Happy Valentine's Day

Ryan's preschool class exchanged Valentine's Day cards on Monday. I had not gotten around to thinking about it until Sunday evening. Thank you, Family Fun! I checked out their web site and found this easy and very cute heart-fish valentine. If I had been more on-the-ball, I could have cut the hearts and had Ryan help me assemble them. Instead, I put them all together, wrote the messages, and had Ryan address and sign them the next morning. Todd and Ryan both really liked them, especially when I explained the significance of the message. Fish swim in schools, and children go to schools--get it? Ha ha ha! So, Ryan's classmates are little fishies! Ha ha ha. These were definitely the most colorful (and in my opinion, the cutest) valentine from Ryan's class.

While I was on Family Fun looking for Ryan's card, I found an idea I thought Todd would like to do for his class: a candy airplane. Since I was feeling so proud of myself for how Ryan's cards turned out, I wanted to get started right away on Todd's. Todd loved the idea so I purchased the necessary candy while the boys were at school. I printed gum wrappers that said "Happy Valentine's Day", and printed little banners that said, "To ____ From (Todd). Hope this day is miles above the rest!" When Todd came home from school we started putting them all together. I had done one example before Todd came home, and it was much easier having Todd's help. I threaded the rubber band through the Life Savers; Todd placed the Smarties between them; then (this was the biggest help) he helped stick the gum through one side of the rubber band; and I wrapped the rubber band around the other side. We finished it off by tying the (addressed and signed) banner to the back of the airplane. I sent them to school with Todd on Tuesday for him to distribute. (Todd's class is collecting the valentine's all week and opening them on Friday at his class party.) I was so proud of myself for being ahead of the ball game. That doesn't happen very often.

I didn't realize how popular this candy airplane idea was. When I was buying the candy, the cashier asked if I was making airplanes. She said there was another lady in the store that morning who was doing the same thing and had told the cashier about how she was making them. When Todd came home from the bus on Tuesday, he said that a boy on the bus had an airplane that he had made in his class. So, the idea isn't that original here, but I think the kindergartners will all love them anyway. (Let's just hope no one else in Todd's class is making them.)

The boys have seen Valentine's Day decorations around, and of course, Ryan has been interested in the funny man shooting arrows. A few days ago Ryan asked me about it, and I explained that Cupid was shooting "love arrows". These love arrows don't really hurt ("love hurts" is not a phrase I am ready to explain). They just make you love people. We (Todd, Ryan, and I) played a fun game where we pretended to shoot love arrows with our fingers. The person who was shot had to name someone that they loved.

Just a few minutes ago, Ryan and I had this conversation.
Ryan: Mom, why don't you wish that love arrows were real?
Mom: I don't know. Do you wish they were?
Ryan: Yeah. 'Cause I want to buy them.
Mom: Why? So that you can make people love you.
Ryan: Yeah.

I love you, Ryan! (And I think you just want love arrows because you like to shoot things--anything.)

N is for Nest

[As mentioned below, I wish I had photos to share...but I don't.]
Last month I taught preschool on colors (sorting, patterns) and the letter N.

Circle Time: Welcome, Pledge, Weather Chart, Calendar
I made a new calendar since our original was worn and bent. I was pleased with how the new one turned out.
Brett got an American flag for Christmas which we put up on our front porch. Our little preschool flag went missing, so I took the kids outside. They looked so cute standing under the flag and saying the pledge. Even if our little preschool flag shows up, I think I'll continue to take the kids outside in front of the big flag.
We have little carpet squares for the kids to sit on during circle time. I think that I have decided to forgo the carpet squares in the future. My own child seems to be the most distracted by them. Since he likes to grab the corners of his square and roll back and forth, he usually ends up getting it taken away. Some of the kids argue a little over colors. Since I have a sectional couch, there is plenty of space. I think it will be less distracting for them all.

