Closing a Chapter

Friday was our last day of school here at Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten.  This blog post is a thank you to all the families that have been a part of my school and my life, and most especially to those who helped to make Friday an incredibly special day for me.

 It started out with roses - you really cannot go wrong with starting someone's day with roses!

  In the afternoon I gave each child a small bag of toys, a field trip t-shirt, and a bag of books.  I want them to have something to remind them of their time here - something beyond all the other memories and photos.  When you are 4, "memories" don't mean as much as they do later.  Tangibles, like books and toys, were necessary.

The most rewarding and amazing part of the day was the gathering of daycare families old and new that took place over dinner.  I had no idea what to expect, and these families blew me away!  Here are "my" children that came back!

 I started Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten in 1999, when my second child was born.  C.T. started with me in 2000, the longest ago student to make it to our party!

 Here she is, long long ago!

So many old friends showed up - there were 64 people there!  I have to admit I spent a great deal of the evening crying and smiling and laughing, all at once.  I felt so loved, and so honored... words truly cannot express how much the evening meant to me.

One of the mommies - one who's child only got to be here for 2 months, put together this beautiful  good bye videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhae9uohBWE  We all watched it together on Friday night, and I am not the only one who cried!


Parents, thank you again for trusting me with your precious children, and honoring me on my "retirement."  I hope to hear from you for many more years.  I haven't yet had a graduation announcement or wedding invitation from any of my kiddos, but when the time comes, please remember me!

Much love always,
Paula

A Few Of My Favorite Things

I LOVE children's books.  I have to admit, I may have a small obsession with them, and it might take a twelve step program to stop my collection from growing.  I've been very very good, and have weeded out hundreds of them in preparation for our move, but there are still so very many that I consider to be my good friends.

Today, with only 2 1/2 days left with the kiddos, I realized that I need to make a point of revisiting some of our favorites, and soon.  You'll notice I didn't say "all my favorites," because really, the children are only here 10 hours a day, and we'd need a lot longer than that to get to ALL of them.  I had each child choose 5 of their favorites from those out on our bookshelves (I rotate what's out and available, thousands of others are alphabetized by author on my bookshelves, waiting for their turn to come down), and then Julie and I also picked some.  Here are a few of my favorites:

           

We will be reading all these, and more, over the next couple of days.  If you haven't met these books or authors, I hope you'll stop by your library or book store, and that they will become your good friends too!

A simply wonderful Halloween!

Halloween is such a fun holiday!  I love the stories and crafts, the costumes and pretend, and the orange, purple, black and green colors.  I LOVE everything pumpkin, not just the delicious foods made with it, but the decorations and the opportunity to study cool non-fiction subjects along with the holiday. I'm not so sure about knocking on doors and taking candy from strangers, but overall, Halloween is pretty cool!

It would be easy to go overboard on this holiday... well... on almost any holiday.  To do too much, to plan too much, to buy too much, to expect too much... and I'm sure that sometimes I do exactly that.  With only a week to go until I close my school, and an interstate move to plan, organize, etc., this year I had to go simple, and I think it was just right.

Ms. Julie and I helped all the children put on their costumes after nap, and served this yummy snack.  Donuts, fake teeth and two chocolate chips - and a glass of milk.  The kiddos loved it, and it was quick and simple. 

 It didn't take long for the teeth to come out, and we had some lovely snarling princesses!

My only other plan for the rest of our party was to take group pictures, and then to make our first leaf pile of the season.  The photos went well, and I handed rakes to a couple of parents who came to the party...

 Ta-da!  Leaf pile.  Fun.  Simple.  The children were all very excited, ran and jumped in the pile, and appeared perfectly content.

Here's what I didn't plan - and thank goodness, because it was pretty special to see the children take charge of their fun.  Princess Elsa went and grabbed a crate, carried it over to the leaf pile, and made herself a diving board!

 She didn't mind sharing it, and without much help from the adults, the kiddos figured out how to share the leaf pile.

 Yes, there was some negotiating with the children that wanted to sit in the pile, none of the jumpers wanted to land on their friends.  Some waited patiently, some asked their friends to move, and I scooted some of them along when they appeared to have taken up residence.  Still, with only one very small leaf pile, 8 of our school friends, plus 4 more siblings, there was nothing but good-natured play.

 My favorite part is that the children spontaneously lined up and took turns!  Yes, there was a little cutting in line, but not much, and the children took care of that too.  I even saw one child go to jump, more or less slip off, and rethink what to do.  I could see she wanted to climb back up on the box and try again, and I don't think anyone would have stopped her.  She paused a moment, as if thinking about it, gave a tiny shrug, and went to the back of the line to wait for another turn.  Don't you wish more adults could act that way?

Yes, we had a pretty super, and wonderfully simple Halloween! 

More J week activities

It was another busy week here at school!  As you can see, we made our upper case J craft look like jack-o-lanterns.  I had precut orange oval shapes in various sizes, and the children worked on layering them together to get a nice 3D effect - and of course they added faces.  Our jack-o-lanterns were very happy and festive looking!

 We had 3 choices for our letter J hand prints this week: the jack-o-lanterns were made by painting the front of a closed fist, then rolling that on the paper.  This is another idea that I've been using for a long time, and I think it too came from Mailbox Magazine long long ago.

 The jaguars and jellyfish were inspired by some I saw on Pinterest, my number one source of fun ideas!

 We also had lots of costume play this week - of course!  Pretending is a powerful thing, and 3, 4, and 5 year olds definitely yearn to be powerful!  Add lots of candy and staying out late, and you have a pretty awesome holiday!

Just for J

You can tell it's almost Halloween from the songs we are singing, and the activities we're doing.  The Halloween sensory tub from last week is still the hot item of the week, but the book The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything is running a close second.

On Monday, we started the week by putting on lots of jewelry, and jumping for J.

At snack time we had juice and learned how to write the letter j - in jelly!

Today is Tuesday, and we reread Five Little Pumpkins , learned some hand motions for it, and made a craft to follow up.  Super cute!

Of course, the real reason we learn the letter J in October is so we can make a jack-o-lantern!  The kiddos suggest shapes for the facial features, and then vote (we even got to review tallying!)

I do the cutting, since small children and sharp implements is not my favorite combination.  They're always fascinated when the "guts" appear!

Everyone takes a turn to grab a handful of pumpkin guts, and to scoop it out into a bowl.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the process!  There is also a good run on handwashing - which is why we worked on this before and during snack time. 

I drew on the facial features, and started cutting...

... while the children had snack: fresh pumpkin muffins, made with a pumpkin they helped me to buy (see this previous post) , and that I baked over the weekend.

When I baked the pumpkin, I also saved and roasted the seeds.  One of the children asked about eating pumpkin seeds, a little incredulously, as the seeds she could see were in fresh pumpkin guts!  I explained how to make them, and we warmed and crisped the (already toasted) seeds.  You can see they were also received with different levels of enthusiasm!

This child liked them - he said they tasted like salty popcorn, and I think he's right.  They were good!

Here's our jack-o-lantern! 

Next time I'll tell you about our letter crafts, and some of the other fun learning activities we are enjoying!