The first snow of the season was covering the ground when we arrived on Monday.  The children were excited to build miniature snowmen, make snow angels, and have snow ball fights.  The truck drivers found that the snow accumulated on their tires so they had to keep stopping and chipping it off to maintain driving safety.  We caught some flakes on our mittens so we could examine the beautiful little crystals.  We were grateful that it stuck around for the week so everyone could scoop up and play with the cold white fluff.
For art we read the story Home, by Carson Ellis, and admired all the various types of houses, real and make believe, where people and creatures might live, including apartments, castles, caves, moon homes, and underwater homes.  The favorite was the space home, and the children loved sharing which part they would claim for their own.  Each student used black permanent marker to draw an outline of their own home on a piece of mat board, color it in with pastels, then paint over it with water color paints, creating some beautiful works of art for our “Home” art installation.  Students continued to create home pictures throughout the week, though most of them chose to take them home rather than display them.
We read and talked about Native Americans, the pilgrims who sailed from Plymouth England on the Mayflower to what is now called Plymouth Massachusetts, how these two groups became friends, and the first Thanksgiving celebration.  We also read several stories about being grateful and giving thanks and turned our sad leafless money tree into a giving tree.  The children wrote their names on paper leaves and we recorded what they are thankful for on them, then hung them on the tree.
On Wednesday Tricia joined us for the morning, which was a special treat, especially since only a few children get to see her in the afternoons.  We had fun playing Mr. Potato Head, magnatiles, knex, and play dough for a relaxing morning before our special meal.
The week of Stone Soup finally arrived, and the children got busy preparing on Tuesday.  They first washed their hands, then with Tammy’s guidance they scrubbed and chopped up the vegetables and put them in the big soup pot.  On Wednesday they opened the cans and bags and poured them into a pot.  The soup bubbled and boiled and cooked until it was all ready to eat.  We were grateful to have families join us to share in our celebration.  We munched on crackers and cheese and sipped our cider while the soup cooled, and when it was finally ready to eat, we slurped it up (well, some of us did).  Thank you so much for sending in all the great vegetables, bread, cheese, crackers, and cider for everyone to enjoy.  It was wonderful to have so many families join us, and we very much appreciated all the help cleaning up!  (I apologize that I did not get any pictures of the actual event.)  It was a wonderful week!