Update from Macdonough!

It's been a long break since I last posted from Macdonough, but I'm back with a vengeance! Expect at least 2 more posts before the week is through.

A lot has happened since I last posted! We had a great third week and are already nearing the end of the fourth. Amazing how time flies! All the kids (and teachers) are just getting into the grove of the Kickstart schedule, but we'll be done before we know it. Then it will be off to kindergarten with the lot of them!

Both fortunately and unfortunately for us, we're now in one of Macdonough's kindergarten classroom rather than the preschool classroom in which we started. This meant the third classroom change in three weeks, but it also meant that the kids would be gradually eased into what will be some of their classroom when they start school on August 29. Extra special thanks to Mrs. Lenihan for letting us use her room while ours is being cleaned out, de-flied, and fixed up! There are only two kindergarten classes at Macdonough next year, which means about half our kids will be in this classroom, while the other half will be in Mrs. Spaeman's room across the hall.

Some notable happenings from the last two weeks:

• We went to KidCity last Tuesday! Check out the pictures here!
• Last Thursday, we were presented with our Early Literacy Grant from Liberty Bank, which meant all the kids got to pose for a picture. It also meant some media publicity here. 
• We got to go on a field trip to visit our friends at Green Street! And they came to see us, too (see the next post about the Book Mobile for more info)! We'll be going to see them again tomorrow for a special activity.
• We continue to try a new fruit or vegetable every day including nectarines, pineapple, mango, grapes, plums, and apricots. We've had cantelope, pears (a huge hit), and celery. We're planning to try honeydew and grapefruits next!

This week is animal week, and we've been doing so many fun activities! We have a class of budding literature lovers: everyone loves listening to stories, so we've been reading at least 3 books each day including The Very Busy Spider, Five Little Penguins Sliding on the Ice, Is your Mama a Llama, Clara Caterpillar, and If I were a Jungle Animal. In art, we've practiced our cutting, made butterflies out of coffee filters, hand print butterflies, and our very own class caterpillar. We've gone Fishing for Numbers, learned about dice and played some games with them, and made certain numbers of bears go dancing in a cave. And of course, made incredible structures out of our Magna-Tiles (thanks Ms. Anna for the recommendation—we concede that they're pretty amazing).

Our writing is improving dramatically each and every day! Everyone can write his or her name, and many of us can write the whole alphabet. Because of rainy conditions this morning, we got to do a very special activity: we got to draw our letters and numbers in shaving cream on the table. Some of our friends were great helpers and reminded us how to draw our letters ("Draw a line down, then a bump, then another bump. That's a B!") Unsurprisingly, everyone got pretty covered in shaving cream (including Ms. Taylor and Mr. Andy—somehow, Ms. Maddy and Ms. Crissy emerged untouched).

We ended the day by going on a bear hunt, which was a lot of fun! Can't wait for Family Friday tomorrow! We're spending the day at Green Street tomorrow after the farmers market!