Off to a Great Start: Our First Week

The Catbirds have had an incredibly busy week and have taken the first steps toward a wonderful year. We are well on our way to establishing ourselves as a group, and the returning Catbirds have taken on their new leadership roles with a great deal of pride. They have helped the new Catbirds find their way around, learn the words to songs and taught them about Morning Meeting and Meeting for Worship. Here are just a few of the ways that we learned this week:

1. We read many books. We continued/began our ongoing study of what makes a good story. We noticed a variety of elements of the books we read - the size, color and shapes of words, what pictures tell us, we used the information we had to guess/predict what might happen next.
We told stories at lunch time, incorporating friend's ideas into a shared narrative.
Friends began dictating their own stories, and we read these aloud at Morning Meeting. Some friends will turn their stories into books.

We did a survey of friends' favorite books: "What is your favorite book or story?  Why do you like it?"
Here's what the Catbirds had to say:

• Superhero stories
• Dinosaurs
• The Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello. Because it is funny.
• I like scary stories. Big scary stories.
• When Ariel Gets Married. Because my daddy reads it to me and its a little bit long.
• The Lion King. I like Nala.
• The Lion King. I like that his father talks in the sky and when he doesn't talk to him. Scar is mean. There's no people in it. I don't like it when there are people in it. When people are in it, I'm not happy.
• The Dragon That Ate Tacos.
• Knuffle Bunny. Because I have a knuffle bunny and a cheetah.
• Otis and the Little Blue Truck. (Why do you like it?) Because I do!
• Freight Train. Because its got trains in it, and when they go fast, they make a rainbow.
• The Mixed Up Chameleon. Cuz I like that book. I like the green one. Because I don't have that book at my house.
• Dinosaurs. The one with the basketball.
• Chugga Chugga Choo Choo. Because I love choo-choos.

2. We went on several adventures - exploring all over campus. We ran, climbed, jumped and rolled. We observed and asked questions. We played a rousing game of invisible baseball and practiced our throwing and catching. We shot some baskets. We played soccer. We played several group games and worked on learning the rules. We went fishing in the creek.
We started out study of trees. We had each friend go out and find a tree, then look, listen, touch and smell it (we skipped tasting). When they came back, we wrote down their impressions:

• I touched it, looked at it and smelled it. It feeled like bugs and it smelled like bugs.
• Smells like honey!
• It makes no sound.
• It smelled like powers, mice and a dozen donuts.
• We smelled it and we touched it and it smelled like fire and we put our ears on it and we couldn't hear anything. It got fired a long time ago, when the dinosaurs were here.
• Then the fireman put it out!
• No! There were no firemen when there were dinosaurs!
• Oh, yeah!
• That one smelled like mint leaves.
• I saw a spider!
• It smelled like honey and it smelled like seeds.
• A tree smells like a bakery.
• I went to the Puddle tree. Well the Puddle Tree has puddles and it smelled like bark-y.
• It feels like gooey gooey goopey and it smells like fire. 

3. We had this year's first Meeting for Worship in the music room. We practiced stilling our bodies and minds for moments of silence. We sang songs, played drums, played the keyboard and played the guitar. We had numerous dance parties. We met Aedin, our music teacher and Alicia, our Spanish teacher.

4. We painted, we drew. We made flubber. We pretended. We built things and we brought dinosaurs to life. We took care of babies, puppies and kittens - sometimes we were babies, puppies and kittens. We cooked and baked pretend meals and had healthy snacks.

5. We had disagreements and we took the time to work them out. We learned, repeatedly, that other people see things differently than we do. We were often shocked by this.

Pictures from Friday: