What a beautiful day!  After the past few rainy days, we were delight to see the sunshine.  We decided to take our work outside and spend most of the day in the outdoor classroom.  There were a few chasing games, but children also found more organized choices as well.  For example, Cassius, Carl, Mac, and Jay were interested in building with bricks and basketball.  Vivienne, Lila, Grace, and Lucy developed a limbo game on the slide.  This group loves clay, and lately we have been working like crazy with this material.  It felt great to take some of the pieces outside to glaze them in the fresh air.   Of course, there were mandalas!  We hope the weather cooperates again tomorrow for a walk to Volta Park.

Today on the playground the children discovered an insect.  At first, they thought it was a huge ant, but it seemed to have and very large body that they speculated might light up.  So, perhaps it was a firefly.  However, it didn't have wings.  After some discussion they decided to call it an Anti-Fireflyer.  They examined it closely and made some hypotheses.  They decided it was a girl, and brought over a clay structure for a home.  A bit later, the group thought it should come inside, so they created an indoor environment for the ant.  There was some debate over where the ant should live.  Ellee wasn't sure that everyone in the Tucker Room would be keen on having an insect in the classroom so "Anty" (as she is being called, for short) is spending the night in the middle room.  
After lunch, Hadley and Rose found an insect book in order to more correctly identify the insect.  They found the bug in the bookend it turns out their original idea was right: it is an ant.  As Rose explained, "That thing that we found is an ant.... it's just that some ants have bigger bodies."  

The rest of the day was also busy.  There was a flurry of message making: some of them were for the children who will enter the school next year and some were for more established friends.  While looking at the photos of the children who will be joining St. John's next year, Prater said, "I know him.  That's my cousin -- Cannon."  She proceeded to work diligently to creat the perfect message for him.  Using the Bamboo program on the computer is one of our favorite things to do.  Today we took our Bamboo creations and used them as the base or background for messages. Carl and Rose spent time making our nest more comfortable by adding fabric strips.  Clay and construction were also popular today.  Enjoy these images and check this space tomorrow for any updates on Anty!

Friends also enjoyed visiting Max and Hugh's pet store. Pets sold anywhere from 50 cents to $8! 

Inside and after lunch, friends focused on digital collage and clay block building. Using the Bamboo tablet and the Sumo Paint application, children created bases with a variety of different colors, shapes and patterns. We plan to use these bases in conjunction with other materials to include in our collage-messages for incoming Brown Room children. 

Inspired by recent Brown Room provocations, we combined clay blocks with wooden blocks today in the construction area. Children explored the open-ended experience -
Hugh: I'm making a wierd kind of firetruck. 
Mac: I'm making a rocket ship. 
Jay: So this is the Eiffel tower over a river and then there's walls here for the Eiffel Tower. 

It was a busy day with the KW crew! More fun to come this week! 

It was a busy KW day as friends continued working on their Mother's day gifts - adding glazes and new details to clay pieces as well as continuing "paper creations" for the second part of their gifts. We also had an open-ended clay table available where friends enjoyed rolling blocks of clay into thin pieces and then created cut-outs of stars, hearts, circles and ducks. There will be no shortage of clay ducks that go home at the end of the year, that's for certain!

We will be out tomorrow afternoon, but Friday friends are sure to have a blast with our subs Caroline and Michelle! 

Yesterday felt like winter, but today was beautiful.  It was a great day to take a different group of children to the canal to see the ducklings.  KW now has 12 children enrolled on Wednesday, so we were thrilled that Praveen was available to take the walk with us.  Once at the canal, we easily found the original seven ducklings.  We had brought food bags and Praveen also brought bread along.   The ducks and ducklings had a feast!  After a bit, many children moved further away from the canal to dig in the dirt.  This allowed the ducklings to feel safe enough to venture onto the grassy area to rest.  We have been thinking about nests the past several days.  Seeing the ducks along the shore led us to wonder if they have a specific nest, or if they just rest in any grassy area.  Along the way, we enjoyed running up the brick columns and exploring puddles.  The Tucker Room children notice vibrations every time we are near the water.  A big "thank you" goes out to Praveen, who made today's trip possible!

Friends joined together in the outdoor classroom this afternoon to concoct potions in their "poison factory".  Once they realized these potions weren't working on teachers, they decided to try the magic on peers instead. Jay needed to be revived from their "dying effects" multiple times -- luckily, Rose was there to come to the rescue!

After lunch, we began some preparations for Mother's Day. Without giving it ALL away, friends manipulated strips of paper and also started work on some clay pieces. The rest is better kept a surprise. We're looking forward to taking the Wednesday crew to visit the ducklings at the canal tomorrow -- special thanks to Praveen for tagging along!

This afternoon we continued work building our collaborative nest. Yesterday we struggled with the nest's shape - we decided we needed some kind of structure to support it. So today we began building with a bowl underneath the wire structure. 
Prater: You might want to do it with me here because I have a good idea. You can flip the bowl over and put everything on it and maybe tape it. 
Rose: But we have to fill it in more first.
Prater: We needed to put the bowl in because that's where the eggs will go (demonstrates that she doesn't want eggs to fall through gaps in the wire structure). It's going to go outside. 
Ellee: (Approves of the shape) We can put our ducks in it! 

Children also continued duckling paintings in mini-studio. They enjoyed including family details like mommy, daddy and baby ducks.

Construction opened later in the afternoon and friends quickly gathered to create a wedding boat for the wedding ceremonies of Cassius and Rose and Jay and Lila. It was a festive celebration with dancing and lots of champagne! 

We're thrilled to have Tegan join us in KW today and for the rest of the year! See everyone tomorrow!