Beating the heat at the Huck...Hank enjoys the water!
Andrew Mesa
The girls -- Emma, Charlotte and Anna
Ready for a job! Charlotte "does" Ila's hair.
Where's Lily? Too busy trying to splash the photographer (yours truly) to actually make it in to the shot. Wish we had water play at Fleishman!
"Daddy, you're the best daddy in the whole, wide world."
"Mommy, you are my favorite friend."
Ahh...
I'm sure that in about 11 years, when our darling angel becomes a (GASP!) teenager, we'll need to refer back to this posting to remember that yes, indeed, we were once loved.
While she's not exactly as cuddly as she was as an infant, she's efusive with her adoration.
What did we do to deserve this? I'm not exactly sure. But the feeling is definitely mutual. And until she decides that we have "cooties" and are just totally embarassing, Noah and I are both soaking up all the intense toddler love that flows in our direction.
And I've got to hand it to her, when she draws with crayon on the coffee table...colors the dog with sidewalk chalk...or leaves us too-gross-to-write-about "treats" in her underwear....just when you want to strangle the kid she will look up at you and smile and say, "But I love you."
She's got us just where she wants us. And yes, my middle name actually is sucker!
Dear Parents,
This week was filled with astronomical fun as the earthlings orbited about the room learning all they could about the planets, stars, astronauts and martians! Our room was loaded with a galaxy of books for more learning fun. Here are some of our favorite reads of the week: I Want to be an Astronaut, Mars, Seeing Stars, I'll Catch the Moon, I Love our Earth, The Moon, and Our Stars.
Our shining stars were particularly great at matching star shapes with their constellations such as Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Orion, Pegasus and Taurus. Each took a turn looking through the telescope to get a close up look at each one. The awesome astronomers also did a bang-up job counting the number of stars that made up each constellation. One star we are all familiar with and love so much is the sun! We learned that the sun is a very bright star that provides our earth with warmth and sunlight each day. Around the craft table, our star studded students enjoyed creating and decorating their own unique stars.
We worked on the positional words -- above, below, on, and beside. Each Strawberry chose a card with one of these four words and then place the astronaut around the moon according to the word on the card. Later, we got up and tried to keep our blowup earth ball suspended in the air for as long as possible. We also each took a turn being the sun and earth and watched the Strawberries demonstrate how the earth orbits and spins around the sun.
We did some interesting things with "moon rocks." We pretended to be geologists while examining the rocks in muffin pans with magnifying glasses and tongs. Of course we wore our safety goggles and gloves to protect our hands and eyes from any "space dust" that made have been on the moonrocks. Touching and seeing the rocks gave us an idea to sort them by size and texture, and we created our own moon rocks by painting them with gray paint.
Lastly, it wouldn't be space talk without Mars and Martians! The Strawberries really had fun creating their own martians and creating an out of this world martian handshake much like Mork's, "na-noo na-noo." We made a groovy sponge painting of Mars and adding some Martians to the mural.
Universally, we had a great week! Next week food will make it's way to the forefront with talk of Food Groups!
Have a great weekend!
The Strawberry Teachers
Summer's would not be complete without some good pool fun...
...and a trip to the beach with family....
...some blueberry picking on the 4th of July...
...and, of course, good friends!
I never thought that this day would come...I mean I knew it eventually would, but maybe in another decade...but it appears as if Lily is teetering on the edge of being potty trained. For a process that started more than one year ago, I'm deliriously thrilled!
She woke up yesterday morning and threw a fit when the pull-ups came out, insisting on wearing underpants. I practically started breakdancing but tried to play it cool with her -- sure. whatever you want, Lily. (inside I was doing back flips!)
Yes, she had two accidents at school yesterday, but she was dry when I arrived and stayed dry for the rest of the evening. I held my breath the entire way home in the car. It's one thing to throw sheets and clothes in to the washing machine...another thing entirely to have to get urine out of a car seat. But she managed to stay dry on the way home last night and again on the way in to school this morning. Miracle of all miracles!
We had a bonding moment last night when we baked brownies -- with sprinkles and gummy bears on top...chefs choice -- to bring in to school today. What better way to celebrate this major life moment than to down a little chocolate with your buddies?
Day 2 of "Operation Underwear" started off brilliantly. Today, Lily is the one breakdancing!
"Mommy, if I can't say 'goddammit' at school, can I say 'goddammit' at home?"
Hello...can you say MORTIFICATION?
Amid total panic that she actually would utter those words at school (lest they think we're totally rotten parents!), I proactively fessed up to one of Lily's teachers that the G-D word had been used and that we'd talked about how it wasn't a nice word.
Just as I was about to back out of the classroom with my tail between my legs, the teacher chuckled and told me that one of Lily's classmates shouted "Oh Shit!" when she fell off her cot just days before.
And they're only two...
Speaking of classmates, here's the latest installment of the Huckleberry Cheesecake weekly Strawberry Newsletter. Enjoy!
PS -- new photos to come soon once I learn how to upload from my new camera.
Dear Strawberry Parents,
It was a flag waving week as we celebrated America's birthday! The taste of hot dogs and apple pie were still the lingering flavors in our mouths. We jumped right into some super circle time fun with sorting and grouping star shapes and colors and star number match! We counted 13 stripes on the flag and focused on counting and recognizing the numbers 1-13. We realized that flags gave us plenty of opportunities to practice our counting. We not only counted the stars and stripes, but we also enjoyed a game of "I Spy" around town. The Strawberries counted 22 American flags in and around our school, and so many buildings flew their flags high so all could see! We learned a lot of cool and interesting symbolic facts about our country's flag: the stars represent each state, red for courage, white for purity and innocence and blue for loyalty and fairness.
We were busy around the art table -- star printing with stamps, making fireworks out of glitter and bingo markers and creating a giant flag using torn pieces of red, white and blue construction paper. Tearing the paper was a fine way to work our finger muscles. Threading and lacing streamers was another great way for us to exercise our fine motor coordination.
We engaged in a favorite American pastime, a drive along route 66! We drove a car along a teacher-made map of the US checking out the sites along the way. The Strawberries each took a turn following the road and matching the color picture to the black and white one.
We worked in some dandy new literature such as How Many Stars in the Sky, The Flag we Love, When I First Came to This Land, America is Me, Tulip Sees America and I am American, a book showing and teaching diversity in our country.
That's a wrap for this week. Next week will be a beary fun week indeed with talk about BEARS!
All the best,
The Strawberry Teachers
Every week we get a newsletter from Lily's teachers at Huckleberry Cheesecake, recounting the theme and activities of the week. I will publish these notes each week; a small glimpse into Lily's life at school!
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