Kindergarten as of late

We've been having fun in kindergarten!

 Going through a "spider web" during circle time.  I started using a book called Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures to plan our circle times.  I am really interested in the use of therapeutic movement to help Sariah with her ADHD issues.   We have done such fun things as winding our way through webs, being "wheelbarrows" (walking on the floor with your hands while someone holds your legs), walking across a balance beam (I made my own balance beam, and it is so fun!), crawling like lizards, and many other fun movement activities.   Unfortunately, I have found the book a bit much for me to put into practice.  The circle times are already made up and ready to use, with incredibly diverse and creative movement experiences.... but they are so long and just about impossible to memorize, which makes it difficult to hold the children's attention when I keep having to look at the book.  I need to sit down and just extrapolate the movements and songs or verses that I can actually manage... but who has time to do that???

Story-telling: The Sun Castle from the Summer Wynstones book.  We made these white paper doves to go along with the story.

Making God's Eyes.  Sariah and I had so much fun doing this that Dallin wanted a go at it too.

These are the beeswax boats that we made to go with the story Crossing the Sea from the Autumn Wynstones book.

And finally, our salt dough characters from The Bremen Town Musicians:

We modeled and then a few days later painted them with watercolors.  I think they turned out adorable!  I have lots of salt dough left in the fridge for the next story we want to model.

I have to say Sariah is growing in leaps and bounds.  She has matured soooooo much in the past few months.  We had quite the year last year with Sariah, but she has been much, much easier to handle lately.  For one thing, she doesn't wander off nearly as much as she used to.  I look at her multiple times a day and can't get over how cute she is.  She is showing some pretty amazing talents in the area of tactile activities.  She can fingerknit like a champ after being taught by her Aunt Linnea.  She taught herself how to tie a slip knot simply by looking at pictures in my knitting book.  She wants desperately to learn to knit with kneedles, but I've told her not until first grade.  She even taught herself how to tie her own shoes.  I had tried to show her a month or two ago, but we gave up... then the other day she sat down all on her own and figured it out.   She started gymnastics this fall and LOVES it.   We even had a call from the studio after she and Dallin went to a late night activity.  They wanted to make sure she was enrolled in classes because their coaches had been watching her and were very impressed.