Intro to Lesson (Letter and Word of the Day)
I introduced our letter of the day with our alphabet train puzzle again. The kids really seem to like that. I made it a little easier on myself this time and had the pieces set up in order in the box. I handed them out to the kids one at a time and let them add their letter to the train.
I also collected items from around the house that started with the letter "n" and put them in a basket. I let the kids take turns picking something out of the basket and saying what it was. I will definitely do this again. Our basket was filled with the following: a toy net, a big nail, a box of noodles, a number nine magnet, a letter "n" magnet, a necktie, a clown nose, a napkin, a bottle of nail polish, a necklace, a notebook, a newspaper, a crochet needle, and a nutcracker. I will definitely do our letter basket again.
Then, we read My "n" book.
I first started talking about colors with the following poem/activity:
"Color Poem"
If you're wearing red, pat your head.
If you're wearing blue, count to two.
If you're wearing green, let your smile be seen.
If you're wearing brown, hop up and down.
If you're wearing yellow, jump like a funny fellow.
If you're wearing black, pat your back.
Then, we were ready for the fun. I borrowed a big bag full of colored balls from Anne's baby ball pit. I took one ball out of the bag at a time and had the kids identify what color it was. I sang "Do you know what color this is?" with each ball. After the kids had identified all the colors, I had them sit on the couch while I set up six Rubbermaid buckets against the wall. I dumped the bag of balls out in front of the them, said "Go!" and had them sort the balls by color. I had practiced this a few times with Todd and Ryan a few days before, and they had a great time. Todd and Ryan played the ball game a few times, trying to see how quickly they could sort them all. I thought it might be more crazy with twice as many kids, but because they were younger, the preschool kids were not as competitive and weren't racing around trying to get all the balls. They were sorting and having a good time, but they weren't running around knocking each other down. That's a good thing. [Wish I had photos of this!]

Art Project
We made pasta necklaces for our craft. I was glad that I had tried this out beforehand and had found a few tricks. I got out a paper plate for each child and wrote their name on it. (That way I could keep track of whose necklace was whose after they finished the craft.) I scrounged up 6 big, blunt needles for them to use. (Don't worry, they were also highly supervised during this activity). I cut a length of green yarn, threaded the needle, poked the needle through the paper plate, taped the yarn to the back of the plate and kept the needled threaded for the kids. I had purchased a mixed bag of colored noodles. I separated out the green penne, purple wagon wheels, and plain little wagon wheels. When we were ready, I let the kids pick out some noodles and put them on the their plate. They needle really helped them thread more easily, and I didn't have to worry about the noodle falling off the yarn. When they decided they were finished with their necklace, or when it became too full for more, I tied the knot. Presto! Ryan was quite proud of his creation, and I was pleased that it was not too complicated for the kids.

Snack
I made individual Jell-o molds for the kids. I used three different flavors of Jell-O (raspberry, lemon and grape?) and made them in layers (chilling the first layer and letting it set before making and adding the second and third layers). We also made little "nests" with Tostitos Scoops filled with dried fruit "eggs". I cut N-shaped toast topped with Nutella. I served milk to drink and let the kids pick a color of food coloring to put in their milk and stir.
(Perhaps I put a little too much thought into the snack? Oh well, that's all part of the fun.)

Writing
In addition to printing off a letter worksheet for each child, I also printed off some color worksheets.

Story time
Our city library was so helpful when I asked for some book suggestions for preschool. Here are some of the books we looked at:
Kid Tea, by Elizabeth Ficocelli - this was a hit.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle
Lunch, by Denise Fleming
Cat's Colors, by Jane Cabrera - this quick read was also a hit
Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stoll Walsh - Our generous youth services librarians let me borrow their lap-sized book because the regular size was checked out. I felt so honored that they trusted me with it. The kids thought it was great having story time with a great big book. They did point out that if the white mice wanted to hide on the white paper from the cat that they would have to do something about their flesh-colored feet and tail.
I learned my lesson from circle time and had all the kids sit on the couch for story time instead of their carpet squares. I sat on a chair in front of them so they could all see the pictures. That seemed to work out really well.

Music
We played the "6 Little Jelly Beans" game again. The kids like "eating" the jelly beans as I say this little poem.

Free Play

I felt pretty good about my planned activities, and I was very happy that I was prepared for the most part. However, I was surprised that things didn't go as smoothly and perfectly as I had expected. Then, one of the moms reminded me that the kids had been on Christmas vacation for a few weeks and I was just "lucky" enough to have them for their first real day back. No wonder things were a little more off than usual. I have started to look ahead to my next lesson ("S is for Science") and am grateful that the kids will be back in their routine by then. So many cute ideas, so little time.

In Case You Were Wondering Where I've Been

I don't know about you, but I have had a hard time keeping up with all of my December activities. I had high hopes for doing special Christmas readings and activities with my kids each night. Unfortunately, I feel like I have been gone every other evening this month and have not been able to do half of the things with the boys that I wanted. On the flip side, as Brett reminded me, everything I have been doing has been fun. But while I have had fun and have enjoyed visiting with friends, I have felt over-scheduled this month and look forward to staying home more this coming week.

