Tomorrow is the day we gather up and head off into our New Year and I'm curious to see what these Nurseries will want to do when we are back together again. They have already been talking about planning for Shape Days, so I know that will be one of the first things on their agenda and that we will be creating their list soon.

Interestingly enough, there tends to be a lot of individual processing plus continued group work that happens over the long Winter Break — even though the Nurseries are apart from one another. It's just a little mysterious. I'll be interested to see how it plays out when we are back together again and they continue on into winter and spring.

For at least twenty five years, every year on the last day before our Thanksgiving break, the Antioch School — including siblings, parents, grandparents, grandfriends… — gathers for a feast of good food and communal celebration.

As for it's origins, our annual feast had it's beginnings years and years ago in my daughter's very own Kindergarten group. Those children decided to make a Thanksgiving for their parents and then cooked for days in preparation, freezing cranberry bread and apple pie along the way. The Kindergarten Thanksgivings that followed made for small gatherings during those early years. Then — thanks to the persistent lobbying of many nostalgic, reminiscing, and hungry ex-Kindergartners — it expanded throughout the whole school to include us all. Thank you, Jeanie Felker and those long ago students.

Now year-after-year, it's the Kindergarten plus the YG, OG, and Nursery who work  to prepare the feast of mashed potatoes, veggies, turkey, stuffing, cranberry relish, cranberry sauce, plus assorted pies for dessert. Friends and family are invited to come feast and bring a dish to share. 

This year, as the time got closer, I asked the Nurseries if they would like me to bring in my hand cranked grinder so we could make cranberry relish for the feast. The hand-cranked grinder had immediate appeal, but some said they didn't really like to eat cranberries. I explained that there would be other good things to eat and even if they didn't want to eat our cranberry relish, it would be something we could add to the school Thanksgiving Feast — and that some people would love it. They decided yes, grinding cranberries sounded great! But the concept of eating a Thanksgiving dinner at school was definitely something new to a lot of people. Even the word "feast" was a bit new for some. As mysterious as some of it may still be to a few, I can tell that they can all sense that they are part of something grand and important.

On Wednesday, they put six bags of cranberries through bowl after bowl of cold wash water, watching them float, removing any squishy ones, scooping out the rest to drain, and then finally adding sugar to simmer into sauce. On Thursday we washed another six bags of cranberries, scrubbed navel oranges and brought them down to the Art/Science room with Sarah so we could grind it all into relish.

Afterwards, Nurseries wanted to write their own special invitation to their families and referred to the gathering as their Cranberry Festival — which makes absolute sense if you have just finished processing twelve bags of cranberries. If you don't like cranberries, though, rest assured, there will be other things as well. Here is their invitation:

Dear Mamma, Daddy, Papa, Mom, Mommy, Grammy, Gammy, Pappa, Grampa, Gramma….

We want you to come to our Cranberry Festival… and our Thanksgiving feast!

We would like you to come to our school! This is for people to go to the Antioch School.

We like you to come to our school; we love you to come to our school.

We're going to have a nice dinner feast.

I love you.

Love,

Nurseries

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Kindergarten/Older Group partners is a long standing tradition at the Antioch School. It builds in the opportunity to mentor and be mentored, one-on-one connection, feelings of security, and of community. Several years ago we used this as a model to add Nursery/Younger Group partners at the school.

If you are a Nurseryer, having a YG partner can help relax and center you when you're sitting as part of an audience — and sometimes it can help the other way around as well. Plus, having YG partners can help expand the Nurseries feeling that they really are part of the larger Antioch School community.

One of the YGers, who was very much interested in getting partners going this fall, kept reminding Brian and me about putting Nursery partners in place. After the plans started moving along, he suggested that when  Nurseries had partners, they would be able to go to the Friday afternoon All School meetings. Perhaps he thought that having their own YG partners would help make this work for the Nurseries? Or maybe he wanted one more opportunity to connect?

Of course, some children already have connections with the YG through their siblings and friends, and of course YGers and Nurseries have been seeing each other around the play yards all year. To figure out who to match with whom, Brian invited YGers to fill out cards with their three top choices. Brian went through the cards to sort it out and match up the Nurseries.

One day last week, after I got the list from Brian, the Nurseries and I  went around our table at snack time and I read through the list of partners. People were positive and happy about it. Still some Nurseries wanted to talk about how they were feeling a little shy. We also talked about how some of the YG partners might be feeling a little shy too. So we decided that we would invite our partners to a popcorn and peanut snack on Friday and introduce ourselves to one another.

