On New Agents and Bookbins.

 

Today I want to start off by doing something I should've done for a while:  formally introducing our very own Agent J.

 

 

You might have seen him in some of our pictures in the past few posts and thought to yourself, "I wonder who that is?" Agent J. began in November as a part-time student, doing art and music with us. After Christmas break he joined us as a full-time student, and we've had tons of fun! The other Agents really love having him in the classroom, and everyone gets along so swimmingly. Welcome to the blog, Agent J!

 

So! The past two weeks have been quiet but busy, and will probably prove to be the calm before the storm considering how much we've got going on in February. Here are some of the things we've gotten up to since our last blog post:

 

We've been hard at work on sight words, letter sounds, and word building.

 

We've helped each other out and worked together.

 

We've done fifteen thousand morning sentences.

 

We've tumbled around in Creative Movement.

 

We've had fun with snow and colored ice.

We've celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and talked about our dreams.

 

We made grilled cheese sandwiches and haystacks (not pictured). 

 

We got a free book from the electric company. (Thanks, guys!)

 

We've started an afterschool program in tandem with Little Treasures Child Care.

 

 

We've decorated our bulletin boards.

 

We've begun the tedious process of putting our super-cool-new-and-improved library together. This is one of the reasons I decided to skip the post last week instead of making it up after technical difficulties on Sunday. When we finally got started on the project, it escalated quickly. One moment I'm picking up my fancy new bookbins...

 

... and in the next some nice gentlemen from Thorton Academy are (very gently and 100% under orders) dumping most of the library's books on my floor.

Well, that escalated quickly.

So, after rearranging everything so it looked more presentable and the kids could access their workboxes...

...and after cataloging several bins with the help of our lovely Miss Candace (Agent J.'s mother)...

I came to one horrible realization (for about the zillionth time this year):  we don't have enough space for all the books.

Duhn duhn duuuuuuhn....

Several shelves were occupied by other things, like games and craft supplies and blocks. We hope to build shelves into the back of the school to make an official library, but in the meantime, something had to be done. So I went and got myself a shoe rack and a Rubbermaid drawer thing (not pictured) and set to work moving things around.

And this is what it looks like now, more or less. I did a little bit of work reorganizing some things on the shelves with random stuff in them yesterday, so it looks even better than this, but! How spiffy are my book bins, you guys?

Answer: so spiffy.

And that's about it! Next week is going to be pretty crazy, with National School Choice Week and the 2nd Annual Realtor's Breakfast and prep for a field trip on February 3 - so I'd better go make sure I have everything ready for it. I just looked at the clock and realized it's only half past one; I bet some of you are in shock at how early this is being posted.

 

You're welcome.

 

God bless,

Mia ;)

Reunited and it feels so good.

 

Last week was our first back from Christmas Vacation. The kids were so excited to see each other, you'd think they were separated for months rather than a couple weeks. It's definitely good to be back!

 

It was a pretty slow week; it always is, getting back into the groove of things after an extended break. We worked hard and played harder, especially on the days we were able to go outside. It's often too cold to venture out, and after a while you can definitely tell the kids are experiencing cabin fever. Not this week, though! We got up into the 30s and 40s, and the kids had a blast.

 

 

Today's post is going to be pretty short, as we didn't get up to many noteworthy things, but over the next few weeks we'll be kicking this lull goodbye and enter a busy season full of performances, trips, and projects. For now, I leave you with this GIF of the kids pretending to be human mops.

They were going for snow angels, but the floor has never looked so clean.

God bless,
Mia

P.S. As promised in the previous blog post, November and December pictures have been posted on our Facebook page. You should definitely go check them out, because they're pretty adorable. Seriously. And then you need to tell your friends about the page. Seriously.

And We're Back!

So it’s January now, and I’m not exactly sure how it happened. Was there some kind of temporal shift? Was I somehow knocked unconscious for the past month and a half? Since it’s been roughly about a month and a half since I last updated the blog, I’m very tempted to say yes. Yes I was. However, that would not be wholly honest. The truth is, things got busy and I went on a brief hiatus without ever telling you because…

Well, because. That’s why.

I hope you had a fantastic holiday season! The Agents and I sure did, and a busy one at that! A Thanksgiving program, two performances at a nursing home and one at Saco Faith Chapel, a Christmas party, dozens of paper snowflakes, 20 days of Christmas music, two holidays and two vacations, two hundred bazillion photographs and videos, and here we are. We’ve done so much since my last blog post – which consisted of, for reasons unknown even to me, only pictures and GIFs (I am so ashamed) – that I’d have a hard time cramming it all into this one. Here’s a brief look at some of the antics we got up to during the tailend of November and all of December.

Pajama Day (with special guest appearance by my sister, Miss “Ce-sylvia”)

 

Thanksgiving Performances

 

Creative Movement Classes With LTCC

 

Decorating the Classroom for Christmas

 

 

 

Receiving Our Fancy New Computer

So fancy.

 

Having Snow Fun with the LTCC Preschoolers

 

 

Making Traditional Spanish Marzipan Sculptures

 

 

 

 

Making Pizza and French Gingerbread

 

Christmas Party

 

And that’s only half of it! To see the rest, check Facebook later this week, where I’ll post all photos and videos from November and December. Wait, you didn’t know we had a Facebook page? How silly of me! Here it is, in all its beautiful glory:



So beautiful.

I’ll be posting photos, media, news, and quick updates (e.g. the snow day announcements made last week) to the Facebook page on a regular basis. (Have I given you enough links to follow yet? No? I should keep 'em coming? Well okay, you're the boss.)
 

Again, I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving and a beautiful Christmas, and I hope God continues to bless you throughout this New Year. Check back next Sunday (seriously, do it!) to see what cool things we did this week, and Like Us on Facebook to receive even more updates about our totally spectacular school!

 

God bless,

Mia