The sun shone. Shoes came off. Jackets came off. Hats came off. Ninjas roamed the yard, making ninja moves, jumping over the light and staying in the shadows. That’s why you might not have seen them.
One of the ninjas was missing his sword but remembered where they left it. They’d left it at the outer gate of Rainbow School and had it retrieved. It was large and heavy and sharp. I wonder if they were ninja helper warriors.
I think so because I didn’t see a single sun monster today, and I believe the ninjas banished them all.
Our visitor today had a plan. They were going to move the sandbox mountain using the front loader. It was slow going. Others came to help. Then they switched to a bucket and a scoop. Once they’d filled the bucket, instead of moving the sand from the mountain to a low spot, they smoothed a spot and made a sand castle.
The sand castle crumbled. They figured they needed more water. Then one of you helped add water to the sand. I kept trying to move the mountain. I made my hands into a front loader. Then I used my big feet. One of you came to help me.
I was booming the mountain with my feet. In the Hello/Goodbye Yard I jumped. I invited you to climb on me. You did. All of these things help me feel good in my body. Sometimes when we don’t feel good in our bodies, we boom. These are things I do instead. Some of us wear head phones to help. I wonder what you do.
We crossed over the long bridge. Clip clop clip. Geese flew through the air honking their hellos. Geese swam in pairs on the water. Clip clop clip. We reached the bench island at the end of the bridge and discovered that it was a goose toilet. We were all glad we were wearing our rubber boots.
Someone asked if they could run. I started to run in answer, and a few of you ran with me. The clip clops were loud and fast as we ran. You discovered the pebbles on the mainland. You had an idea. Pebbles rained over the railing, plop plip plop, into the water below. Little round waves rippled out from all the pebbles.
A few of us were seeing if we could find larger stones and throw them across the water to reach the nearest grass island. You said that I had a static rock and that I needed a dynamic rock like yours. My rock was smooth. Your rock had a jagged edge.
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!
