school days

my hat is off to all of you who manage to post to your blogs everyday. or even regularly, for that matter. though i love this space dearly, it is a real commitment to sit down and spend the time uploading photos, editing them, and managing to actually write your post. i can not tell you how many times in the last two weeks i have taken pictures, uploaded them, and written posts in my head (only the writing was taking place in my head, the rest really happened!). but i am letting all that go and just jumping back in there.

to my credit, there were chicken pox, the passing of my great uncle, several days of unexplained fevers, a trio of nasty head colds, and darned pollen allergies that piled onto my normal mommy/ teacher/ business owner workload. out of 15 hours normally spent at school during a *regular* week, last week i made it there for three! i know that many of you manage to post through all of this.....how do you do it?!

here are some bits from our week at school. due to childcare limitations, jasper got to join us in class on wednesday. i like having him around, but i can't say it went that well really. he is not used to being in a room full of 14 children with 5 of them being highly spirited boys (he was one of those)! he really fed off the energy and got a little feisty at times. he is also so much smaller than the rest of the kids (due to his age and his size) that he got a bit trampled during some of the transitions.
tuesday is bread baking day. here you see what happens when you turn your back on the kneading. they really wanted to be sure their dough wasn't going to stick! wowsers that's a lot of flour.
she is still adorable with flour all over her face. ;)
wednesday is our craft/ handwork day. this week we started our mother's day project (if you happen to be a mom from class cover your eyes now). we are painting wooden frames with our watercolor paints. next week we will decorate them with seeds and add pictures of the kids. they will go home as gifts for mom. jasper spent a long time with this. he really loves painting wooden things with watercolors lately.
proudly displaying his finished paint job. love, love, love the visible wood grain!! also loving seeing him in this kimono handed down from his sister. we scored it in brooklyn while visiting uncle scotty when sienna was jasper's age.
some of the other childrens' frames.
my blue eyed boy.
thursday is painting day. we have now *graduated* to all three colors...red, yellow, and blue. we started the year with one color at a time, then moved on to two colors, and now three. at this point, most of the children know how to mix their colors on their paper and make some amazing works of art!
you can read more about watercolor painting in our classroom in our interview here.
our nature table. there are actual bits from nature there just out of shot that the children have collected. the branch piece pictured holds a thinner branch that is our seasonal tree. with bits of wool attached to the tiny branches, it changes as the season does. at the moment, the green *leaves* are filling out and there is a lovely parent made wool felt butterfly hanging from it.
my outdoor challenge photo for today. soaking up some sun.

hope you all had a lovely week! i will be back asap as i have several things to wrap up (one small change and outdoor challenge). love to you all!