Suitcase Surprise

I love the curriculum we order. Over the last few months they've revamped it and integrated a bunch of new things to make it better. My favorite is the Writer's Workshop, as a former English teacher and lover of creative writing for kids. Today we made our first class book. Our theme for April is Around the World, which I think is my favorite by far in the last 2 years I've been ordering. I love maps and geography and landmarks and I do a lot of that with the kids anyway, so it is awesome to have all this stuff to back me up.

We talked about the seven continents today. Most of the big kids already can list them, since we sing a song about them every morning. We're working on identifying them by shape and being able to list them out of order instead of only singing the song. I gave them a few facts about each one, and then their book page was to tell me a story about which continent they'd like to visit, what they would do there, and what they ought to pack in their suitcase to go. Then they illustrated their page and wrote their name on it and I'm going to bind it and keep it here for them to read.

Duchess: "I want to visit Asia so I can play in the sand and water and see all the panda bears. I want to visit J and G in China. {her friends who moved there.} Next I would go to that very chilly place to visit the penguins, oh, that is called Antarctica. In my suitcase I have a bunch of clothes and hairbrushes- two at least!"

Ariel: "I'd like to visit the penguins in Antarctica. It's cold there. The penguins like me because they like to laugh at me when I make funny faces at them. In my suitcase I have my Ariels {what she calls her barbie dolls} and then some Dora panties and then... my mommy will pack the rest for me."

Buzz: "I want to visit Grandma- she lives in Texas. I don't fly on the airplane! I ride in my car. I have a fast racecar. Then I look at toys with {my cousin}. In my suitcase I have my backpack and a little dog. I not take clothes! just toys. I will wear underwear."

Snow White: "I want to go to the Eiffel Tower SuperFast! It is in France. I going to play at the top. My mommy comes too. In my suitcase I have toys- a new bouncy bouncy ball. Red shirts and blue pants and kittycat shoes."

Sebastian was at the doctor this morning and Marie and O'Malley just colored and grinned at me. We have a marvelous book.