Learning with my girls

So last Friday I got to go on a field trip with Riley to the Lookout Mountain Nature Center. It was a good time, but I was not prepared for a mini hike. The kids seemed to have a good time though. I only had 2 girls in my group, because we had 9 parents go on the field trip (which is a huge number). I did get tired of telling Riley that she couldn't pick the flowers. She wouldn't listen to me until one of the guides told them to stop picking stuff.


This is a picture of her and some of her friends in class after we had eaten lunch.


This is a picture of the kids pretending to be a flower while the guide has a bee puppet go from flower to flower. This was probably their favorite part of the day (although this is the mean guide that told them to stop picking stuff....hehehe)
And this poor kid (he had to stand like that for a good 10 minutes) got to be a ponderosa pine tree.

I must say that it was a learning experience - even for me! I learned that ponderosa pine trees are built so that they can resist forest fires. As long as the fire doesn't reach the branches, it doesn't do any damage because the bark takes the brunt of the fire and then just falls off afterward. And I learned WAY to much about bird and bear scat....yeah that's the term they used, but guess what even 2nd graders knew what it meant and that it's still gross whatever you call it.

Then yesterday I taught my first Joy School lesson. It was fun, and tiring all in the same time. The kids were so cute. My lessons this week are about Spontaneous Delight - so all about being silly and surprised and having a good time. At one point in the lesson we had to dance to classical music for 10 mins and I was supposed to dance with them to give them an idea on how to be silly and have fun dancing. So here I am dancing and two of the girls are sitting on the floor looking at me like I'm such a dork and there is no way they would be caught doing this activity. Yeah....it's pretty bad when 4 year olds make you feel like a dork.

Here are the Joy School charts on my wall. So cute! I felt like a teacher decorating my classroom!

And for the funnest activity of the day........finger/toe painting with shaving cream!!!!!!!

Yeah, they had shaving cream everywhere!!!! Colin got tired of painting on his paper and started to put it all over his legs. They had a great time! Marisa was one of the few brave ones that really got into it. At one point she was ice skating on her paper!

I have my next lesson tomorrow and I am excited! It's not quite as messy, although they get to blow bubbles in cups with straws....so maybe I'm completely wrong. I'm so glad we did this with Alexandra this year. She really is just blooming and loving having this little class with all her new friends.