Our classroom is adorned by spring flowers to welcome the season. The children made daffodils and hyacinths along with umbrellas which always are needed this time of year. Our bulletin board has vibrant yellow, purple, and green, but the settings on my camera are washing out the color as you can see in the photo. It seems to be an accepted theory that people of my generation are not very technologically savvy but their children are. My children will be visiting during this vacation and hopefully one of them will figure out what is wrong with the settings on my camera. (In the middle of the previous sentence my connection stopped. I thought I was doing well when I changed the batteries on my trackpad only to discover that it was the keyboard that needed new batteries. I guess my children’s assessment of my tech skills is warranted.)

The teachers are always coming up with ways to manage 12 children when everyone wants the same thing but there are not 12 items to go around. I usually do not know what is in the Big Room until our class goes into it around 10:45 am. This week there were 2 areas which could each accommodate 3 children at a time. It was apparent in less than a minute upon our arrival that chaos was occurring. We had to act as policemen, enforcers, and referees all at the same time. But we’ve been working with children for a long time and knew what had to be done. We got my 1-minute timer from the classroom and went to work. I held the timer for all to see. Each time the sand flowed to the bottom, I announced it and the children who had a turn left the area. The children who were waiting for a turn had to stand on the ‘black line.’ In this way, no one would run to the house or the cars when a child exited. The teachers would tell which children had the next turn. It is always amazing how the children are so accepting of the timer but not teacher instructions that their time is up. I guess it’s impossible to argue with the timer. The chaos turned to order as the timer kept time and the children lined up on the black line.

One of my ‘props’ that comes in handy when I have to fill in some time waiting for our turn in the Big Room or the playground is Sock Monkey in the Box. The children have seen it many times but the anticipation of Sock Monkey popping out never gets old. On Tuesday the children got to enjoy it. On Wednesday and Thursday, Adeline brought her box to school, but it was Curious George in the Box. We listened to the music on both boxes and then compared the 2 monkeys. I told the children that they are cousins because they are both monkeys but do not look the same.

Our Circle Time visitor was a brown bunny this week. I asked the children how to sing to it and was told “He hops so sing Hop Hop Bunny” and that’s what we did.

Enjoy the vacation and I will see you again in a little over a week.