Spring days

We have been delighted with the weather of this past week.
It's time to include sunscreen and a sun hat in your child's bag for these sunny and warm days!
There are baby kittens here and the timing worked well with our story of Papa Piccolo.
Geography studies have taken us to Venice, Italy, where the story takes place. We have located Italy on a map, colored pictures of cats, gondolas, flags, and canals, and acted out the story with many great "cats".
New words we have learned: bambini, caro mia, (my precious dear), Buon giorno (good morning).
Talking about fatherhood has been fun as we have discussed the many ways that fathers are able to care for little ones. We are also focusing on how we can each take care of our friends and those around us who are smaller.
Occupations on the water we have learned include laundry barges that carry fresh linens to the hotels, garbage barges, police motor boats, and water taxis.
Many new words have been introduced as well such as:
canal, trinket, sardine, ledge, signora, situation, chime, carnival, regatta, skiff, gondola, persistent, forlorn, glum, and gilded.
We have also used language to match descriptions. For example, on p. 8 of Papa Piccolo it says "And then Papa Piccolo sang a little song he remembered from long ago about stardust and moonbeams and goldfish". Papa sang a lullaby. Together we thought of some phrases that would put a dog to sleep like "I'll sing of bones and treats, slippers and silver-lighted dog houses" Then we discussed what we could sing to put a butterfly to sleep, a tree, or an eagle, etc.

There have been many mud cakes, stick, and rock collections forming, and new interest in basketball, soccer, and balls in general.

Our spring circle time is going along nicely and in the next few weeks our focus will be on planting seeds.

We have designed many creative "ball runs" with long cardboard tubes and blocks to direct the paths of little balls, cars, and anything else we can find to roll down the tunnels.

It has been another fun and inspiring week with this lovely group of children and we wish you a happy and peaceful weekend!