Wednesdays are for Beetles

This is our new friend, Beetle the beetle. His story is told below.

Our Wednesday began with signing in and playing with the many good things in our room

We went to the music room this morning for Meeting for Worship. We were joined by the other 3's and 4's classes and the two Kindergartens.

Raji led us in peaceful silence, asking us to think about and feel the light and love inside of us.

After, we joined in some beautiful singing of "This Little Light of Mine" and "Peace Like a River"

Back we went to our classroom

Where the playing resumed (and many Catbirds continued to sing "Peace Like a River," as they played).

We gonged the gong for clean-up

And outside we ran!

There was a lot of jumping. The Catbirds love to test their skills on the stumps

This is Carol's Album Cover. I think it'll be a rock album. Coming soon.

Here friends were practicing their frustrated faces. There's an art to looking frustrated. It includes crossing your arms, crinkling your nose, and making scrunchy eyebrows. We are working with friends to be aware of what they are communicating with their words and their bodies.

We began our first round of Catbird Stories, as friends took turns dictating their ideas to Carol.

While we were on the playground, some Catbirds decided to turn over a stump.

They found BEETLES!

In reaction to the great number of beetles, one Catbird exclaimed:

"There's a whole library of them!!!"

A friend got a beetle to climb onto a stick

He diligently protected this beetle.

We returned to our classroom for Morning Meeting and practiced numbers with our fingers

We turned our hands into spiders and sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" in some very funny voices

For Choice Time today, we had counting cubes...

And we made a structure for the beetle named Beetle!

We put Beetle right on the table and built carefully around him.

The beetle's maze grew increasingly complicated

During Choice Time, it is typical for friends to move in and out of the different open activities. They might build with tubes for a while and then check on Beetle, and then choose to work with the counting cubes. It's a lovely atmosphere.

Before lunch time, we borrowed a tank from Rosanne, the science teacher. Beetle seems quite content. Later, we added some dirt and wood chips and 2 MORE BEETLES!