A Good Day Outside

Today was a significantly better day than yesterday!  (There was plenty of room for improvement!)

We arrived at the library a little early for story time today, so Abby and Shawn got to play in the children’s corner for a few minutes.  We also found lots of animals painted in the mural and the stuffed animals that live among the bookshelves (out of reach) in the story room.  Ms. Nancy was very impressed with how many animal names they knew.  When she was ready to start story time, we were the only ones in her audience, but a few others showed up later.  Today’s theme was “Going for a Walk.”  Shawn, Abby, and I really liked the first story, I Took a Walk by Henry Cole.  It had beautiful and very realistic illustrations showing different places a child went outside and the things he saw there.  There weren’t many words to the story, though there were a lot of labels identifying various things in the pictures.  It was really hard for Shawn and Abby to resist running up to the book to point out something they found on each page.  (If we had been the only ones there, I probably would have let them, but when they managed to slip from my fingers, they blocked other kids’ views.)  Another boy who would rush up to point at something was called back by his mom a few times too, but he was a little older and was pretty easily redirected.  The second story Ms. Nancy read was Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins.  It was about a hen, Rosie, who had no idea that a fox was following her as she walked around the farmyard.  Rosie reminded me of Oma and Opa’s chickens at the Barony and, oddly enough, the fox reminded me a little of Wiley Coyote - each scene showed the hen walking safely by various objects, which inevitably fell on, hit, or somehow battered the disaster-prone fox.  I Went Walking by Sue Williams was a very short book about a child pointing out familiar animals.  It was a lot like Brown Bear, Brown Bear  by Bill Martin and Eric Carle.  It was cute, but not very memorable for me though – I had to look it up on Amazon to refresh my memory!  We also read Spot’s First Walk by Eric Hill.  We have one of the books from this series at home.  Shawn and Abby both like to discover what’s hidden under the flaps on each page.  Spot encounters surprises along his walk, which Ms. Nancy revealed from under the flaps.  Toward the end of the book, a fish warns Spot, “Don’t fall in!” as he’s about to drink from a pond. The next page shows Spot shaking water off his fur.  I smiled when his mom asks him what he did while he was gone.   You see him next to various things he picked up along his walk, but, just like the typical kid, he tells her, “Nothing.”  The last book we read was also by Eric Hill.  Spot’s Walk in the Woods told about things Spot saw during an adventure into the woods.  Since it was written as a rebus, Ms. Nancy had the children help her “read” the words that were replaced with pictures.  They got pretty excited about interpreting the pictures with her.  Abby liked the ending of the story, when Spot was back home and discovered a frog from the woods had jumped into his backpack.  She started hopping each time Ms. Nancy read the word ‘frog.’

Ms. Nancy taught us the sign for ‘walk’ in sign language.  We danced to Walk Outside from Raffi’s Box of Sunshine CD and tried to sign ‘walk’ whenever it came up in the lyrics.  We also recited a few rhymes:

Read a Book

(To the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat)

Read, read, read a book

Travel anywhere

World-wide, you decide

A book will take you there!

Around the Yard

Let’s go walking around the yard. (walk)

We’ll keep on walking, then we’ll stop. (stop)

Let’s go walking around the block. (walk)

We’ll keep on walking, then we’ll stop. (stop)

Let’s go walking to the library. (walk)

We’ll keep on walking, then we’ll stop. (stop)

Going for a Walk

Going for a walk is so much fun (walk)

We look at all the lovely trees (cup hands over head)

We don’t’ hurry, we don’t run (shake head)

We watch for birds and watch for bees (flap hands and make buzzing sound)

After the library, we played outside.  Abby and Shawn pulled out a lot of toys.  The bubble machine is Abby’s favorite.  The Cozy Coupe ranks pretty high with Shawn. 

Balls, buckets, and shovels littered the yard, too. 

We even wished for warm weather by pulling out the kiddy pool! Shawn and Abby had a blast pretending to swim and splash and toss toys into the non-existent water. 

Unfortunately, we had to stop our pool party short because Shawn tripped and scraped up his fingers.  It was time for lunch anyway, but it would have been nicer to end the festivity without the need for Band-Aids! 

 

When Abby woke up from her nap in the afternoon, I heard her say, “Hi, Baby!” She talked to herself a few minutes before I went in to get her. We played together while Shawn continued his nap.

After Shelley came to pick up Abby, Shawn woke up.  He found a book on his bookshelf (I could tell by the sounds of him rattling around in his room), then tried to open his door (I was on the other side secretly trying to help him).  When he got it open, he rushed out smiling and then made a bee-line to Abby’s pack & play, “Abby?  Abby?”  He was really disappointed when I explained that she had already gone home.  He just stood in the hallway looking at the stairs going down to the front door.  I had to take his hand to get him to snap out of it!  Then, he went back into his room and found some books to read, which were quickly spread across the floor.  He misses her already.  It’s a good thing there’s still one more day with Abby this week!