Here are some of the fun photographed events I have participated in.
Five choral performances this Christmas season--that's quite a few for our small group!


Playgroup graham cracker tree-train-house-or-whatever-you-like decorating activity. Ryan decided to go for the less-complicated graham cracker tree. I couldn't tell you how much candy he ate that morning, but it was at least as much as he put on the tree.

After finishing his tree, Ryan got to do what he was most looking forward to: dressing up like Darth Vader.

Anne and I hosted our annual cookie exchange, and had a huge group! I think everyone who attended had a pretty good time.

Yes, there are at least 1,368 cookies on those two tables. I realize that 6 dozen cookies is a lot to take home. But, if you were making Christmas cookies for you family, you would probably end up making two batches of cookies--that's about 6 dozen cookies. Also, with more than 19 types of cookies you may only end up with 2 to 4 cookies of each type. What a disappointment if you only ended up with ONE of the very best cookies you had ever tried. It's bad enough that I only ended up with about four of the Dipped Cherry Cookies (and, no, I didn't share).

Caroling at the Pavilion with Ryan's preschool class.

Isn't this about the cutest thing you have seen? Nobody told me that the "uniform" included jeans and long-sleeves.... As always, I let Ryan pick out his own outfit. I was just grateful that Ryan was willing to wear the Rudolph shirt that he made with his class that morning instead of his beloved Speed Racer shirt.

Ryan, smiling with his best preschool friend, Claire.

Ryan had to stop by the "Popcorn Tree" in the cafeteria. Ryan informed me that last year he ate some of the popcorn off the tree last year when we sang with our playgroup. If I can get my act together, I may try to string popcorn chains for our tree at home. I still have three days, right?

I couldn't believe that Ryan actually gave a hug to some of the residents we sang to. Little Amber was the best example of unconditional love, happily giving hugs and saying Merry Christmas to everyone. It was nice to see a little of it rub off on Ryan that morning.

Todd's teacher graciously allowed Ryan to participate in their gingerbread house decorating. Again, I couldn't tell you how much candy those boys ate compared with how much ended up on their trees. (Okay, I popped some candy in my mouth too while I watched them decorate.)

Caught you, Todd! You're not supposed to lick the knife. Fortunately, each child had his own container of frosting.

Beautiful temptations.

We went back to Todd's kindergarten class for their Christmas party. Again, Ryan was allowed to participate in the activities. The teacher split the kids by gender and had them pass around a multi-layer-wrapped gift while she played some music. When the music stopped, the child with the gift opened a layer of paper which revealed a small surprise (candy, for the boys). That child left the circle with his surprise and the music started again. Todd and Ryan were the last two boys left. I was worried that Ryan might be the last one standing. I didn't want that happen, since he's not even a part of the class. Fortunately, Todd was the winner instead. He peeled off the last layer of paper to reveal a package of two Transformers Robot Heroes. What fun!

As if I had not seen enough cookies this month, I made some Pecan Puffets to include in a little Christmas present for Todd's teacher. I was making those cookies close to midnight on the night before the last day of school. But, I got it finished, and I thought the final result was quite darling. It included some packages of gourmet hot chocolate, some apple cinnamon herbal tea, and a sweet Christmas ornament that Todd picked out from our local Hallmark bookstore and signed on the back.

Back at school again for the Kindergarten Christmas program on the last day of school. This time Oma and "Missy" Hall, a long-time neighbor/family friend, joined me. They gave the parents a chance to take photos at the end of the program before the kids left the risers. I managed to snap a photo of the craziness with Todd actually looking at me. (He's wearing the red and white striped polo shirt.) I was happy to see that Todd sang the songs even though he was kind of shy about it.

My favorite part about the Christmas program is probably the practicing that Todd did in preparation for it. They learned "Silent Night" in sign language. Todd sang it quite a few times at home and taught me how to do the signs with him. I loved singing and signing "Silent Night" with him or just watching him sign the song in our quiet house just before bed. It warms my heart.

Just this weekend I attended a birthday party for my friend, Anne. Happy 30th, Anne. You're still a Spring chicken as far as I'm concerned.

In addition to the above photographed events, I also participated in various Relief Society activities, weekly piano lessons, Brett's work Christmas party (unfortunately, without Brett, as he was stuck in Pensacola working until late and had to miss the boat for our dinner cruise), a neighbor's Christmas party, church choir rehearsals and performances (this week and last week), and a little bit of Christmas shopping thrown in just for fun.

