We arrived to a Monday morning surprise. The butterfly had emerged overnight from the chrysalis we found last week. It was so exciting to watch it fly around. Sadly one of its’ wings is damaged, so it would not survive out in the world, so we have kept it in its’ enclosure. Our original research said on average a butterfly lives for about 2 weeks, but upon identifying it as a white admiral butterfly, it has been discovered that this particular species typically lives for 4 months.

The weather brought clouds and just right temperatures – not too hot and not too cold. We love being able to put on shoes and run outside to grab a bike and race around, do some digging, make some mud, collect some creatures, and go on adventures with friends.

During sign with Rose on Tuesday the children practiced the alphabet, spelled some names, signed and sang “Sally the Camel”, and read a story about Franklin the Turtle.

We ran through our Bee presentation, but focusing these last few weeks are hard, so we are minimizing things to keep it brief. The children have learned a lot about bees and are excited to share all of their knowledge.

We had two spanish 4 students from the high school visit to tell us about Puerto Rico and symbols that have been found painted on rocks that were used to tell stories. They shared some rocks they painted and showed us symbols to represent agua (water), caricol (snail), rana (frog), sol (sun), tortuga (turtle) and bebe (baby). They showed us some rocks they had painted, then each child got a rock to paint with symbols, and then a pot and dish to paint and plant some marigolds they brought.

Kindergarten students and some future kindergarteners worked on their reading, writing, sentence formation, continent maps, number work, etc. Each day they did a brief focus activity then spent time on work of their choice.

Our last Friday science was focused on the final sense – taste. The children tasted a variety of food items including cheese, black beans, ham, pretzels, olives, chocolate, lime, orange, apple, peach and dragon fruit. They shared whether it was sweet, salty, sour, savory, or bitter. They also explored texture, both in their hands and in their mouths, and smell. The final food item we hoped to taste was a coconut, and we had fun drilling out the eyes to drain the water, then cracking it open, but unfortunately it was moldy so we didn’t get to taste it.

xx