Luke is getting soooo grown up. He's now at an age that I remember myself being, and an age that I have really vivid memories of Jeff being (when Jeff was 4, I was 8). Luke is full of boy energy, boy playfulness, and boy games. His face resembles his dad a lot -- especially those luscious long eyelashes -- but his skinny-mini frame totally looks like I remember myself and Jeff as kids. At some point, we just got taller, with about zero weight gain.
I snapped this picture a few weeks ago, during a very sunny day. The grass is positively jungle length, and Luke had a blast running through the sprinkler, dodging the water, and stalking through the jungle.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
a rare sunny weekend in san francisco
IMG_6121, a photo by AnnieLight on Flickr.
Full disclosure: Our 4th of July weekend was indeed this sunny, but the pic itself was snapped a few weeks ago!
Friday, June 17, 2011
preschool report
Luke's summer term has started, and it's a really neat vibe in the classroom. Relaxed and fun! Luke's head teacher, Antoinette, is on vacation during the summer, and the associate teacher, Jenny, gets to be in charge. She reorganized the classroom, has a great group of interns working with her, and is trying out some new curricula approaches. Here's her report from the first week ...
* * * *
We’ve had an amazing first week of summer! The children have been busy rediscovering our classroom and exploring new materials. All of the children seem to be enjoying the changes and additions to the room. At first some things took time to get used to. We still have some children walk towards the front door to get to their cubby or go up to the loft looking for a book. When they realize what they have been looking for has moved they chuckle and walk the other way. The new job list has been a huge success. Our revised list has sixteen jobs, so each child has a job for the entire week. The children have been good at reminding teachers of their jobs and checking the list before going home to make sure their job has been done. It has been great hearing about how the children have been helping with chores and now have jobs at home.
Our walks have been extremely exciting with all of the construction going on campus. Watching the road leading towards campus being paved has been exceptionally thrilling. It was interesting to watch two construction vehicles flatten out the dirt and the next day seeing them spray water on the ground in preparation for cement. On one of our walks we stopped at the soccer field and ran, walked, jumped, skipped, and twirled down the track.
On Friday, Sophie and Isabel’s mom, Tonia brought apricots and made fresh apricot jam with us. After talking about knife safety each child was given a cutting board, butter knife and an apricot. At first it was challenging to cut the apricots, but after cutting a few each child was an apricot cutting master. When the last apricot was chopped and put into the pot each child scooped a spoonful of sugar into the pot and the apricots were cooked down into jam. Our afternoon snack of apricot jam and crackers was delicious!
(Now you know where we got the idea to make jam!)
* * * *
We’ve had an amazing first week of summer! The children have been busy rediscovering our classroom and exploring new materials. All of the children seem to be enjoying the changes and additions to the room. At first some things took time to get used to. We still have some children walk towards the front door to get to their cubby or go up to the loft looking for a book. When they realize what they have been looking for has moved they chuckle and walk the other way. The new job list has been a huge success. Our revised list has sixteen jobs, so each child has a job for the entire week. The children have been good at reminding teachers of their jobs and checking the list before going home to make sure their job has been done. It has been great hearing about how the children have been helping with chores and now have jobs at home.
Our walks have been extremely exciting with all of the construction going on campus. Watching the road leading towards campus being paved has been exceptionally thrilling. It was interesting to watch two construction vehicles flatten out the dirt and the next day seeing them spray water on the ground in preparation for cement. On one of our walks we stopped at the soccer field and ran, walked, jumped, skipped, and twirled down the track.
On Friday, Sophie and Isabel’s mom, Tonia brought apricots and made fresh apricot jam with us. After talking about knife safety each child was given a cutting board, butter knife and an apricot. At first it was challenging to cut the apricots, but after cutting a few each child was an apricot cutting master. When the last apricot was chopped and put into the pot each child scooped a spoonful of sugar into the pot and the apricots were cooked down into jam. Our afternoon snack of apricot jam and crackers was delicious!
(Now you know where we got the idea to make jam!)
Monday, June 13, 2011
making jam
On Friday, Luke made jam at school, and he was so excited about it that we made jam together over the weekend. We picked out berries and fruit at the local farmer's market: strawberries and raspberries for Luke and peaches for me. We each chopped our fruit (Luke used a butter knife and was an expert chopper), added sugar, slowly cooked on the stove, and enjoyed delicious homemade jam!
preschool report
From Luke's teacher:
This week we have been talking a lot about rhyming words. One child asked if we could start reading a rhyme book we used to read which was full of short rhymes, Truckery Rhymes. This book is full of nursery rhymes that have been changed to incorporate different kinds of trucks instead of people or animals. The children enjoy trying to guess what nursery rhyme the Truckery Rhyme story is like. As we read each rhyme we have been looking for the words that rhyme or sound like each other. Some of the stories are easier than others but when the children can't hear the rhyming words they make up their own. A few made up words; happy/glappy, dump truck/sump truck, and ice cream truck/piescream truck. Although the words are not real words they are still getting the meaning of what rhyming words are and are practicing with them. As the week went on, the children were finding words that rhymed in other books as well.
As the children are growing and maturing in the class we have been adding two new elements to our classroom. We are putting paint out on the easel on a regular basis now, the children remind us when the paint needs to be refilled. We have also added the small Legos inside the classroom. We always had them outside for a table top activity but we brought them into our classroom for daily use. With the small Legos the children are able to build intricate structures and are staying with the building for longer periods of time. While playing with the small legos the children are sharing the various pieces, sharing the space and building their language while talking about what they are building and creating.
This week we have been talking a lot about rhyming words. One child asked if we could start reading a rhyme book we used to read which was full of short rhymes, Truckery Rhymes. This book is full of nursery rhymes that have been changed to incorporate different kinds of trucks instead of people or animals. The children enjoy trying to guess what nursery rhyme the Truckery Rhyme story is like. As we read each rhyme we have been looking for the words that rhyme or sound like each other. Some of the stories are easier than others but when the children can't hear the rhyming words they make up their own. A few made up words; happy/glappy, dump truck/sump truck, and ice cream truck/piescream truck. Although the words are not real words they are still getting the meaning of what rhyming words are and are practicing with them. As the week went on, the children were finding words that rhymed in other books as well.
As the children are growing and maturing in the class we have been adding two new elements to our classroom. We are putting paint out on the easel on a regular basis now, the children remind us when the paint needs to be refilled. We have also added the small Legos inside the classroom. We always had them outside for a table top activity but we brought them into our classroom for daily use. With the small Legos the children are able to build intricate structures and are staying with the building for longer periods of time. While playing with the small legos the children are sharing the various pieces, sharing the space and building their language while talking about what they are building and creating.
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