The Triangle Classroom

The week begins in April, but we can't wait until May!  On Monday, April 29   Abby will read a couple of lovely gardening books, including Lola Plants a Garden and Green Green: a Community Gardening Story. There will be some planting in our rain garden as well as some planting to take home! A wonderful, earthy day to take us out of April ... and into MAY! The merry month of May begins this week - Wednesday is May first! Or, it WAS May first until we decided it was better off MAE first! Today, we celebrate the small but mighty human Mae. We will make sure to have her favorite table choices, and her favorite stories to share. Welcome to the first annual Mae Day! When Susan's child Emma was little, she started announcing "Emma Carpenter Days" on a random maybe twice-yearly basis. Infrequently enough that it was special, but not that built up in her expectations. I would just casually announce in the morning that in checking the calendar I had found that it was EC Day...

"...a dream come true" when asked by her daddy how bike day was   

This week, April 22 - 26, is our last full week of April and packed full of fun! Monday is EARTH DAY! Abby will read the Curious Garden and the children will learn a butterfly song. Did you know we have our caterpillars? Soon, we will be enjoying and then releasing our own sweet butterflies, all while learning about their fascination life cycle. There will be a special Earth Day art activity set for this day as well.  WEDNESDAY IS BIKE DAY Important information about Bike Day: Each child should have a bike, scooter, and helmet to participate in our biking portion of bike day. There will be a track drawn in the parking lot by our lovely volunteer parents, and well as a very exciting ramp to test those dare devils. A bike/scooter washing station, complete with sponges and rags, will be set up, as well as a place to enjoy bubbles. The extended forecast shows nothing but blue skies and 60 degree temperature. Perfect! On Friday, we will have some spring cleaning activities. Children ca...

Thank you parents for all the extra laundry you must have done this week, and all the bootfuls of water you emptied. The children had a lovely time in the mud and rain water.  One piece rain suits that easily zip right over coats (like Muddy Buddy/Tuffo) are be best invention sinced sliced bread. It increases participation in active outdoor learning 100%.  More soggy fun next week? Bring it!

One of our big projects this spring is the installation of a rain garden in our playground. The design and inspiration came from someone in our parent community (I bet you can guess who), and the installation will come from all the children and teachers. In preparation for all of this, we will need to see some rain gardens in action. On Wednesday, we will head to West Park on Chapin Street. Click HERE to see all of the water features and plants we may see! On Wednesday, like all field trip days, we will meet at the location at 10:00a.m. Once we are done exploring the park, we'll find a nice spot to picnic. There is NO red parent snack this day - all families will bring their own picnic. The story Abby will read on Monday will introduce the topic. There is a newly published book that is just perfect!  On Friday, we will plant some flowers and plants that do well in rain gardens. Be sure to bring your gardening gloves, little ones!

Rain, Rain Come and Stay These Little Children  Want to Jump and Play! We will continue our studies of the cloudy skies, and are grateful for all the rain we receive for the spring flowers and new growth. Or, at least we try to be. Children are grateful for any opportunity to play - and if it is rainy outside, we can stilly find a way to have fun.  In fact, on Wednesday of this week, we will have PUDDLE DAY! Abby will bring her pool and we will have an opportunity to stomp around in the pool with our rain boots, and use pails to bail out the water. We have so many books yet to share! This week's storytimes will feature Cloudette, The Cloud Book, Little Cloud, The Cloud Artist, and a few more. Who knew there were SO many fiction and non-fiction books written about clouds?  We've been experimenting with all types of art materials lately - many different types of paints, different sorts of clays and playdoughs, and using materials in a different way (melting crayons, for in...