The Leprechan Story

I know I'm a way behind getting this posted, but Hayden wrote a fun story for St. Patricks Day this year. Here it is (I'm writing it exactly as he did):



Hi! My name is t-j. I have a little sisster Sohphie. I herard a thump in the air vent. was it just the air no. I heard gold. It is a leprechaun. It came out of the vent. It crashed in to me. I had a trap right in front of him he got traped but he uesd his majic wand to get out. I asked him if i could be his freind he said as you wish and we were friends.

Dissecting "Owl Vomit"

During the last couple of weeks of school, the 2nd graders did animal rotations. Hayden came home on his first animal-rotation day so excited about dissecting owl pellets he talked nonstop for about 30 minutes. Here are some things Hayden shared about his project:

-Owl pellets are like big hair balls - when an owl eats an animal, it can't digest things like bones and hair so it coughs them up. Hayden called it "owl vomit".

-Hayden assured me (even though I didn't ask) that his owl pellet was clean, sanitized in fact, so it was perfectly okay to touch it and dig through it.

-Hayden said it was the absolute coolest thing he has ever EVER done in school.

-Some of the girls liked it, but most of the girls thought it was gross.

-Hayden's owl pellet contained a couple of rodents - he knows there were two because there were two rodent skulls in his pellet.

-His assignment was to match as many rodent bones as he could find to each individual bone picture on his worksheet. Here is his worksheet:

Here is a picture of what owl pellets ("vomit") looks like before they are dissected:

Wow! 2nd grade is way cooler than it was when I was there.

Homebuilding With MooCow and Muffin

This was the documentation sent out by one of the teachers at Brandon's school. I've been volunteering on Fridays and this was based on my observations of Brandon and one of his school mates this past Friday.

We were so happy to have Brandon's Mom, Karen, as our volunteer. We also had a slew of observers come through today. All of the children behaved very well despite all the new people floating around. I am going to type Karen's notes because I loved her attention to detail and how this scene is so entrenched in the "family/nesting" big idea.

Brandon A. and Nancy are playing with stuffed animals that they brought from home. Nancy puts Muffin in a new wagon, and Brandon puts Moo Cow in with Muffin.

Brandon: Look, MooCow likes Muffin. I have a clean MooCow and a dirty MooCow. This is my dirty one.(Brandon puts the cow on his head.) When I was a baby I would chew on his ears.

Nancy: Get down from there MooCow. (Nancy buries Muffin in a pile of woodblocks.)

Nancy and Brandon use the blocks to build a house for MooCow and Muffin. They lay the animals inside.

Brandon: Look here is a bed for Muffin and here is a bed for MooCow.(Brandon gives MooCow a wood block pillow and a wood block blanket - as seen in pic above.) Where's the couch?

Nancy: Right here. This big triangle.

Brandon: We need a TV.

Nancy: Right here. (She places a square block in front).

Karen: (I love the pic of MooCow and Muffin watching TV. Nancy and Brandon analyzed every detail of how this should be built. The triangle block wasn't enough for the couch, so they added the seat block. Then MooCow and Muffin needed a place to prop their feet up - not sure if that was a coffee table or a stool. Then they needed a TV and something to sit the TV on. I had a blast watching this entire thing unfold).

Ms. Casey:

(MooCow and Muffin were married later, on the hammock. Nancy told me later that she loved MooCow).

I am always so interested in how friends are made. Brandon and Nancy never really played much together prior to this but because they both had Beanie type animals this commonality was enough for them to build a world upon and share time together. The children also danced the new Star Wars Cantina alien jam, hammered nails in wood, built rockets and lego kingdoms, had extensive share times, and flew plastic bag kites. It was a full day as always, but having that moment between Nancy and Brandon fully documented was a great testament to see how much can happen and be seen when we as adults slow down and pay attention.