From the Hermosa Montessori March newsletter:

PreK/ Kindergarten
Mary, Katie & Leslie’s Class
The pre-school and kindergarten classrooms have
a multitude of learning activities that include
academic lessons in science, math, social studies, English
Language Arts, physical activity, music, movement,
art, health and safety skills, social communication, and
virtue development. Since our young students are still
developing their oral communication skills, they often
cannot tell you what they are learning. Here are some
the activities that students in Mary’s class most enjoy:


Xander – sand table
Kai – painting on porch
Santino – multiplication fact book
Gus – making ghosts
Ezra – sandbox
Azaan – drawing dinosaurs
Zaden – continent song
Noemi – big sandbox
Lucy – practical life
Megan – writing about kitties
Morgan – making dresses in art
Shelbie – working with mineral spheres in science
David – making paper T-rexes
Scarlett – reading in library
Rylee – I am interested in every book
Lyla – I like to draw cats
Sophie – continent map
Tyler – bead chains in math
Solomon – hanging chains (math)
Claire – making slides in art
Autumn – reading in the library
Abigail – calendar
Atticus – writing stories
Juliette – do pictures

Yep, he comes home with a new story practically every day. Of course, we tell stories on the rides to school every morning and just about any chance he gets he wants me to tell him a story or for us to collaborate on making up stories. :)

 

Here are a few pictures from the pottery class Atticus and I took. It just finished up, and we signed up to take the next one which starts in about a month. Atticus said, "I have to keep taking pottery so I can practice and get better."

 

Our first batch of stuff: mugs

 Here's a few other pieces--the little desert scene has Atticus's footprint in it. Behind this is a bowl I made.

 Atticus making a fruit
salad. This was from a couple months back, I think.

He's taken to wearing masks and costume pieces a lot lately, like this old Halloween mask, his shrek ears, and his superhero outfit. He wore the Halloween mask on the ride to school with the hopes of scaring someone.

 

 

Somebody (not me) gave Atticus his first fruit roll-up the other week. He said, "What is this thing? This is the weirdest thing I ever ate! Get this crazy, sticky thing off of me!"

He was so excited about nature walk at school Friday that he muttered in his sleep, "Nature walk. Nature walk."

He is super excited about his birthday. He's been counting down for like eight months now. When I told him I'm baking both a cake and cupcakes, he said, "No fair! I want both!" I said, "You're going to be the birthday boy, so you can have both." He that was the most awesome thing ever, then went on to say that only he can have both; the other kids at his party have to choose one or the other. Later he said, "And if there were three treats, I'd get all three. And if there were four, I'd get all four. But the other kids would still have to choose."

• Atticus asked a few weeks back during a discussion about kids losing their baby teeth to grow larger teeth whether kids' eyeballs fell out too to be replaced by larger eyeballs.
• He asked the other day when I told him he had to eat his broccoli before he could have a cookie, "Why do you get to make the choices for me when I'm supposed to be the one making choices for myself?"
• He has now mastered the monkey bars.
• He is doing addition using his fingers. He's very good at it and enjoys it.
• He dictated some stories to his teachers at school. The first was about a lion encountering a mouse in a forest and gobbling it up. The second was about a lion encountering a mouse in the forest and thinking for a moment that they might become best friends, then changing his mind and gobbling the mouse up. The third was about an alligator eating a dolphin.
• He's learning about the continents right now at school. He sings a song about them.
• Yesterday he said out of the blue "Pizza is pretty healthy if it's gluten-free." heh heh

This was from a few weeks ago, but I just remembered it. Atticus told me one morning that he can run faster than a car. When I brought that up later in the day, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "I was kidding" (he might as well have added "duh").

  climbing one of the trees at school

 

zombie

 latest swimming accomplishment

 

from the All Souls procession a few weeks ago

The last week, on the drive to school in the mornings Atticus and I have been making up stories about the adventures of a boy and his cat. One morning this week, the boy and the cat discovered a family (a mama, daddy, and a baby) of rattlesnakes nesting underground. When one poked its head up out of the ground, I said, “And the cat leaped up into the boy’s arms.” Atticus said, “Actually, they both got bit. Actually, they died.”

When I picked Atticus up from school the other day, he called out to his friend Julian, "Julian, I'm leaving. If you want a hug, you better get over here!" Then when they nearly fell over hugging and Julian then ran off again, Atticus yelled, "Julian, that hug was kind of wiggly. We need to hug again."

 

I'm resurrecting this sucker, damnit.

Yesterday I was checking what time Walking Dead comes on and Atticus asked me what show I was going to watch later. I told him it was a zombie show. He asked what zombies are...

me: "They're dead people that come back to life as monsters."
Atticus: "And they eat people?"
me: "Yes! How did you know?"
He smiled.
I showed him how zombies move and sound and all that. Immediately, he wanted to play zombie.
Atticus: "You be a person hiding inside your house. I'll be the zombie." (We've been reading Three Little Pigs a lot lately. Many discussions about housing construction materials and how even though there's no such thing as a big bad wolf that will come blow our house down, our house would stand up to any attempts should they materialize.)
We took turns being the zombie. Hearing him come after me was kind of terrifying.
After he asked if he could watch the zombie show with me that night. I said it's too scary for little boys.
Atticus: "But I'm very brave."
me: "Yes, you are, but you're still too little to watch a scary show like that." I told him that I very much look forward to watching zombie shows with him when he's a little older.
He wrapped his arms around me and gave me one of the fiercest hugs ever.


This weekend we went to a playdate at his friend Julian's house. On our drive home afterwards, he said, "I wish I had a girl like Julian."
me: "What? Girl? Grill? What did you say?"
Atticus: "A girl! Like Amelia."
me: "Oh, you mean a sister."


I asked him to help me go through his room this weekend and figure out which toys he doesn't want anymore because he never plays with them. He did a fabulous job! We collected two grocery bags full, and we haven't even finished yet. No whining, no sobbing, no difficulty whatsoever. He was thoughtful about what he does and doesn't have any interest in and happy to toss away what he isn't interested in.

We watched Disney's Alice in Wonderland this weekend. He loved it and now wants to read the book.

He told me the other day that he likes cherry tomatoes at school but not at home.

A few weeks ago, he said, "My penis is a rocket ship! It's going to blast off into the sky!"

Grandpa Jimmy Visits July 2013

We went to an Apple Orchard and by complete luck discovered a restaurant in a train car.