so many artists

Simply looking carefully and talking about what is seen opens many eyes to more details than I imagined. We started with a beautiful multi-colored tulip. Each child bravely touched their brush full of paint to the paper. And each one created a striking still life on the black water color paper. Now the peonies are blooming, and "peony gardens" are appearing on the easel.

whale & fish puppets

Whales, sting rays and scaley fish that bite!

Still Working

The school year is coming to a close but the class is still a group of eager learners. Today, one of our little students wore this Hindi quote on her shirt: The deeper you dig in the sand the more water will flow. The deeper you learn the more your knowledge will grow.

Fair Day & Mother's Day

Along with busily preparing for the annual Spring Show, we got interested in whales, which led to fish, then whale puppets, then a sting ray puppet which I found on the net and other various fish puppets with pictures to follow.

For Mother's Day, with encouragement to look carefully at their mother's features, the children made thoughtful and adorable, if not always accurate, portraits of their dear moms. We especially enjoyed passing on the why I love my mom comments. I like my mommy because "she plays that swing ball game with me"; "she makes nice pancakes"; "she loves me a lot"; "I do".

PODS gave the children a Fair Day last week. They loved it. Moms doled out freshly made popcorn (a big hit), pizza and snow cones (another sought after treat). On their own, children obediently stood in lines for face painting and balloon animals, flowers and swords.

Playground sights

When talking about India I showed the children a little book that names the parts of venomous snakes, namely, the cobra. Mrs. T brought a selection of books on snakes from the library. Closeup pictures of hissing snakes made one child question whether the photographer was still living. After all, being that close to the pictured rattlesnake surely must have resulted in a fatal bite.

She also arranged for another teacher to show the class her two pet snakes as she fed them each a frozen mouse. Some wrote pages about the snakes, painted pictures of them and made origami cobras. Everyone made a painted, cardboard tube wiggly snake.

Then, last Thursday on the playground, a child sited two water snakes lying on plant debris that had fallen into the creek! I love our playground. It has space to run plus a wonderful mix of equipment and nature to play on and around. There's a big old silver maple tree that rains its helicopter seeds upon us. There are small cedar trees and a small Japanese maple to run around. There are piles of mulch, bars, a plastic rock wall, stairs and tree trunks to climb. The creek with its resident fish and ducks flows just outside the fence. One brave duck sits on her nest of eggs in a corner of the playground. There is a deck overlooking the creek, two slides, a sandbox and a train for fanciful adventures. No wonder every child's face is grinning as they run through the gate for recess. Kudos to J.D. for its design and maintenance.

Talking about China and India led the class to the Himalaya Mountains which stand between the two countries. We used my little Mountains book to learn the names for the many parts of mountains. Everyone made their own mountain range with paper mache over paper cones. They were painted with snowy tops and rivers flowing through the valleys.
The enthusiasm didn't stay in the classroom. On the playground the sandbox became a long mountain range. It's so nice when the children come together as a team. And so good to see their smiles of accomplishment.
See a full screen image of any picture by clicking on it.

Sold!

Last night I went to the auction hosted by PODS. What fun it was! We are grateful to Michele Wahlmark and Paula Hannam for all the work and time they dedicated to this event. As the auctioneer, Paula set the tone for a lively and jovial evening. She pounded the gavel

for numerous benches, chairs, frames, boxes, piggy banks, stepping stones, tea sets, seventeen quilts and a bird house. Michele had the children's work displayed around the room. It brought many oohs and ahhs. In addition, there was a silent auction for gift cards to golf, enjoy a mini facial and have dinner in any of several fine restaurants. We feasted on small sandwiches, shrimp, cheese and pastries. The proceeds will be used to treat the children to a special activity filled day before the end of the school year.

To all who attended, to Michele for the superb job in organizing this, to Paula for auctioneering and for beautifully sewing together all of the children's quilt squares and to all of the children and the teachers who worked together to create all of the objects -

Thank You !