The children found great amusement sliding down the former snow hill turned ice hill like penguins on their bellies and bottoms, and slipping around on the ice at the bottom.  We were grateful for a much needed sunshiny day mid week, which helped to brighten up our dreary winter weather.The dramatic play area was transformed into a theater, where a variety of entertainers have been performing for rapt audience members.  This week we saw ballet dancers, rock and rollers, and shadow puppet shows.Monday art students read some stories about shadows and discussed how shadows are made.  They then created shadow puppets by cutting out shadow outlines of dinosaurs or princesses, or drawing and cutting out their own.  They then used them with the already existing shadow puppets and backgrounds in the shadow puppet theater.
We celebrated a third birthday and first day of school on Tuesday.  The birthday girl orbited the candle sun with the globe three times before blowing it out.  She brought super tasty black bean cookies to share, which the children gobbled up quite quickly.  Happy 3rd birthday newest Sunnybrooker!Actors took to the stage to rehearse and record performances of Mr. Gumpy’s Outing and The Little Red Hen to view on the big screen during our Rialto Theater field trip.  The children wrote their own version of the Little Red Hen, making the setting a seaside farm with a rat, shark, turtle, and crocodile.We continued work on our community map by gluing photos of Lancaster businesses and buildings onto blocks to use with our floor map of Main Street, Lancaster, which we are in the process of outlining and painting.Mr. Bond returned to continue woodworking Wednesday.  Each student selected four nails and used them to add an end to the bottom and sides of their tool boxes.  It looks like there is only one side and the handle left to attach before they are fully assembled.Thursday was the day of the big screen!  We walked to the Rialto Theater on Main Street.  The children shared the safety precautions for our walk to the theater and reviewed the respectful ways to conduct ourselves when visiting.  Everyone had a partner to walk with and we were careful to stay together and walk safely down the sidewalk.  Dave welcomed us and gave a tour of the theater.  First we saw the box office, where tickets are sometimes sold, then we visited the small theater at the front and witnessed the magic of the screen coming down, blocking our view of the sidewalk and street.  We saw a trailer of the new release How To Train Your Dragon 3, which will be at the theater this coming week.  Most students were quite excited, while some found it a bit loud and maybe a bit scary or overwhelming.  We then got to see the projection room for the little theater, which is directly behind the theater.  Before heading into the big theater, we checked out the concession stand.  To end our visit, we each found a seat to watch our performances of The Little Red Hen and Mr. Gumpy’s Outing, as well as a short clip of some Rock N Rollers dancing.  We were sure to thank Dave before heading back to school.The students created Thank You cards for Dave in gratitude for his time and energy preparing for, hosting us, setting up, and showing our performances on the big screen, then likely cleaning up after our departure.  Most of us were quite excited about and grateful for our visit.Friday students continued their building work.  We created a chart to list the things we KNOW about building with toothpicks, marshmallows, apples, cranberries, and chickpeas.  We then recorded WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW – our questions that will take us further in our experimenting.  We watched a video story of Roberto, the Insect Architect and read Rosie Revere, Engineer.  We discussed how things were challenging for both Rosie and Roberto, but they didn’t give up.  They persevered, and even when they failed, they continued to try again, using their failures as learning experiences.  We then got to work building.  Last week our challenge was to get as high as we could, and this week was to create a structure that was sturdy and stable.  Last week we discovered that our marshmallow creations toppled down, so we mostly opted to use potato pieces and cranberries to stick our toothpicks in.  We had some failures, which was heartbreaking, but after determining what caused the failure, we tried again, fixing our errors, and finding success!  At the end of the morning we listed what we LEARNED, and this prompted more questions which we were excited to examine and experiment with later.