A New Friend

My siblings and I were asked to dog-sit for friends of ours this weekend. I thought it would be fun to introduce my kiddos to Beatrice today. Needless to say, it was love at first sight! She was all they could talk about all day long!

"When are we going to visit Bea again, Miss Follett?!"

They loved running around with Bea as she chased after her tennis balls, they each added some food to her dish at lunchtime, and they took turns giving her a "walk" in the afternoon (It was actually more of a run!).

The poor dog was simply worn out by the end of the day! :-)

Spring Is Now Official

I received my first bouquet of dandelions after recess today. Spring is officially here! :-)

Birthday Girl

Leah was soooo excited to be celebrating her birthday today at school! She was Birthday Princess for the day, she got some special treats from teachers, and she handed out some yummy cookies for her friends to enjoy at lunch. Her birthday was actually yesterday, but you can never celebrate turning 6 too many times!!! Yesterday, when I wished her a Happy Birthday in Sunday School, she informed me that she actually wouldn't be 6 until the afternoon. She was pretty sure it was at 12:40pm. Yep, she was counting down the days, hours, and even minutes till she would be turning 6 years old! :-)

Painting in the Great Outdoors

Do you ever have one of those, "What in the world was I thinking???!!!" moments? This afternoon was one of those moments for me! Because it was such a nice, warm day, I wanted my kiddos to be able to enjoy the great outdoors. Painting was to be our afternoon activity, so I had the *brilliant* thought that it would be fun to paint outside instead of just in the classroom. The kiddos were pretty thrilled about the whole idea. We brought out poster board instead of just regular paper because I thought the heaviness of the paper would defy whatever breezes decided to blow (ha!).

Now this just wasn't any old painting activity. It was "out of the box" painting. We weren't going to use just boring ole' paintbrushes. We were going to use combs, toothbrushes, hair things, sponges, toy cars, cups and whatever other random things I had inside the container.

I thought ahead and brought out a small container of soapy water so messy hands could be cleaned. Well, by the end of this painting experience, the water was black...or at least a really dark shade of purple!

Oh yes, it was messy. I kept reminding them to watch where they leaned on their paper because I didn't want paint-covered clothes. I was pretty impressed with how well they were doing, when suddenly the wind decided to be quite blustery. Of course, Juliana and I were standing in just the right location to be smacked with a flying poster board. Did you know that green and pink paint add such style to a jean skirt and brown shoes?! Well, it does! Thankfully the paint lived up to its name and was indeed washable! :-)

Ahhh, yes...you live and learn. Next time I will be sure to check the wind speed before I take out a project such as this! If there is indeed a next time....

But hey, it was a unique experience and it was fun (minus the clean-up at the end!).

{Their Abstract "Out-of-the-Box" Masterpieces}

That Bad Fox!

Today I discovered that I need a "refresher course" on classic children stories. On the bookshelf in my classroom, there are some classic storybooks such as The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc. These particular books are fun because they are a "read-together" type book for young children. Sometimes pictures replace the words so the children you are reading to can help fill in the story.

Today for story time, two of these classic books were selected - The Story of Henny Penny and The Gingerbread Man. We read the Henny Penny story first. I wasn't really familiar with this story so I was enjoying reading about Henny Penny with her friends, Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey, Cockey Lockey, and Ducky Daddles. The kiddos and I kept laughing at their silly names. Then along came Foxy Loxy. I should have known that a fox entering the story could mean trouble, but that fact didn't click right away for me. Well, as the story continued on, the look on my kiddos' faces changed from smiles and giggles to looks of utter disbelief. Yeah, the story basically ends with the fox eating all of Henny Penny's friends. My poor kids were in shock, utterly devastated!

I then turned to our next story. I thought I knew the Gingerbread Man story pretty well, but soon discovered I had forgotten an important detail - the story ends by the Gingerbread Man getting gobbled up by...yep, you guessed it...a fox.

Oh yeah, it wasn't a good day of "happily ever after" in my classroom! My kiddos and I tried to come up with alternate endings for these stories, but the damage was already done.

Seriously, why do so many classic children stories have to end in such a sad, violent way?!

{Parents, if your children have nightmares of foxes gobbling up their friends tonight, I am truly sorry!}