To get ready, several Nurseries spent that early morning popping popcorn and scooping it into brown paper bags. Others were busy around the room or building lego constructions to display in the hall for our All School Lego Friday. When the popcorn was bagged, we played outside and then came in for cleanup meeting. After the block area was put away and they had moved the rocking chairs to the side of the room, snack helpers and others helped spread out our huge quilt on the floor to expand our seating area from twelve to twenty-four. When our YG partners arrived, everyone decided that they liked the concept of an indoor picnic so much that they all voted to move the circle table out of the way and put down another huge bedspread.

It was a fine get-together and there was still a little time left for YG to join Nurseries outside on the Cycle Circle Side before they needed to head back in for music with Dennis. After YG went back in, Nurseries began asking when we could see YG Partners again.

This coming Monday the Nursery will be hosting the Dayton Philharmonic's string quartet in a performance of "The Land of XYZ." And, of course, our partners will be with us.

It was Rainbow Days all week in the Nursery with the additional excitement of Beggars Night on Monday evening in honor of the 31st. Over the last several weeks, Nurseries have been reporting their plans to dress-up as many different things from a bumble bee, a zombie, a Pokemon character, a princess, to a scary witch.

They came back on Tuesday morning a little tired, but quite soul satisfied. By Wednesday several people talked about having a headache, and one about a stomach ache: " I'm okay, I think I just ate too much chocolate."

Our rainbow cooking projects made for a lot of focused cutting with plastic serrated knives. First they made a beautiful — and delicious — Rainbow Fruit Salad on Tuesday, cutting up strawberries, purple grapes and honeydew melon on cutting boards. Several added in the canned, juice-only pineapple and mandarine oranges and one carefully measured two cups of frozen blueberries to finish it off.

On Friday morning we moved on to Rainbow Soup starting with one child opening and pouring in two cartons of vegetable stock in the big pot. Then they began cutting up fresh green beans, scallions, celery, and purple cabbage. There was one person who didn't just want to just peel the carrots from the school garden, but also took on the challenge of cutting a carrot into chunks with his plastic knife! With a great concentration of energy and focus, he did manage to saw off six pieces. We added in diced tomatoes and corn at the end.

Almost everyone wanted to try our Rainbow Fruit Salad, and Rainbow Soup when we had them for snacks.  Several wanted to concentrate on their favorite parts only and several liked it all and wanted seconds and thirds. On Friday afternoon, as Ben and I were using up leftovers, I remarked in passing to one child, after she had requested several helpings of each, "I think you really must be the fruit and vegetable girl." She nodded to me, but also clarified her stance by carefully informing me, "I like candy, too."

In honor of the season and with a nod to Halloween, on Monday I read the group The Winds' Child by Mark Taylor, illustrator, Erik Blegvad, which is a personal favorite of mine. We also read Rainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell. I would have to say that of all the many books that we read last week, their very favorite one was Harry Hungry by Steven Salerno.

Color Days are over. We have already talked about making applesauce, or maybe apple pie with some of our Peifer apples. I know that one day in the coming weeks Nurseries will want me to bring in my hand cranked apple peeler/corer/slicer for them to help process the apples. There is always something magical — and at the same time demystifying —about using a hand powered machine that you can actually see into as it does its work, at the same time you are feeling the oomph of your own muscles making it all happen.

For young children, Halloween time can pull you right in. Take the amazing process of watching leaves turn color and fall as you smell the seasons change, add in dress-up excitement, potential excess (candy and staying up late), a Beggar's Night walk with family, knocking on doors, the coziness of getting cold and warming up again, apple cider, the scariness of skeletons and ghosts, plus whatever else seeps in from the surrounding popular culture —  then add in a great big dose of anticipation with a sudden "B00!" at the end and you have a volatile, wondrous mix.

As a child, the joyous stress of it made it one of my favorite celebrations, as a Nursery teacher… maybe not so much. That volatile edge can be a difficult one for children in a group to navigate as the days get closer and closer to the 31st. However, for whatever reason, these particular children have made it through much more easily than many in years past.

We celebrated the season in our usual low-key harvest way with a trip to Peifer's Orchard. John's tractor pulled all of us in the big farm wagon down the long lane to one of the pumpkin patches where each of the children picked a pumpkin and brought it back to the wagon. Further down the lane we each (parents included) got to pick an apple from one of the trees to eat on the long ride back. It's a sweet Antioch Nursery tradition that continues from long, long ago.