On top of all these activities, after an emotional night last night, I was in need of some good down-time. I found it in the way of hanging out with Mark and Donna. Brett suggested that we go over there earlier in the afternoon. We all sat around in the living room watching Kellie and Todd play Mario Kart on the Wii, followed by a little Mythbusters. Brett went home to try to get some more rest, but the boys and I stayed, ate dinner, and watched The Incredibles with the rest of the family. It was so nice snuggling on the couch with everyone. Mark was on the recliner with 12-year-old Kellie asleep in his lap; Donna was on one side of the sectional couch; and Todd, Casie, Ryan, and I were snuggled on the other side. Ryan and I took turns being a pillow for the other, and it was just what I needed.

I hope to fit in a few more evenings like that this week.

J is for Jellybean

This week was my second chance to teach preschool. As I mentioned earlier, I am part of a preschool co-op with five other moms from church. Our kids range in age from a little over two-and-a-half years to four years old (Ryan is the oldest and the only four-year-old). Each Monday we take turns teaching the six children from 8:45am to 11:00am. Which means that for five weeks in a row I have two hours to myself, which I have to chosen to spend volunteering in the library at Todd's elementary school. [Today one child was sick, leaving me with only five to teach.]

This week went more smoothly than my first week. I just knew what to expect a little more. I also planned on things for them to do during the transition times. My first time around I moved the kids as a group from activity to activity. That was a little troublesome because some of them finished more quickly than others. It was also difficult when I needed to help out in the bathroom washing hands, etc. By having activities for them to work on between activities, they were more productive and were not running around getting a little crazy.

I understand the need for flexibility, especially if the kids are having a hard time focusing on an activity and you need to deviate from your schedule to keep everyone happy. However, I was able to follow the outline pretty well without it feeling too forced. The schedule helps me to budget my time and I was able to accomplish most everything I wanted.


[Click on the photo for a larger version if you have trouble reading the text.]


The activities in the parentheses are the suggest activities for each time slot.
8:45-9:00am Circle Time (Free Talk, Game, and the Pledge)
I welcomed everyone and had the kids sit on their carpet squares in a semi-circle. We did the Pledge.
We looked at our calendar and the kids took turns adding numbered leaves to the calendar since the last preschool day (good practice counting). We briefly reviewed what month this was and the days of the week.
We looked at our circle weather chart. The kids were a little bothered and had a hard time agreeing where the pointers should be. In the end, we agreed that there should be three points rather than two. The weather was sunny, windy, and cold.

9:00-9:15am Intro to Lesson (Letter and Word of the Day)
I spent a little more time on the this section. We started by putting together part of a floor puzzle. The puzzle was an Alphabet Train. I put down the engine piece then gave the kids the letter puzzle pieces to build our train until we reached today's letter, "J". Then we said the names of the letter all together, after which we sang the entire alphabet song.

I read a Sesame Street poem called, "The Jolly Juggler", then gave each child a scarf for them to "juggle" with. None of us was very good (I demonstrated juggling with two scarves-not that impressive to anyone older than three or four), but we all had fun trying.

To continue with the J-theme, I said another little poem as seen on the No Time For Flashcards blog. I changed the colors around, based on what I had available (i.e. no purple), and added a verse so that each child could take home a jellybean.

6 little jelly beans,

that I want to try, [or "that we want to try"]

I'll eat the yellow one,

now there are five!

I did the poem once, and the kids loved it when I gobbled the jellybeans. They asked for an encore. The second time around I substituted their name as I handed them the jellybean and they pretended to gobble it up. Very cute.
Now that we had introduced the letter of the day, it was time to introduce our lesson: shapes and sizes. I focused mostly on shapes. We quickly reviewed our simple shapes. I handed each child a shaped block which they identified and put into a simple shape sorter.

Our next activity was to build a house with shapes (inspiration from here and here). I had cut shapes of different colors which I had taped to the back of my dry-erase board. On the front of the board I had drawn a house, tree, and sun, tracing the shapes I had already cut. I did not let the kids see the front of the board until we were ready to match the colored paper shapes to the picture on the board. First, I picked a paper shape and started singing a song (also seen on No Time for Flashcards). I never got past the second line of the song before the kids had enthusiastically called out the name of the shape. Then I handed the shape to a child. After we had identified all the shapes and each child was holding a paper shape, I turned the board over and they took turns matching their shape to the picture. [I was so bummed that I forgot to sing the Herman the Worm song. I thought it was really cute.]

