Friday, Friday

Day #2 was fairly successful, though I think the second day of any new thing is always a little bit of a letdown. On first days everything is so new and so exciting, and the excitement always wears off a little by the second day. However, the kids did well and did work for a LONG time! They washed their hands and we began circle time with the Days of the Week and Months of the Year, and Norah seemed to be following fairly well (my kids know these songs very well, but enjoyed having something to do when the particular day/month was sung). I demonstrated how to carry a rug (with two hands, vertically) and then they were free to choose work. Again today, they all did a little of everything. Norah worked for quite a while at cutting with scissors (she told me she was going to cut all the strips in the basket, and she actually did!) and then flitted back and forth for the rest of the session. Getting a lesson is a popular thing right now, and the kids were asking for lots of lessons so they could use new works. However, I realize that I still haven't given a lesson on all the works on the shelves to each kid, so there are more lessons to come! I will continue to introduce new works slowly over the course of the year, but right now the kids are becoming acclimated to what is on the shelves.

As I said above, they worked for a long time, about 2 hours, and I think I should have stopped the work period before that...by the time we had the last circle time they were all a little antsy. But they were still wanting to work, which is why I let it go so long. Next time, I think 90 minutes works about right, at least for now. We will work up to two work periods of 90 minutes on either side of circle time...but that is for the future. And, that is only a goal. We'll see how much work the kids can actually handle!

Norah cutting with scissors. She took over Lucy's spot from yesterday for a while this morning.
We had quite a long reading session in the middle of the work period. Gene and Lucy read to themselves, and then I read a couple books to all the kids.
Lucy having snack. We had grapes and graham crackers again, and we will probably change up snack a little bit next week (maybe raisins and graham crackers).
The control cards do make it easy. Notice there are only 5 grapes on Lucy's plate...the control card kept her from taking ALL the grapes left in the bowl, so Norah could have her snack too.