The children dropped ink on water then slowly pulled a stick through it to create swirls before gently placing paper on top to soak up the pattern to make marbled paper for art on Monday.

Henrietta and Tucker Turtle visited to act out an actual event and share what they learned about the thoughts in our heads. Tucker was standing and thinking about what he wanted to choose for work, when Henrietta, who was dancing with her fabulous dancing legs, bumped into him and just kept on dancing. Tucker started to think some negative thoughts about how mean Henrietta was and how she wasn’t his friend anymore. The children discussed what Henrietta was likely thinking, and they agreed that she was thinking about dancing and probably didn’t even realize she had bumped Tucker. We discussed that we have the control over our thoughts in our heads and rather than letting negative thoughts snowball, we can stop and think positive thoughts, and we shared some ideas of positive thoughts Tucker could have instead of thinking Henrietta was being mean.

During Sign language with Rose, we practiced the opposite words we learned last week, and learned some more opposites. We learned want & don’t want, know & don’t know, like & don’t like, in & out, and open & closed, which we sign differently depending on what we are talking about – box, door, window, or eyes. We then signed and sang the song “Make New Friends.” We are getting better with keeping up with Rose!

We read some books about water and made up some additional verses to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” changing the location from a stream to a river, pond, lake, and ocean. We had to be pretty creative with our rhyming and it could get quite treacherous, but we made sure to keep our life jackets on in case we fell out. To set a foundation for our study of water we brainstormed a big list of water words using the prompts, “What did you use water for today?” and “What are some bodies of water?” The children named so many uses for water, including bathing, cleaning, drinking, washing hands, brushing teeth, going to the bathroom, etc. and lots of bodies of water including creeks, streams, rivers, pools, ponds, puddles, lakes, and oceans and types of water such as ice, snow, and rain.

Henrietta made another visit, but with Wolfgang this time. They also did a little role play based on true events. Wolfgang was digging in the sandbox and Henrietta asked him to play but he said “No, thank you” because he wanted to dig. Henrietta thought Wolfgang didn’t like her anymore and didn’t want to be her friend, but the children helped her change her thinking to realize that he did like her, he just didn’t want to play what she was playing. Sometimes it is hard to change the narrative in our heads, but with some practice we can stop the negative thoughts and begin to think positive thoughts.

We had a lot of fun enjoying the last days of winter playing in the mud and water from the melting snow and ice!