9:15-9:40am Art (Project or coloring sheets)

Because I spent more time on the lesson portion, I probably only spent 15 minutes on art. We made shape pizzas. I had prepared all the pieces for the kids and just let them identify the shapes and glue them on themselves with Q-tips and glue in a cup. This is what we used to assemble our pizzas.

pizza dough - cream circle

pizza sauce - wavy red circle

pepperoni - jaggedy brown circle

ham - pink squares

green peppers - green rectangles

onions - white squares

pineapple - yellow triangles

cheese - orange rectangles [I messed up with this one. I was thinking: a) We already have a yellow topping; besides, I like cheddar on my pizza. b) covering the pizza with tiny pieces of cheese is going to be a pain; why don't I just make long, thin rectangles? The result was that my cheese ended up looking like carrot sticks! I should have done some smaller yellow rectangles or just let them color their own cheese on before gluing on the toppings. Live and learn.]

I was so impressed that that two of the younger students (in the left photo) were able to do their pizzas completely independently. Even my two older students, my son included (in the right photo), needed a little assistance with the gluing. I was very pleased with the end result of this activity, and the kids seemed to enjoy making pizzas. [Ryan even asked me today when he'd be able to eat his pizza. Ha, ha, ha.]

As the kids took turns washing their gluey-sticky hands, those who were finished played with the alphabet magnets (thank goodness for transition activities in the circle time area!).

9:40-10:00am Story Time
Before beginning story time I took out my Oreo Matchin' Middles game. I let the kids take turns pulling out a cookie, opening it, and naming the shape.

Some books I read for story time included The Biggest Snowball of All, My "j" Book, I'm the Biggest in the Ocean (a big hit), Big and Bird's Big and Little Book (I kept this book from my childhood--it is one that I loved and the kids loved it, too). We also looked at a couple of poems and shapes pictures from some of my Wild Animal Baby magazines.

10:00-10:15am Snack
After story time I started to tell the kids that we were going back into the kitchen for writing. They wasted no time in correcting me. They are evidently familiar enough with our preschool schedule, though it varies a little from teacher to teacher, to know that snack time comes after story time and before writing!

In addition to drinking juice (which starts with the letter "J"), these are the shapes we ate:

circle - peanut butter sandwiches cut out with a small biscuit cutter

circle - pepperoni

rectangle - Club cracker

oval - raisins

triangle - cheddar cheese (I sliced and cut)

square - Alpha Bits cookies (bonus - reinforce letter recognition!)

10:15am-10:30am Writing (Letter of the Day and Name)
I had printed out some worksheets for the kids to practice tracing the letter "J" or they could just work on coloring the picture. I had used a fluorescent market to write their name on the top--"ghost writing"--for them to trace. I found writing time an activity where some kids (the younger ones) were definitely done before others.

Below you see Charity saying hello to Copper under the baby gate before she made her way to the circle time for some transition activities. I love this intense look on Mason's face as he colors.

Don't let her baby face fool you. Amber was a pro at identifying her shapes. Charity found a heart.

Ryan and Claire are still hard at work on their coloring/writing pages.

10:30-10:45 Music and Games

Our preschool group is planning on singing at a nursing home in December, so we spent most of our time reviewing some Christmas songs that we will be singing to the residents, especially "Away in a Manger", "Jingle Bells", "Christmas Bells Are Ringing". The kids will also be reviewing a few more at home with their families.

10:45-11:00am Free Play

The moment they have been waiting for. Charity saw these animals last time, and couldn't wait to spend more time playing with them this week.

Whew! I didn't mean for this post to go on forever. I'm excited about being able to put together ideas for these preschool lesson plans. I was intimidated at first, but I am really looking forward to teaching again in January. (Read: you don't have to hear about my minute-by-minute account again until then).

D is For Dinosaur

Since Ryan was not old enough to attend Florida's Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK) and I did not want to pay to enroll him in private preschool, I was happy to join with five other moms from church in what you could call a preschool co-op. The six of us take turns teaching preschool for a little over two hours every Monday.

My friend Angie (the same Angie who has done a fantastic job organizing our weekly playgroups) got our preschool organized. She set up a schedule for us to follow in terms of what the main subject would be each week and what letter we would be teaching. She also gave us an outline to follow for the day's activities. Yesterday was my turn to teach. I have been gathering ideas since our first meeting and was looking forward to introducing the Letter of the Day, "D", and the Word of the Day, "Dinosaurs".

