Crawling and Before Five in a Row

Clara

Clara is crawling.  We aren't entirely sure she even realizes she knows how to do it, but she can!  She drags one foot....it is too cute!

She is currently cutting her two upper teeth.  It. Has. Been. Rough.

Before Five in a Row

I have been doing a MDO with Hudson and two of his friends.  We meet one morning a week and are going through books from Before Five In A Row.  We usually read the book, watch the book on YouTube, and do a craft and activity based on what we read.  In addition, the boys play together outside and in Hudson's room.

The first book we studied was "The Carrot Seed." This is one of Hudson's all time favorites.  We read the book and as an activity, we pretended like we planted a carrot in a paper bag.  I already had placed a construction paper carrot in the bag, and so after we watered our pretend plant a couple of times, the boys were able to reach in and pull their carrot out.

We made carrot impressions for our craft. We also made fruit and vegetable collages.  These boys love to use glue.

For lunch, we made carrot soup, and I sent the boys home with a bag of it to freeze.  It tasted yummy to me, but I think the boys were not too into it.

Finally, we sat the top of a carrot in a little cup of water and placed in the windowsill.  Over the next few weeks, we are going to see if a plant grows from it.

It only took the first week to realize I have the class clown of the group.

Last week, we read "Blueberries for Sal."  This is another one Hudson's favorites.

After reading the book, we took like tin pails outside and went blueberry picking.  We also texture painted with pretend blueberries (purple puff balls).

We did lots of counting activities with blueberries and even made blueberry jam for the boys to take home. I hope to take Hudson blueberry picking this week.

This week we read "Katy No Pocket."  We talked about Kangaroos, Australia, and tools.  I had the boys bring their tool belts, and we put Hudson's toy animals in our pockets....just like Katy.  We hopped around like kangaroos and went outside with a real boomerang.  We attempted our very own Aboriginal dot painting.  In an unrelated project, we made craft dough from flour, sugar, oil, salt, and warm water.  That was at noon.  Hudson has yet to put it down.  Literally.  Just to bathe and eat, and that took convincing.

These boys have a great time together.  Although, this is a tough age.  I feel like most of the day I am playing referee to their fights.  I am trying to talk through kindness and treating others the way you want to be treated.  You would think I was teaching them the pythagorean theorem.  It is a slow process.

I am grateful to watch Hudson interact with his friends.  It is a treat to relate to him in the role of teacher.  He even referred to me as Mrs. Heather the other day.  Funny kid.  Love him.  Love this.