LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

preschool

My evenings

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It’s the last week of preschool* and I ‘m getting some stuff done at home.

One of the things I am most thankful for is this ol’ iMac. It makes me look like a GREAT teacher! This was the first year I got my act together and sorted out (by child) the digital pictures we take at school so every child can have their own DVD of the year. This machine makes the process go lickety-split! So that’s what I’ll be doing the next couple of evenings. Yee-haw.

It’s a magic machine.

(*That doesn’t really mean much. Summer is almost the same as the rest of the year – I still have to plan the day’s work, but I can wear shorts if I want! (I don’t. ) For those of you who care about the details, the three-year-olds join us (the four-and-five-and-thirty-eight-year-olds) for the whole day. We still have stories, centers and Jesus Time, but there are a LOT more bathroom visits.)

Backyard Birds

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Y’all are going to count birds this weekend, right? You’re supposed to count ’em and send the info to www.birdcount.org so we can find out just where someone put all the birds. My students are going to look for birds at school (frozen, popsicle-like birdies) through ‘binoculars’ that we shall make from toilet paper tubes. Ah, imagination. Also, we’re going to attempt to reproduce these sickeningly cute birds that I saw at Pottery Barn Kids. I hate Pottery Barn Kids. Everything in there is so dang cute and expensive, and I’m so dang old and cheap. This, though, I like. Its construction should be exceedingly simple.

Birdie, birdie, in the tree. Birdie, birdie, let me be.

Brad, if we had more money and if you were ten, we would have bought you these:

SuperBrad!

Lovin’ the Mac

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Good thing my boss doesn’t read this, or I’d make her pretty mad. She’s got this classroom rating thing that says it would be good for children to have a listening center. Phewsh. (That’s a scoffing sound.) Have you ever seen classroom listening centers? They’re nothing like they seem in the catalogs. Headphones all a-tangle, the audio tapes that get destroyed by children jabbing at buttons you’ve told them not to jab, the actual machine being jabbed beyond tolerance, books ripping, cats eating dogs. It’s mayhem, I tell you, mayhem.

Being the rebellious type that I am, I decided to go ahead and have a listening center….. my way – the ‘re-inventing the wheel, gadgety, too complicated’ way. (Mind you, I should say that at no point did she actually say that I had to have a listening center. She was quite gracious and understanding in hearing my grievances.)

I have the recording program Garage Band on the iMac, and in addition to recording requiems, turns out I can read a story¿ add some background music, and put it on my Shuffle. A couple of cheap headphones from Wal-Mart, and we’re good to go. I think they could swallow the Shuffle and it would survive.

Can you see the shuffle?

On a roll.

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Ok, I’m only posting about stuff at school because that’s where all the projects are. Here is a view of the boys’ bathroom at school.
The ‘new’ thing is the plant hanging on the wall. Every time I take a little guy to the bathroom, I look at that metal bar at the top and think, “Man, that’s ugly. I should do something about it.” I’ve thought about hot-gluing slices of branches, or wrapping it in hemp rope (nautical style), or maybe using a Bedazzler! Then the boy finishes up, we walk back to the room, and the thought leaves my head completely. Anyway, this is the solution. Eventually that metal bar will be completely covered in leaves, and then I will forget to water it and it will die.

Boys, if you can read this you are old enough to *Aim at the water *Clean up any drips that should occur *Wash your hands.

The sticks (diamond willow, by the way) have been hanging there since the beginning of the school year to make it more ‘natural’ feeling. The border on the wall has bears and deer, which the boys love. I’ve thought about hanging some interesting animal pictures on the walls in the stalls, but they really don’t need anything else to distract them from their aim. (Just being awake seems to be distraction enough.)

What the?

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Wha??

In the alley by the CDC there are two strange tufts of something.  We noticed them in the summer, when the strange green circles painted around them were much more prominent.  I’m just now getting around to posting about them, but they’re quite a mystery.  Fake grass?  Really bad fiber-optic cable?  Alien foliage?

Even I can spot the fake grass.

Just like Adam….sorta

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The first week in preschool we just do things that are self-directed so that the teachers can be available for helping children who might feel sad, or need some redirection.  We’ve been stepping it up, though, and have talked about Creation, and how God created the world and people.  We’ve made some self-portraits with paper & pen, collage materials, and some ‘face’ games, and lately we’ve talked about the whole body.  I’ve been setting the play dough out with no tools, because when God formed Adam he didn’t use cookie cutters, y’know.  Today’s the third day they’ve worked on this, and I’m pleased to see that they can now include arms on their human figures. See?  Just like Adam!
Pink and Plump

Ok, now I have to tell a joke.  Lloyd’s mom sent it to us:

A scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve figured out a way to make people.  We can create them from earth and breathe life into them just as you did.  You are irrelevant now.”

God says, “Ok, show me how you do it.”

The scientist begins to scoop some earth to form it into a human, but God stops him and says, “No no no – get your own dirt.”