These are young children, many of whom are pretty new to being in a group of peers. Many are also developmentally young enough that they have to really stretch in order to see much beyond "me," "myself," and "I."  As young and new to group experience as many are, they are still beginning to understand that they can solve problems in ways that are far beyond putting down paper towels for a milk spill. They're beginning to understand that yelling, crying, or physical force with one another may not work as well as talking. I know this is coming to them with — a lot of, a lot of, a lot of — continuing practice and hard repetitive work. A problem, at least for right now, usually means a conflict: someone is using something that someone else wants, or someone has taken something that someone else was using.

On Wednesday, two Nurseries had a scuffle at the swings. I walked over and asked, "Is everything, okay?" already knowing it was not.

Neither was happy! Loud voices objected to one another — and to me! One person walked (stormed) off!

The remaining person said, "She pushed me off."

"Would you like to talk with her?"

"Yes," he said. This yes is a big part of the process, since, often at this time of the year, people do not want to follow through and will tell me, "No," even with my encouragement toward a meeting.

We walked over slowly together and the other child who left the swings was waiting by the sand box. This is also big part, since often children are overwhelmed by the idea of someone needing a meeting with them and they will want to continue to walk away and to refuse.

At the sand box, their feelings had softened a bit. They began to talk, then their feelings began to escalate again, their voices got big again, and instead of talking with one another, they wanted to complain to me about what the other had done. I said, "Just use your regular voices," and encouraged them to look at each other (not me) when they talked and to say the other's name. By asking questions when needed, I did my best to translate what they were saying to one another.

They talked some more, and they both said "Yes," when I asked if everything was okay, but I could tell it wasn't quite resolved in either of their minds. Indeed a few minutes later and they were moving into one another's space on the blue climber. They were upset and becoming angry.

We began again, but this time when they talked, they used their real voices directed to one another, not dramatized at one another for my benefit.

One child quietly said, "I didn't like it when you pushed me," referring back to the incident at the swing.

A heartfelt, "I understand," came the reply.

The other child spoke, saying the same exact thing, "I didn't like it when you pushed me," also referring back to the swing.

The first child also said a soft, "I understand."

I repeated what I had said earlier, "It sounds like you both were uncomfortable about being pushed," and then I added, "but how will you solve the problem?"

They both looked at me quizzically — like I had just sprouted a third eyeball in the middle of my forehead — and then said, in chorus, "We already did."

Not quite sure in my own mind what the solution was and wanting to be certain everything really was okay, I asked, "How?"

Together, and very matter-of-factly, they said, "We talked."

"Sounds good," I said and walked off.

They played the rest of the afternoon together, non-stop.

To myself I thought, "Remarkable, one is not much more than three and a half and the other is not quite four, we're only eight weeks into the year, and just a few days from Halloween and they have already made this profound discovery together."

Next week we are celebrating Rainbow Days and then we are rolling along toward Thanksgiving!

"Ann, would you like me to tell you a story, a funny story?"

"Yes, I would. Let me get a pencil and piece of paper."

"Okay…," she continued:

"Once upon a time there was a boy. And the boy ate some paper, and then he ate a book. And then the boy ate a necklace. And then the boy ate everyone! Was that funny? Yes!" she said in answer to her own question.

As you can see, story telling continues. Sometimes I have a pencil and paper handy and sometimes I don't. I missed several beautifully crafted ones last week. However, I'm coming to terms with the fact that sometimes my role is scribe and sometimes a listener is what they need. Their stories are evolving. Dragons are still a popular theme. We also had several last week with cupcakes as characters.

When you are three and four — and older! — it can be difficult to truly understand how something you truly love is not even acceptable for someone else. Last week several children told the group that stories with zombies were just too scary. It took several days for the zombie lovers to turn their ship, but now the group has moved into stories without zombies. We also talked about how you can always tell those stories outside so people who aren't comfortable can go somewhere else. Outside is big — unlike the snack table! If zombies do appear at the snack table, someone will object and the zombies disappear again.

This all makes a fine social laboratory. Out of their story telling and living their days together, individual children are beginning to really see one other in more complex ways. As a young child, you begin to realize that those other people might not always want to do the things you think of and plan for. You also begin to understand that other people's ideas might be fun and interesting also. But then sometimes their ideas aren't that fun or interesting to you. Sometimes they're bothersome — or even scary. Sometimes you have to say stop! Or sometimes they have to say stop to you and you have to listen to them!

