Frog Class of 2010 Retrospective; Many Hands

Here's another post featuring assorted photos from the past year. Enjoy!

Frog class of 2010 Retrospective; Building Structures

As you know it's the end of the school year. Our "Senior Frogs" have started hopping over to the Possum room, and we are already welcoming new Frogs to the class. We have covered a lot of ground with this blog, but I still have literally hundreds of photos from the last year that haven't made it here. Until now!
Over the next few weeks, I will be posting several "Frog Room Retrospectives", featuring random photos from the last year. Parents of the "Senior Frogs" can take a look back at what your child has created over the last year. Parents of the Frog class of 2011 can get an idea of what they're in for. Enjoy!

Changes...

Wow!!! It's the time of year at Nonotuck when everything winds up changing at a breakneck pace!

We have lots of updates for you, so lets jump right in!

First up; The Birds...

On Wednesday, June ninth, we snuck a camera out to try and take a photo of the babies before Mama Robin came back from gathering worms. This is what we found;

Look! Feathers!!!

No more little naked chicks with bulgy eyes. Just a trio of tiny birds!

The following Monday, we snapped another photo.;

No more babies????

We were worried for a moment, until a parent who was doing some work on the playground over the weekend told us this story;

"while I was working I noticed the Mama Robin hanging around on the playground fence. Then I heard her call out to her babies, and they all came scurrying down to the ground. She sort of coaxed them over to her and after a little bit, the babies all flew off and joined her in the trees around the playground!"

How lucky that he was on the playground to witness this! Good luck, little Robins!

Next up: Silkworms...

Our silkworm larvae continued to eat, and eat, and eat! This photo was taken on Thursday, June twenty-fourth;

(You can't really see a whole worm, but they are about the length and width of an adults pinkie finger.)

When we came in on the following Monday, this is what we found;

Making a cocoon

Finally, Pupa!!!! The Frogs have been pretending to be pupa, wriggling inside imaginary cocoons while changing into their insect forms, for weeks. We are delighted that the silkworms have finally caught up with them!

Speaking of transformations....

Last up; The Frogs!!!

The Frogs are changing too!!! Our first batch of "Senior Frogs" is orienting to the Possum room this week. We also have a few children who will be leaving Nonotuck soon to move on to new schools. Way back when we were waiting for our chickens to hatch, we devised a method to help the children keep track of how many days were left until the chickens (hopefully) came out of their eggs. We made a long paper chain with twenty-one links, and removed one link every day during circle time. Since chicken eggs typically take 21 days to incubate, when all of the links were gone, our chickens started to hatch! The Frogs really loved this ritual, and we could really see how it made waiting patiently for a big event easier. With this in mind, we made each child their very own paper chain, with one link for every day they have left in the Frog room. Every day during circle, everyone removes a link and counts how many are left. When all the links are gone, we have a special something for each child to keep in recognition of all of their growth in the Frog room (more on that in our next post!) We also made a paper chain for someone who is not technically a Frog, but has nonetheless been an integral part of the Frog group, as well as Nonotuck as a whole. This week, we removed the last link on the chain we made for Margery Heyl. Over the last thirty-ish years, Margery has been a parent, teacher, and most recently director at Nonotuck. On Wednesday, we celebrated Margery's immeasurable contribution to the Nonotuck community with a breakfast party on the playground, where we dedicated a beautiful flowering pear tree that was planted in her honor.

Thank you, Margery, for all you have done for Nonotuck, and for Early Childhood Education in Western Massachusetts! We will miss you!

Bigger

Everyone and everything is getting bigger around here!!!

The Snow peas in our garden...

The Robins on the playground...

(We discovered that there are actually three, rather than four. One egg didn't hatch...)

Our Silkworms...

...and the Frogs! A number of the children seem to be ageing out of nap. We are still making sure that everyone at least gets an hour of quiet time in, but the non-nappers are one determined bunch! Of course, it is pretty typical for a child to phase out their nap between ages three and four. The best way to handle the situation is to make sure they are getting to bed early enough to still get enough sleep overall.

Since we now have some children who stay awake during nap-time, we figured it was the perfect time to start reading chapter books out loud- a very big-kid type of activity! We just started reading My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett. It is a great story, with just the right ammount of intreigue, danger and daring! The Frogs have been very attentive, listening to two or three chapters at a time. What great practice for the big leap to a pre-school classroom!

Baby Robins!!!

Someone was busy over Memorial Day Weekend!

Critter Updates...

Despite massive interest on the part of 50-ish children under the age of six, the Robin is still sitting on her eggs. We (kids and grown-ups alike) are working on balancing our desire to spend all of our outdoor time just peeking through the window with our desire to be careful to not scare the mama Robin away. So far, the Frogs are showing remarkable restraint, and the Mama Robin seems to appreciate it!
Steph (the Polliwog Room teacher) borrowed our camera last Wednesday and used the zoom to get this picture while the Mama Robin was away;
FOUR little eggs where there were only three the day before!!! Go Mama Robin!!!
according to the Internet, it takes 12-14 days for Robin's eggs to hatch. Lets keep our fingers crossed that everyone can hold out until then!!!
In other news, our silkworms are eating and growing like crazy! they have at least doubled in size since last week;

(Apologies for the poor image quality. Our camera broke so were relying on my cell phone for the time being...)

We are still going through a LOT of Mulberry leaves, so bring 'em right on in if you have 'em!!!

We Totally Planned This...

Since all of the Frogs are now officially "Pre-school" aged, we have been occasionally heading over to the "big" playground during to try out their bigger, fancier climbing structure and swings. Last Friday, we were over there, playing in the playhouse when we noticed this;
If you look closely, you'll notice that the mud is still wet!

On Monday, we were back on the toddler playground peeking over the fence, when we noticed that someone had cordoned off the pre-school playhouse. When we asked Ashley, the Possum teacher, what was up, she said "go look through the window..."

We did, and this is what we found;

...Notice anything? No? Take a closer look;

Clearly, this is no ordinary Robin. How else can you explain it's uncanny ability to lay her eggs just as we were wrapping up our curriculum exploration of oviparous animals?