Spring fun

Another great idea from Play Based Learning. The children can also make their own garden supports with the plastic pipes and connectors.

paper bag basket

Your children can make this simple paper bag basket for spring. Use plain brown lunch bags. This is a clean Panera bag, hence the design on it.

1. Start by cutting from the top to just above the bottom of the bag at 1/2 inch intervals.
2. Using a dull knife, pull it along the bottom of each strip to curl them. Or the children can roll the strips on a pencil to curl them.
3. Voila! A basket (or nest) ready for filling. Also~ two opposite strips could be left uncurled, then joined at the top for a handle. It probably should be reinforced, though, with a heavier strip glued underneath from the inside of the basket, under the handle to the other side.

Japan

We have present and past Japanese students. Their contribution to the culture of our school is priceless. Our hearts and thoughts go out to them and their families during this dreadful time in Japan.

Happy birthday

Mrs. D., our founder, celebrated her 90th birthday this past weekend. Dozens and dozens of former students and parents of former students converged upon the school to greet her. She was surprised and delighted to be so honored. Over the years she has touched the lives of well over a thousand children and their parents. She still enjoys being in the school to see the children's work and listen to them read.

Happy Earth Day

Finally the weather cooperated and allowed us to begin cultivating the playground garden. We divided the class into two groups; the "dragonflies" and the "caterpillars". The garden isn't big enough for more than 8 children to be digging, raking and planting at the same time. But it's just the right size for the two groups to plant and care for. Today both groups learned how to dig out each weed with its root. And even though they each worked hard, we still have more weeds to pull tomorrow!

more for PoDS auction, Friday, April 17

Here is that box that LC was working on. You can see his finished chipmunk popping out of its hole to EW's chipmunk sniffing a flower. JF painted the grass, RM drew the running chipmunk, LW made the sun, JK the bees, ML the snowflakes, TK the sleeping chipmunks, . . . Like most of our pieces, every child in the class contributed to this box. They're quite a team!

PODS auction pieces

Over the last few weeks the children have been occasionally working on these pieces for the PODS auction. Here is LC drawing a chipmunk emerging from its den to warm spring raindrops falling on the grass. Each side of this box has a scene of the chipmunk during each of the four seasons.

EN is shown drawing a detailed bug on the chair. While some painted the sky and grass and clouds, the rest of the class took a turn at drawing another bug crawling about on it. Examining specimens and poring over bug books since the fall gave the class plenty of ideas for this project.

Just click on any of these pictures to see them larger.

Dear Mr. President,

We've finally reached the present day after introducing each and every president in their order. Well, I did cheat, talking about Lincoln out of order to coincide with his birthday. We found out about the pets, the big events from who could vote through inventions to space travel, who had the neatest handwriting, how fast Jimmy Carter could read and presidents' former jobs. The picture shows part of the rows of presidential portraits covering the wall. As you can see, Grover Cleveland was president both before and after B. Harrison, however we didn't have another picture of G.C. Immediatly, our artists got to work on another G.C. portrait. Then, to cap off all of this information, I wrote out the address of the White House and suggested that each child could write a postcard with a question or a comment for President Obama. Here's what some of the children wrote:

Dear Barack Obama, I like your name. Dear Mr. President, I like that you got to be president. Dear Mr. President, How old are you? I am 5 years old. Do you know that you were against Hillary Clinton?