The day moved along very quickly. We only spend about 15-20 minutes on each activity. I was glad that I was fairly organized before my teaching day, but I still wished that I had been more organized in some areas. Fortunately, I have another six weeks to prepare my next lesson.

I let the kids have some free play while everyone was showing up (and while I was gathering the last of my things together). When everyone was there, we started with circle time.

Circle time started out with the pledge of allegiance. This photo was taken after the pledge was over. Ryan was trying to straighten the flag out a little. I did make sure that all of the kids had their right hand over their heart, but it looks Charity switched hands when I wasn't looking.

We also reviewed our calendar. We talked about what month it was and counted, adding leaves for the last week, until we reached 29. [Mason looks on while Claire does some counting for us.]

To help introduce our word of the day, "dinosaurs", the kids searched for some little dinosaur skeleton pieces that Ryan had "hidden" for me. Then I had them split into two groups and try to fit the pieces together. The individuals in both groups examined their pieces, then asked me to finish putting them together correctly. [Ryan tries to offer advice to Charity and Amber who are examining their skeleton pieces.]

After circle time, we had a little craft activity. I had precut the letter "D" out of construction paper, as well as some triangles and a funny looking set of teeth for each kid. They glued on the triangular "scales" and the teeth to make their own dinosaur D. I thought that was a fairly successful activity. [Claire, Amber, and Makayla are hard at work creating their dinosaurs.]

We left the D's on the tables to dry and went back inside for some storytime. We specifically read some books about dinosaurs to prepare us for our next activity: digging for fossils. I had caulked the shapes of a dinosaur and a bone on pieces of wood. I put the fossil-covered wood in a little tray and covered it with sand. (Green was the best color I could find at Walmart on Saturday night. They were out of white.) I gave each of the kids a sand toy and a brush for the them to uncover their dinosaur fossil. The kids seems to enjoy it and I was pleasantly surprised that it was not too messy (considering that these are preschoolers). I was happy that it was outside, and that we could just leave it as is when we were done and didn't have to worry about cleaning it all up right away.

We went inside and I individually washed everyone's hands. (I knew we would be having snack soon and wanted to be sure that there wasn't any sand left anywhere.) We sat down again for a little more storytime, this time with some stories about the letter of the day. We had a successful storytime activity (no photos) with the book "Little d". I had scanned pictures in the book, had printed them on card stock, and cut them out. I passed out 2-3 pictures of items that started with the letter "d" around to each child. As I read the story they were supposed to identify their picture and tape it to a dry-erase board I was holding. After the story, we reviewed all of things we found that started with the letter "d".

After another story we were ready for snack. I served deviled "dinosaur" eggs, dinosaur-shaped peanut butter sandwiches (thanks to a nifty sandwich cutter I bought at the grocery store for $1.99--totally worth it; my boys love it.), and some chocolate graham crackers. (I ran out of time and wasn't able to make my dinosaur- and bone-shaped sugar cookies.)

We cleaned up snack and stayed at the tables for some writing practice. I had printed out some good worksheets online for the kids to trace the letter "d" and practice writing. Unfortunately, between cleaning up the food and tables, bringing out the crayons and pencils, and passing out the worksheets, I found it difficult to go around and show them one-by-one how to write the letters. So it ended up being more of a free-for-all coloring time. I'll try better next time.

The last 15 minutes were a little crazy. We had gone back inside, and I played some music that I had picked out for the day--some fun songs, and some "learning" ones. We listened and danced to the Sesame Street "D" song performed by Ernie. (This is a lesser-known song, but surely you have heard the "C is for Cookie" song performed by Cookie Monster.) I also played a LeapFrog song called "All the Colors of the Rainbow." I gave each of the kids a different colored Lego for them to hold up when their color was called. Basically, almost all of them just held their Lego and looked at me like I was crazy. I got interrupted from my music time by a bathroom break and from that point on, most of our structure was gone. Fortunately, it was only about 5 minutes before the moms were going to be showing up, so I just let the kids listen to our "Dino Train" book on CD (a favorite of Todd's and Ryan's), or look through some of the books I had out for them on the floor.

Despite the fact that it felt a little crazy, I still think it was a successful day. I am already started to think of ideas for my next lesson: the letter "J".