It's a lot to figure out together. If you are a young child living your days with eleven other peers, it is complicated brain work that you are doing. It's a study in give and take. It builds people connections as well as neural connections — plus it makes for a lot of fun along the way.

We celebrated one of our several October birthdays last week with delicious, nutritious, homemade cupcakes at snack and also made our own delicious, gluten free, golden honey muffins. Nurseries painted on silver foil and took off with a variety of golden paints.

Along with a lot of outside play and inside arts and crafts and imaginative play, big block constructions have begun in earnest. After a few collapses, Nurseries are getting the idea of how to work on their own — or together — to make their buildings stable. 

Next week we move from Silver and Gold into Orange and Black. A trip to Peifer's Orchard with a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch is planned for Monday morning. We've read Tasha Tutor's Pumpkin Moonshine in preparation. They have also planned to bake and eat a pumpkin pie. For Black they had me put black grapes on their shopping list. I found two different varieties. And the following week we are off into Rainbow Days!

We are moving right along through our Color Days. We made mashed potatoes and steamed rice for White. A number of Nurseries also discovered that they LOVE cream cheese on crackers. Kindergartners brought us gluten free biscuits they made on Tuesday. On Pastel Days there were many cantaloupe and honeydew eaters. We finished up the Peanut Butter Playdough (pastel brown) that we made the week before.

This coming week will be Silver and Gold which are always a bit more of a stretch in terms of food choices: It will be Asian pears, golden raisins, and they thought gluten free animal cookies would also work. For silver we will use lots of aluminum foil and bake muffins in silver muffin cups.

Outside there is much enjoyment of sun, sand, running/chasing games, Ga Ga Ball for some, and lots of triking! Inside there are many books being looked at and listened to, painting at the easel, imaginative play, and lots of puzzle working. One child has moved into working and reworking an 80 piece jigsaw including others along the way. They are also beginning to have me write their words at times so they can post them on their constructions to let the others know they should not to take them apart.

Last week their snacks times have become a time for them to share stories they make up on the spot. Spontaneous, evolving and improvised off of one another, their stories have a beginning, middle, and end! How unusual for these ages and so early in the year.

To my adult ears the themes are intense! They love the drama and and share their comic relief at the end. There are bad dragons; spooky, haunted houses; tiny, tiny things, so, so small that grow big, and bigger and enormous and then EXPLODE. They take turns, listen intently and then laugh uproariously as each child proclaims, "The end."

They picked up this, "The end," as a finishing touch from one of our first story tellers. I think this is one of the very useful pieces that has helped keep the pace moving along so everyone knows that they will get a turn. And turn takers they are. The first few story-telling snack times there were just a few presenters. Now more and more are joining in!

I will continue to write as quickly as I can to make a record, and keep you posted. Often times I see this kind of love of story telling evolve into wanting to dictate plays and then wanting to perform them for one another and the Kindergarten.

Here are three out of many of their stories from last week:

"There was a mean Dragon. He ate everybody. And one day he lost his temper. So they moved to a different world. There were good dragons there. And he ate all the good dragons. The end."

"Once upon a time there was a fish and if you flinged it, it turns into a huge flying dragon. The end."

"There was a mean old crocodile. And that old crocodile, every night and every day, the crocodile… when he would see a flying fish, he would turn into a vampire and he would eat the flying fish. The end"

Remember: to get the full flavor, supply the laughter as each story ends!

The Nurseries had a grand time with Grandfriends Day last Friday. While we waited for people to arrive, the children spontaneously decided to decorate the room with different colored papers on the seats of each rocking chair. They also hung Link and Learn chains from the doors and chairs, and made cut outs to attach around the room with tape. One child also made a sled out of white paper with an very long pipe cleaner handle on which she carefully placed a stack of different colors of paper squares. As grandfriends arrived in the Nursery, she would pull her sled over and welcome them in with a smile and friendly query, "What's your favorite color?" With each new person she would sort through her stack and present them with the color of their choice.

There was a lot of drawing in all the classrooms which helped create pages for a memory book in honor of the day. Later on the entire school gathered outside in the cool sunshine for OG performances, plus guitar and fiddle music with Deborah and Karl Colón. Children jigged and twirled. They had admiring adults to share their school with, plus tea cakes to choose in a seemingly endless buffet, and tea to drink from delicate cups (with honey or sugar!) It really was a lovely child's — and adult's — event.

