone. The only hard part was making all those knots, so Lizzie and nick gave a little assistance to our friends. The skill required to thread the beads took a little time to master but everyone got the hang of it in the end. Once we were done with the beaded jewelry everyone wanted to do some free art, so we headed into the art center and created a few masterpieces. Zoey gave up on art quickly and did a little ballet on the carpet for the class until we were ready to go outside. We got outside late so we made it count. Everyone showed nick their newest moves on the dome climber. We spent all 15 minutes actively climbing around on our new dome.
The end of outside time marked the beginning of lunch so we headed inside to refuel our bodies. After lunch and a good story everyone laid down for a nap. We were amazed with how much everyone slept today. The end of nap is 2:30, then we turn the music off and some lights on which usually wakes our friends up immediately, however everyone slept though the transition and Colette even got up just to say she wanted more sleep and lad back down. By 2:45 everyone was up and in a heavy daze which took some of our snack time to snap out of. By the end of snack everyone was wide awake and ready to get to work. We left the big table and headed into the library with our small group. Leina stood in front of the couch with a piece of chalk and wrote the ABCs on the blackboard. With a few corrections she had the whole alphabet written out. Next it was Colette's turn to write them out and every time she got stuck she pulled a funny voice and asked Leina to help her. Everyone got a turn and all our friends did an amazing job sitting quietly and paying attention to the person at the chalkboard, it was very impressive seeing them help one another learn. After our long library session we broke up into our stations which we usually end our day inside with. We made the most out of the little station time we had then headed outside into the shinning sun with no rain clouds in sight

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Today was all about having fun. We had a good drop off time, everyone was in a good mood. We went inside for a quick snack then a game of Bingo while Nick and Kate went outside to set up an obstacle course. It started with jumping through hula hoops all the way to the playscape, once there you had to feed tennis balls through a long tube and get them to roll into a bucket. The next obstacle was to plant a leaf in a planter then move onto a ball toss. From there you had to get a bucket of water and pour it on our newly sowed plants. The penultimate station was to scoop water from a pitcher of yellow water and a pitcher of blue water into a separate bowl and make green water. This was the most popular station to be at and friends would either skip stations or just stay at this one until their curiosity was satisfied. The very last part of the course was to run through hola hoops fastened to the dome climber and out the other side to complete the obstacle course. It was quite a hit and we got through 2 whole rounds with everyone before interest began to fade.
Once the course had lost its appeal, the children were free to explore parts of the course on their own such as the water changing station or free play if they wanted to.
We used up all of our time outside and the. Headed inside for lunch. With a good lunch in us we laid down for nap so we could have some energy for the afternoon. Once we woke up and finished our snack we went to the deck for a little bit of structured play, we operated a gas station for all the cars our friends were driving and had a mock school class in the mini playscape on the deck, Leina was the teacher of course and Paige, Colette, and nick were her pupils. This outside time also allowed Jackie time to finish up her music set with the toddlers and once she was ready for the primary we headed inside and Jackie gave us a concert with all new material for the next half hour. As a finale, she gave everyone straws and with the help of nick and Jackie cut them into little noise makers for our last song. They took a little time to get the hang of but once our older friends got the hang of them, they taught everyone else how to use them. This concluded our Friday inside and we went outside to show everyone our new instruments.

Thursday was a fun day. We went inside for snack and the show and tell. Miya had a giraffe that walked and talked which was the biggest hit during S&T, some friends just wanted to play with Merly, the giraffes name. The weather was great so we did a lot of guides activities outside after show and tell. We pretended the log outside was a school bus and we were leaving the school and going to the park, and the playscape was a big playground. Then we would come back to the log and head out to another destination. We used most of our early outside time doing things as a class which was a lot of fun for everyone.
With the conclusion of outside time we went in for lunch and nap.
One by one our friends started waking up and had the choice to read or do their notebooks at the big table until all our friends were awake. Once they were up we did an art activity to draw simple shapes like circles, triangles and squares. The point of this exercise was to work on the muscles in the hands and the coordination to draw strait lines. After a few tries the shapes either improved or frustration set in so we moved on to another shape. Thursdays we also have Spanish at 3:30 and so miss Leona came and read two books in Spanish asking what the English equivalent is to certain words. After half an hour of Spanish we went outside for our outdoor exploration.

Instead of an afternoon art project, we kicked off the day with one. All of our friends put on their smocks and for those that didn't have one, we used plastic bags which everyone thought was pretty cool. Everyone received 5 strips of card stock and we painted one side of each strip. Colette made a gold color with yellow, a little brown, and a dark green. Her new found color was a big hit and she taught Leina and Miya how to replicate her discovery. Leina had a very aggressive style of painting which consisted of mashing the paint brush against the paper, creating some lovely circular patterns. Miya and Colette took different approaches than Leina and just painted the entire table which allowed for maximum coverage of the paper strips. We let the strips dry while we cleaned up. Following our art project we did a little math game of counting small plastic eggs and putting them in a carton labeled with different numbers, then a tile counting and color coding game. Leina helped Miya and Paige with the color counting game after she had a few turns at it. Zoey worked almost exclusively on a game that teaches how to tie laces, snap buttons, and zip zippers. She had master all but the lace by the end of work time.
The end of work time marked the beginning of lunch and then our nap time.
Once we woke up, half of our toddler class came into the primary class for a joint dramatic play. It was a very different dynamic than our normal class, most of our primary friends hung out together with occasional contact to tell a toddler they are not doing something correctly. Our entire classroom was used during this time and our friends rediscovered some items that have not seen use for quite a while like some of our science tools, once the toddlers showed interest in something our primary friends immediately wanted to use it. This took up our entire afternoon inside time then we were off for our outside pick up.