This morning we continued the multi-step process of making grape juice! Using the grapes that the Nickerson’s brought in, each friend had a chance to mash ’em up!

We combined all the grapes into a big pot and mashed some more…

With Melinda’s help, friends strained the juice from the pulp. She put the grapes on the stove to simmer slowly throughout the morning. We’re hoping to be able to finish the juice for our afternoon snack! F.1.3 Observe and describe properties of objects. F.3.1 Participate in activities using materials with a variety of properties (e.g., color, shape, size, name, type of material). F.3.2 Investigate and talk about the characteristics of matter (e.g., liquids and solids, smooth and rough, bend-not bend).

A small group of friends read The Napping House by Audrey Wood.

The book tells the story of a Granny who goes to sleep in a bed. Over the course of the story, a child, a dog, cat, mouse and other sleeping creatures all join her in the same bed. By the end of the book, there is a mile high pile of sleepers on top of granny! After reading the book, everyone chose a stuffed animal to represent the characters in the book. First we explored balance – how many stuffed animals could we stack before the pile fell? Next, we stacked the animals from largest on the bottom to smallest on the top. We discovered a triangle shape when the last pile was complete and discussed – what makes a triangle? F.4.6 Sort by one attribute (e.g., size, shape, color). F.4.7 Sort a group of objects by more than one way. F.2.1 Identify “first” and “last.” F.2.13 Break apart a whole quantity of something into a set. F.2.14 Combine a whole quantity of something (e.g., pop beads). F.4.7 Sort a group of objects by more than one way.

Next week we will begin an Apple Study. We’ll kick it off with our final (for now!)juicing experience, apples!

Remember us when recycling old glass jars- we are starting a collection for an upcoming activity!

For lunch today, we served peanut butter and honey sandwiches on whole wheat bread, pea pods and pineapple. Have a pleasant weekend!

For the past few days WF/WWF have heard Macy cry out from the WWF playhouse: “Anyone want lemonade?!” Today, Paulina built a sensorial packed lesson around Macy’s intrigue.

With friends gathered around, Paulina laid out several pieces of felt in varying shades of yellow and green. She read El Verde Limon, by Alma Flor Ada. She asked friends to examine a lemon: it’s color, texture, scent and finally, it’s taste! They cut the lemon in half and studied the lemon seeds. After each friend had a chance to taste the lemon, they began the juicing process.

After collecting the juice from 4 lemons, they added water and mixed.

After adding a bit of sugar, it was ready to go!

CHEERS!!!!!!!!!!!!

With the remaining lemon rinds, we invited WF to create art.

Throughout the study, Paulina introduced Spanish words for the names of the colors and fruit being explored. As they juiced, they sang “turning, turning, turning…” The conversation continued after lunch when the older friends journaled about the recipe from this morning.

Other WF News!

Our chrysalis hatched this morning!

For lunch today we served melted ham and cheese on whole wheat tortillas, corn on the cob (thank you, Lisa!), pears….and fresh lemonade!

Have a great day!

We had such a great science afternoon that I am writing a quick second blog so you can see and talk with your kids tonight about the cool things that happened.

Outside, Owen found a huge preying mantis. The preying mantis allowed me to hold him for just a minute and then we examined him for quite awhile on a bucket. In the picture, I’d like to believe that he was surrendering to his admirers, but it’s more likely he was saying “Back Off!”.

Now we have to wonder if the preying mantis is one of our babies from the “Preying Mantis Fiasco” of 2009. We had gotten a sac of preying mantis eggs in fall 2008. The egg sac lived in science room in a jar until late May 2009 when I needed the jar for another science find. Thinking the egg sac was a dud, I put him on the kitchen window sill. However, if I had done my research about this, I would have know that the preying mantis hatches in early June. Alas, one morning Melinda opened WF with around 300 preying mantis babies running around the kitchen! Of course, we captured and released them into our garden and sent around 150 back to the farm.

A little later, the we closely examined the WWF Monarch Butterfly that hatched earlier in the day.

Inside a few other cool things took place this afternoon:

Our WF Monarch chrysalis was moving back and forth on its own. It is clearly ready to hatch.

We took grapes off their stems in anticipation of making juice with them. Thank you Nickersons for the grapes and idea. (Would anyone really mind if we tried our hands at wine…just a thought:)

We had our regular snack, but I wanted to see how the kids felt about pumpkin smoothies and whether it would merit being a WF snack food. And I really wanted a pumpkin smoothie for myself! So I whipped up a batch and we did a taste test. Overwhelmingly, the children said they loved them. Kathy, Annie’s mom, asked that I post the recipe:

Pumpkin Smoothie Recipe

1 c pure pumpkin

2 frozen bananas

1 c stonyfield organic french vanilla

1 1/2 ice cubes

1/2 tsp or so of allspice

and some sweetener to taste: for kids I use honey or pure maple syrup, for me I use some splenda because I’m sensative to sugar.

Fun day to be a WF teacher!

Have a wonderful evening,

Tami

Today we started our morning with paint: toes and water color pictures. Earlier this summer, Miss Melinda had promised the children that she would paint her toe nails sparkly purple at the end of the summer. True to her word she came to work yesterday with bright sparkly purple toes! Today she brought the nail polish and had some time with each willing child to paint their nails purple.

While Melinda was painting toes and fingers, six children at a time gathered at the art table for some water color painting. We talked about the proper technique to get the most color from the water color trays and how to control the paint on the paint brushes. Children also worked at writing their name on their paint pictures.

This morning was also YMCA swim lessons for the older children. This meant we had our maiden voyage in the Weehicle. It was a great adventure for the children to ride in the BIG new van!

While at swim today, Kai had an exceptionally great swim day and met a few new swimming milestones: he dove 5 feet deep into the water to retrieve a diving ring (multiple times) AND he did a perfect form jump dive off the side of the pool. Both amazing accomplishments for a just turned 5 year old!

Miss Laurie is still out sick today. We wish her a speedy recovery.

Reminder: Tomorrow is farm on the new revised farm schedule. This means we have Kai, Owen, Jane, Macy, Annie, Ada, Simon, Alma, and Arleigh schedule to go. Please remember to arrive no later than 9:15 dressed in layered clothes. The forecast is 71 degrees with a 30% chance of showers.

For lunch today we had whole wheat toast, egg/hash brown casserole and watermelon.

Enjoy your day!