Earlier in the day, during the last of the Grandfriends Day preparations, one Nurserer took me over to the Tire Swing Side announcing he needed to get something. I thought he had left a toy from earlier in the morning, but, no, it was the Super Tread Trike he wanted. When we got there, the Younger Groupers were in the finishing stages of gathering all the trikes in front of the Trike Shed so they could get locked up for the day's festivities. They gently explained to him, "We don't want any Grandfriends to get hit." [In traffic]

What my Nursery friend could actually feel at that moment was how much he wanted his favorite trike. He moaned, "Nooo….," and planted himself squarely.

Another YG trying to help it make sense to him, said straight-forward and clear, "Sometimes, rules are just rules." It was an important job that he had taken on and he did not want his work undone.

At that point another YG came around the corner with a last trike. She was winded, and the other YGers explained that it had rolled down the hill and she really had to work to get it back. Interestingly enough, my Nursery friend had done this difficult job the day before and he knew how tough a job it could be. I hoped he was tracking on this piece.

I reinforced what hard work it was to get them all back for Grandfriends' Day and asked the YGers who would be putting them away. "Older Groupers," was the reply. I threw out the idea that we could be OG for this job.

"No," said the Nurseryer, still squarely planted.

Most of the YGers had headed off, job accomplished. One YGer stayed and consciously modeling, began to move trikes into the Trike Shed. I began to do the same. He and I talked together about the puzzle of making them all fit.

I could tell that the Nurseryer was taking all this in and was processing. A moment later he said, "I'm driving it in like my grampa and his truck." He had seen beyond himself into a larger picture. He had let go of the very powerful feelings of what he wanted in the moment, to help accomplish an important job on a busy exciting day. I watched him as he became just a little bit more woven into the fabric of the whole school community.

What was so obvious to me in all this was how essential the older students' voices, gentle explanations, very clear boundaries ("Sometimes, rules are just rules."), and modeling behaviors are for the younger children. The YGers in the midst of their own very busy day, were able to help a Nurseryer make sense of it all and in a way that was deeper and beyond what an I could have done alone in that moment.

Earlier in the week, I needed to be out with a virus and missed both of our Purple Days. For a Purple Day snack we had planned Purple Cow (a small scoop of vanilla ice-cream, a spoonful of grape juice concentrate, plus seltzer for fizz.). When I got back on Wednesday I got a note they had dictated while they were eating it the day before: "These things are delicious! We are eating Purple Cows! Will you come back soon? Come outside! I brought my lamb and I liked the Purple Cow. I miss Ann! This ice cream was yummy. The purple cow is Awesome. I love you Ann, and I hope you come back tomorrow."

It is a very sweet note from friends. What is interesting to me is that, together, the children are becoming very adventurous in trying out new foods and combinations they have never experienced. I predict it will be a cooking group!  For Brown Days we made peanut butter playdough (to shape and eat) plus brownies made in cupcake tins. Brown pears were a favorite as well.

Next week they want mostly old favorites and comfort foods for White and Pastel Days: Mashed potatoes, white rice ("The sticky and dry kinds!") rice cakes, bananas, apples without peels, white cheese, cream cheese colored with mashed strawberries (for pink) plus honeydew and cantaloupe.

Nurseries made a blueberry pie for Blue last Monday and most of the Nurseries actually ate it! This can be a bit unusual for children these ages. The idea is appealing to them, but the actuality is just too much of a palate stretch for some.  We celebrated Ben's birthday by singing him Happy Birthday at snack time, while he enjoyed his blueberry pie.

On Friday we celebrated our last Green day by making cheesy burritos (with green shells of course). The cooks spread pesto on a few. They were a bit skeptical at first, but by the afternoon snack several gave the pesto ones a try and found they liked them! Expanding food horizons!

The rest of the week rolled along to the backdrop of Blue and Green with play dough, painting, collages, and lots of imaginative play in the loft and kitchen corner. There was a good amount of rain that left long anticipated puddles and mud. We were inside during the thundery downpours, but they celebrated the sprinkles and showers with outside rain dances. There were raincoats and water proof boots and lots of work in mud and puddles (along with a number of muddy clothes changes) throughout the week.

