  George: I made a car. Violet: I made a seaweed, look I made a C. Jack: I want to draw, first I have to trace it like a pencil and then I can paint it. George: Now I need the dark blue. Violet: I made a butterfly. Marley: Look what I made! George: Violet’s looks like an egg. Violet: It’s a present, a kitty present. George: It’s an egg. Mine is a dog present. CC: I made a bear. Elle: It's a plum fairy flower. 
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to RSVP for next week’s classroom stories! You are welcome to join us in person or on Zoom, just please let us know one way or another in advance. Thanks!
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Happy Birthday Brigitte! Today we celebrated the birthday of our beloved French friend with madeline cookies, fresh strawberries and our signature Christoph’s baguettes. Can you believe we have just two more birthday celebrations left this year? My, how time flies!  Today we also continued with our watercolors of our fish. For those who had explored watercolors yesterday, making messages and painting at our easel were the top choices.  Violet: I want to try this one (copper watercolor), Brigitte. Lochie: Hey, Mr. Fishy it’s you! He’s trying to get away from himself! Violet: Look, Brigitte, I made a rainbow fish! Lochie: When it’s dry I want to show my fish to our fish.    Marley You do eyes like this and then the mouth and now you keep doing that and doing that. George: I know that. The mouth is right there. Marley: The water is blue so you need to do blue. George: I’m going to do blue now. Marley: Whoah! You’re doing it like a rainbow! George: I wanna do purple for the eyes. Marley: Oooooh, look! You did really big eyes! Which one (paint color) are you going to do. George: I think this one (green). Marley: Oh I knew you were going to choose that one. Whoah! I think that’s too much paint!  CC: It was sunny then the rain came. Now the rain is gone. So it rained and a rainbow came because rainbows come after rain.  Jack: Look, it's a rose bush with roses on it. It’s for Abby’s birthday today!  Elle: I hope my Nona loves it.
Jack: Well, it is pretty! What to do with the treehouse town?
Special Mystery Guest: Elyse! Elyse, today's mystery reader, brought in some amazing books on mythology. We learned about Kenyan and Greek mythology! Fun fact, Giacomo and Jordan both love mythology! Working on a new kind of Tree House: "Tree Town"With loving adoration we completed our paper mache tree house a few weeks back and have since maintained interest in the idea of "tree house." Considering this, Jen thoughtfully provided the children with a stunning stump with three limbs. We started with an approach using clay during our outdoor time yesterday. Moving on from that we found that the children were investing their energy into adding dimension and depth to the branch, in efforts to construct a tree house, using construction materials. It turns out that making roads to the tree house is also part of what is important to the children relative to their overall investment and interest in the making it.
More to come with this work! Mystery Reader: Thank you Rory!
Following in yesterday’s effort to capture the beauty of our class fish through wire, today we tried our hand at painting him with watercolors. The children started with drawing him in pencil and then added dimension with the paint.
Jack: Those are like his. I want to do the tank, and I’m going to paint the water blue. He does have some red on his top. The fish part needs water.  Elle: I picked green for the rocks because I like green for the rocks. That’s because I’m adding moss to the rocks. He’s going to be different colors. I’m going to do a rainbow in the water.  CC: Look, he’s all furry! I did his eyes and colored it in, it’s brown. Then I’m doing his nose and his mouth and stripes on the tail. Marley: I’m going to add some food, but first I’m going to make the fish tank. This is the top. CC: I’m going to draw the food too. Some is falling down and some is on the top. He’s going to be a rainbow fish. I did red and orange. Now I’m going to draw blue for the background. Marley: Purple here so it sort of covers him face. When we weren’t painting with water we were enjoying it in the outdoor classroom! With the warm weather and freshly fixed water pump, an animal bath was inevitable. Lochie, George and Jack loved plunging the animals in and out of the water while the other children watered the flowers and added water to the sandbox.
 A Wire Exploration Calder's piece Fish, 1944 Inspired by the work of American sculpturist Alexander Calder, Rainey Room A tried their hand at making and beading wire fish. With our class fish (still unnamed) in front of us to aid our imagination, RRA used copper and silver wire to design their fish sculptures!
 Lochie: So you twist the wire around, then you add beads, the tail was easy, you go in and out in and out… Look, my fish is saying HI to our fish! CC: I like the beads, my fish has an eye. Jack: (bending his wire) I made a fish, I am really good at beading, because I made so many necklaces. I’t s fun for me because I don’t like getting my hands dirty.
 Jack's Kitty Cards Jack specifically requested that his kitty cards make it on the blog today. To honor his request, please enjoy the photos below of his kitty cards. He practiced writing CAT all last week and has happily been giving the cards out to his friends as gifts and decorations! "I want people to hang them up or keep them" - Jack    Big thanks to CC’s Goo-Goo for joining us as our mystery reader today!
Learning more about Cedar in Kenya: A Video and ConversationDeparting Washington, DC during a snow storm, Cedar and her family arrived in Kenya 14 hours later. Their time was shared with many friends, cousins, and of course animals from desert to water, where Kenya meets the Indian Ocean.
Clay Play"Here, Janie. I'm cutting some up for you!" -Cedar
"When Sylvie says she wants some clay I will give it to her, and when Janie wants some clay, I will give it to her," Cedar said as half of us gathered around the round table to play with clay, for a second day of clay work since last year. Poking, cutting, pinching, pulling, smooshing, building, rolling, and scoring were all part of our clay play this morning. "I'm making a tree house," Sylvie and Maxon said, but by the end of their work, they chose to take apart their clay to try again next week. Janie made a house with no walls or roof and has plans to add these structural elements on Monday. Cedar enjoyed her time by cutting and distributing the clay to others in a helpful manner while Audrey, Jane and Giacomo added small twigs to their clay pieces, giving depth and meaning to their work.
Enjoy the weekend and the flowers!
  CC writes "I love you" in her message to her younger sister Bailee   For the children who weren’t working on this project or prepping their portfolios, there were all kinds of exciting experiences around the classroom to enjoy! Lochie and George enjoyed exploring a mixture of the silhouettes and colored blocks on the light table.
  While the weather was cold and cloudy, we took advantage of our time outside today to make some sun prints! Lucky for us, even with some cloud coverage, our project worked. Using materials from the classroom and special sun printing paper, we practiced the technique. While today was a little too blustery for multiple attempts, it’s certainly something we’ll experiment more with next week! 
 CC: Why is there a picture there?Do we have lots of paper? Jack: Can you give me a piece of plastic? CC: and this one moves! Violet: Hey, there’s one in here. Jack: This thing, whatever it is, is so cool. CC: Elena, look! What about the shark? Jack: I wanted one of those. CC: that’s ok, you can have it.
 We also continued with making messages for our incoming Brown room friends!  Lochie: Hey, I know Fey, we go hiking together sometimes. CC: I know Bailee, because she is my little babe, and I know her (Emily, and I know Marley’s little brother. Lochie: When I went to Marley’s house, Marley’s brother was chasing us around the house until we were at a dead end. Marley told him to stop following us, but he didn’t. Clay Inspiration
Mystery Reader!! Today's shout out is for Jecca Baille, our Mystery Reader. The weather wasn't the best but our reader certainly was.
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