It’s not a box. It’s a castle, a train car, a dino cage? I wonder what it could be? It’s big. It looks cozy with all those blankets. Thunk! It thunks when you hit it. Thunk! It thunks when you kick it.
What happens when you thunk it with a stick. Oh. That looks like a hole, a small hole. Oh. That looks like the sides are starting to fall in. Pause, a second.
We took a survey. All but two of us decided that we still wanted to play with the large, cozy thing that’s not a box, so we found some boxes to thunk and poke. They weren’t quite as much fun to thunk and poke.
There’s the sandbox. It’s not a sandbox. I wonder what it could be.
Three engineers engineered a project. You talked, planned, revised, tested, and worked together. It was a big project. I think maybe you used every block. It was close to being as tall as you, and it was long too. It went almost from the stop sign, past the tree, up Rainbow Mountain.
You used the ball to test it out. Then you made changes and tested again. You worked and worked and worked. One of you announced, “It’s a ramp.”
We were going on a walk. I noticed that two of you had collected things in the barn, so we went closer to inspect. You were striking the flint with a rock to start a fire. You had a big pile of firewood.
You introduced me to your pet. I wondered if you had a pet T-Rex, a pet ghost, a pet???
It was your pet ghost. You were going to roast and feed it marshmallows. Then there was sticky marshmallow goo all over the ghost. Your pet ghost had a mouth. That’s how it could eat roasted marshmallows and say Boooooooo!
Have you ever felt a ghost? I have. Today, in the yard, there were ghosts. They flew around. OOOOooooooo! They cried. That’s how I knew there were ghosts, more than one.
I’ve been told that ghosts have no hands, so they can’t grab you or hold lasers. I’ve been told that ghosts have no mouths, so they can’t eat you. I was thinking, cool, I don’t need to worry. And then, a ghost flew through me. And another and another, again and again.
It felt strange. I wonder how you would describe what it feels like to have a ghost fly through you.
I slept in Mom’s bed. Me: Where did your Mom sleep? She was there. Me: Did she sleep on the floor? No, it’s a big bed. She slept in the bed too. So did Dad. So did In. Me: There were four in the bed?
Someone else described sleeping five in the bed. Someone said they went to their mom’s bed when they were scared. Me: I had a blue bear pillow.
We’d been roaring like lions and bears, so I explained how my blue bear roared and scared the scary things away when I was little. We practiced roaring some more. Someone told me about having a singing goose that sang Itsy Bitsy Spider and made Zombie TRex Bad guys fall asleep. After they fall asleep, you throw them in the trash.
This sounded like something I should definitely have. Then .. there was the singing sword.
And then someone told me about a dream they had, and we started talking about dreams and dream catchers.
“I’m up here,” said the baby cow from the rooftop. Mama cow could hear baby cow clomp clomping on the rooftop. I wonder how baby cow got up on the roof. Did baby cow climb a ladder?
I looked behind the pole. You’d hidden there earlier. I looked behind the tires. You’d hidden there too. I looked behind the tree, in the airplane, and in the house. Where were you? Someone pointed at the slide.
There wasn’t anyone on the slide. Then one person popped out from under the slide. Then another and another and another. One person was still missing. Where could they be?
Love, Teacher Michelle
P.S. It was so nice to see you after three weeks that I forgot to write down our morning news. Whoops!
It was the darkest one. We’re going to have so much fun. We’re going to see a skeleton. We’re going to see a night owl. We’re going to see a witch. We’re going to see a dinosaur. It was the darkest one. We had so much fun.
With candle fire and camp fire and presents and yummies. Thank you for celebrating the darkest time of the year with me. The dark needs the light, and the light needs the dark.
You had a plan today. You were going to climb the tree. You decided to move the triangle from the Pine Forest. It scraped along the concrete. Yikes! The sound. You asked if I would carry one side while you carried the other.
I reminded you that if you fall from high onto the hard concrete your chances of breaking a bone and getting hurt increase. You put the triangle on the dirt between the concrete and fence. You climbed up on the side of the triangle nearest the tree. You were able to reach from the triangle into the tree and sit between all the big branches.
Another person wanted to climb into the tree too, so you spun around so your legs hung out the side away from the triangle. The second person climbed up the far side of the triangle, the side away from the tree. Their legs are not as long as yours. They had to reach a little farther and use their arms to pull themselves into the tree.
They made it. The two of you sat in the tree. Pepper the squirrel peered down at you from the branches above. Others came over and climbed the triangle. There was no more room in the tree, so they went to play leaf chase.
Little Sheep felt afraid, but brave. Spotted Dogs were there and White Dog too. They would scare off the wolves. The wolves howled but didn’t come near. Then along came a T-Rex. Big Sheep wasn’t afraid.
They fought. There were lots of big booms. Then Little Sheep had an idea. They gathered all the dogs together and said, “Pizza.” It turned out T-Rex didn’t like pizza or steak or hamburgers or chicken. T-Rex wanted a little girl t-rex to eat, a pink one.
Little Girl T-Rex came, but she didn’t want to be eaten. Instead we all ate pizza and candy. Then T-Rex built Little Sheep a house. The roof was tricky. All the animals wanted to move in, and that was tricky too.
