Three Special Days

Bear Day!

The evening before our annual Bear Day, I unfolded the Seattle Times and found the picture, below, on the front page. The next morning, we began our annual Bear Day by reading the article with the children. This 2 year old bear, recently separated from his mom, was found wandering between an elementary and middle school in Bothell. The children became very excited as they conjectured what could have drawn that young bear to the schools... Someone suggested that the bear cub was probably looking for our class at Seabury, knowing that we are the Bear Cubs and today would be our Bear Day celebration! We were delighted at the brilliance of young cubs! After enjoying our mutual recognition, we decided that it was good that the little bear was taken back up to the mountains to find a safer, more suitable home in which to roam.

While we were at Gathering, all these bears found places to hide in the classroom---Some were well camoflauged, others were barely peeking out of secret dens. Every child went off in search of three bears, then brought them back to the rug.

Indeed, "we're going on a bear hunt..."

We had Bear Centers to move between, keeping us beary busy...

Bear Foot painting was popular,

squishy,

and wonderfully messy!

We set the article on the science table for the children to look at. "I want to read this newspaper because this bear is awesome!," our Bear Cub told us.

We made Brown Bear cupcakes...

Where do you think most of the frosting went?

(Thanks to Sonja, there was plenty of chocolate frosting!)

Bearlicious!

We had so much fun making one, that we got to make a second cute cupcake bear to take home!

We made bear ears, which we proudly wore all day!

We each wrote our own name and "bear" on our headband.

And we each brought a bear from home to celebrate the day with us!

"I'm roaring like a big bear!"


And the best surprise of all---

Bailey Bear!

(just in from New Orleans)

What a great day...We had bear-rels of fun!

Spring Performance

"The Three Javelinas"

A former Bear Cub, now a lively little javelina!

Onstage with maracas...

We create the sounds of building the houses, this time with boomwhackers.

When the javelina settles into her house, we stop playing our instruments.
Everyone did such a fabulous job playing music, speaking their parts, and following their cues by using their eyes and ears to focus... Special thanks to Jessica Blackwood for her wonderful and patient teaching of music and drama to our young and eager children!

Sisters...
"Judith, Do you know that Grace is the best sister ever?"

Grandparents and Special Friends Day!

We began by making "Name Necklaces" with our grandparents and friends, then took each by the hand for a tour of our classroom "Art Show."

We put on our body vests as everyone came to the rug for a group time. We wanted to show how much we have learned about our bodies so we sang three "Body Songs" that Judith wrote and one by the musical group, Tickle Tune Typhoon.

Our favorite is the digestion song, which we sing with some sign language...

"Eat good food and chew, chew, chew..."

Our audience appreciates our singing and all we have learned.

We celebrate the circle of love we share with family and friends!

We all celebrate the circle of community!

Bear Hugs,

Judith

Putting our Hearts into Art...

With Artist-in-Residence,

Joni Joachims!

Joni guided our Bear Cubs through so many creative art explorations these past two weeks! Every project took a number of days to complete, and Joni always had the next activity ready to go while the first was drying. We had a fabulous time and learned so much!

We are taking care of all of our plants. As the weather warms we LOVE enthusiastically watering them!

We have been working with the decimal system, comparing the proportions of a single unit, a ten, one hundred and one thousand. We are composing numbers using numerals and wooden materials. A few of us are ready to see what happens if we add our quantities together!

Let's see... One of us brought 2365 and the other brought 1223. We'll start by adding the units... (counting while moving them one by one down to the bottom) That's 8! Let's put the big numeral here and add the tens. And so forth... All absolutely hands-on.

Wait a minute, something doesn't look quite right when we double check... Let's count those hundreds again!

We figured out the mistake and wrote down the addition problem... then did another one the next day. Wow, we agreed that this was a different kind of "big job!"

Remember those clay figures we made and painted last week? This week we painted an undersea background on cardboard, then glued our dried figures on.

We had to be s-o-o-o careful because our pieces were fragile!

We think that our seascapes are beautiful!

Joni traced around our bodies and showed us her talent by giving us quick facial and hair details. It is amazing to see what an artist can do with well placed simple lines! We then added lots of details that we needed to think about before drawing...

Next to our heads, Joni asked us to draw two things: something we liked to see and something we liked to smell. Above: "I like to see long green snakes crawling."

Below: "I like to smell a flower."

"I really liked seeing the Statue of Liberty."

"I like seeing AND smelling watermelon!"

"I like smelling an orange. I ate it and it's going down my esophagus!"

"Flowers smell good... and they're pretty to look at, too."

"I like seeing birds fly."

We adults never fully realize the influence we can have with our children, and what they might be absorbing from our choices!

On our first warm day, Cathy came to school with her jeans rolled up. Mid-way through the morning, our friend noticed and rolled up his own jeans. Later, when asked why he had decided to roll up his pant legs, he said, "I saw Cathy's and it was a good idea!"

What is that saying? Something about great minds thinking alike?!

Judith