The Pancake Store

The Catbirds morning began with a visit from our friend Tom. Tom's family owns a farm up in Connecticut, where they make syrup, and he brought in an entire bottle for the Catbirds to try! Tom is coming back tomorrow to tell us how his family makes the syrup. We are hoping he gives us his family's secret recipe!

The Catbirds had a very relaxing morning. Friends played in the dramatic play area where they dressed up and hid in boxes. 

Some friends helped Carol put the finishing touches on our pretzel alphabet. 

One friend went fishing for Magnatiles...

others baked delicious cookies in the kitchen...

...and one Catbird even learned how to write the letter P!

 After a quick clean up, we headed outside. Friends worked very hard on taking turns riding in and pushing and pulling the wagon.

Some friends enjoyed scattering wood chips and sweeping them up again. 

After each Friend took a turn with the wagon, we headed back inside for Morning Meeting and a Moment of Silence. The Catbirds talked about what they like to put syrup on. Most Friends like to put syrup on pancakes and waffles, but some said cupcakes. Tom left us some books with photographs of the process of making maple syrup. We talked about the pictures and then passed them around. The Catbirds were fascinated. Carol then asked Friends if they would like to make pancakes tomorrow to taste the syrup, and the Catbird's thought this was a tasty idea! The Catbirds came up with a list of ingredients that we would need to make our pancakes. Friends were so excited that we decided to turn our classroom into a restaurant and serve pancakes to the rest of the EC Classrooms. We talked about how every restaurant has a name so the Catbirds came up with a few options: IHOP, Chick-Fil-a, The Store, Pancakes, Sharks, Princess and A Shore. So after a few discussions, our restaurant was named "The Pancake Store," with sharks and princesses for mascots. Once we had our name, Friends made signs, so people would know where to go.
So we broke off into Choice Time. Friends were able to choose between books, paper airplanes, play dough and sign making.   

Out in the paper airplane flying area, we introduced a new tool - a measuring wheel. So, to test out our new airplane design, the pilot (in the hat), launched the plane, and two "measurers" went to see how many "clicks" the plane had flown (the wheels click at each meter). 

The wheels offer a fun way for friends to begin experiencing and experimenting with measuring.

After all of our paper airplanes were flown and measured and our signs were made, we cleaned up for lunch. After lunch, we headed to each EC classroom to invite all of our friends to tomorrow's restaurant opening. Once all reservations were made, we curled up on our sleeping mats to dream about pancakes!