This Thursday, Sarah had out lots of boxes, cardboard tubes, masking tape and packing supplies up on the stage area in Art/Science. There was a focus on fort building and other construction, plus of wood working and art supplies.

We are reading lots and lots of books: Blueberries for Sal, Green Eyes, the Harry the Dirty Dog series, Do Not Open this Book, and Do Not Close this Book are just a few. One of their current favorite songs is "Five Fat and Freckled Frogs."

Ben often starts off our afternoons by playing quiet piano to their Rest Time activities around the room. Or we put on a quiet CD. It helps shape their play and gives them a relaxed time before after-lunch stories and their more active plans later in the afternoon.

Their energy can also begin to ramp up at the very end of the day after we have finished snack and our last story time of the day. They're tired after a busy day, and, of course, they're anticipating their Moms' or Dads' or Grammas' or Grampas' arrivals. Tension starts to build with this end-of-the-day transition. When she saw this beginning to happen last Thursday, one Nurseryer suggested, "Ann, put on some quiet music. Yes, quiet music, that would be a good thing!"  We did and it was!

Nursery Color Days started off last week with Red and moved on to finish the week with Yellow. The Nurseries' shopping list for red was mostly fruits and veggies: strawberries, red pepper, red apples, red tomatoes, cherries, raspberries and watermelon.

They also wanted a pizza shell plus red sauce and cheese to make their own pizza. On Tuesday they assembled it all, rubbing on the oil, sprinkling on handfuls of shredded cheese, and spooning on the red sauce. They worked together to carry it to our cart and then pushed it down the long hall to the Art/Science room to bake it in the big oven.

For yellow they had me get bananas, yellow apples, a lemon, yellow tomatoes, pears, and yellow pepper. They also wanted to make corn bread, which they did on Friday. They cracked the eggs (three of them!), measured the corn meal, the oil, and milk, mixed it all up and took turns scooping the batter into the muffin tins.

They love these cooking projects. The important work of them, the anticipation of them, and the actual smell and the taste of them. Cooking also gathers them together in a highly motivated state for a lot of practice with turn taking. They get to practice over and over that everyone gets to measure, everyone gets to stir, and so on. They get to experience the yumminess of what results. Somehow the process seems satisfying even if it doesn't always hit the mark of their own personal taste. They can see the others enjoying it.

We had extra corn muffins and I asked them if they would like to share them with the Kindergartners for their own morning snack. They all said "Yes!" and then Nurseries worked together to carry the plate next door and distribute muffins around the table. Feeding people is important work and all along the way from Nursery to Kindergarten, no one jostled or was jostled in a stray urge to be first or most. None of the muffins fell off the plate along the way! It was one more great opportunity for a cooperative experience as they choreographed their careful walk from here to there. The Kindergarten sent us a thank you note:

Dear Nursery,

Thank you for the muffins. Yum! Corn bread! We really liked it. Mmmmm! Thank you! Very much! Thanks for having enough for Kindergarten.

Love,

Kindergarten

That afternoon the Kindergartners brought over little lemon ices from the fresh lemon juice they had squeezed, and had then frozen onto toothpicks. We all thought they were wonderful — especially at the end of our sweaty, hot Friday. Nurseries responded with their own thank you note:

Dear Kindergartners,

The popsicles were splendid! We will give you a note. They look like boats. Those were so good, I can't stop eating them. The popsicles had a stick in them and I took it out. It looks like ice-cream.

Love,

Nurseries

We've already been to the Art/Science room with Sarah for three Thursday mornings. They have done paper making, lots of painting, wood working, making marble runs, and have worked with clay. They are getting more and more familiar with the room itself and the wealth of possibilities it contains. They are also becoming comfortable with the layout of the building. Of course, we all walk down together to start, but they also tell Sarah and me their plans to walk back to Nursery on their own in order to put a project in their cubbies, or pick up their tide-me-over snack to bring back to Art/Science to eat. It is a sought out responsibility and they love it.

We also had our first musical interlude with Dennis Farmer singing and counting out rhythms and playing with the musical scale in what will become our routine of saying goodbye at the end of our time together. Music with Dennis will be a regular thing every Thursday morning after Art/Science with Sarah and our morning snack.

Next week is Blue and Green! Among their inspired food choices — from blue apples (many thought this was impossible, but I said I would look) to green grapes — Nurseries are looking forward to their plan to make blueberry pie and cheesy green burrito wraps... with pesto for some.