Princess for a Day

A few days ago, when I was reading Ann Rockwell’s book ‘Big Wheels’, a child told me ‘trucks aren’t my favorite. My favorite is princesses.’ I took that as a request to read a princess book. After school, I looked through my collection and all of my princess books (Disney related) have villains. Kathy Reiss found a very abridged version (no villains) of the Anna story from Frozen in another classroom. The children were very excited the next day (Monday) when I said I would read this book. However, for me to read a princess story, I needed to dress the part. As you can see, my beautiful crown and my larger-than-life diamonds turned me into a princess. I was now ready to read the story of Anna.

I expected to read a version of Anna without mentioning the ‘bad guys’. But as I read each page, the children filled in the missing parts. When I tried to quiet them to avoid mentioning the ‘bad guys’, it was clear to me that I was outnumbered. So I kept reading the abridged version while the children told the missing parts. Never underestimate children when retelling a Disney story!

The children have continued to enjoy having Biscuit at Meeting Time every day. Note that he now has a red collar, just like in the book. He was joined by his friend, Mittens, all this week. The children continue to enjoy all of our special friends.

In a previous post, I mentioned the benefits of crayons vs. markers. The crayons are great for building the fine motor muscles because they require pressure to use, whereas markers only require a light touch to the paper. Another source of fine motor growth is stickers. This week the children used stickers for a project and many find it difficult to manipulate the stickers in order to independently peel them off of the backing. With holidays approaching, stickers would make a nice gift for both fun and growth.