Kids looking at a fish.



What an incredible first day we had!  The kids practiced walking in a line like ducks and sitting in a circle while we waited for everyone to arrive and made sure that all of the papers were turned in.  We will get quicker starts once all of the paper work is in!

We began our circle time singing the TOP song.  The kids from last year helped the new kids by doing the motions and singing along.  I'm sure they will all know the words before long!

Then we walked to one of our favorite playing spots with a few stops along the way to see the bird nest and big fallen tree again.  We practiced walking in a teacher sandwich along the way.  A teacher sandwich is one teacher in the front and one in the back-the children are the sandwich makings in the middle!  Everyone did very well following the safety rules of TOP!

At our special place we first stopped for a much needed snack and funny story called "Friends".
We talked about all of the new friends they were going to make at TOP.  We had the kids look around at their new classmates and say hi to them! 
After snack and story, the kids climbed the big tree, crawled under it, played horse on the branches and just explored.  Some kids walked through the shallow stream looking for fish and bugs. Theo was able to catch a small fish and shared that experience with many of his classmates.

We were so impressed with the children's abilities to connect with new and old classmates.  Many children were playing imaginative play together.  The kids in the stream were sharing their experiences.  For those children having a harder time working into the group, we will be assigning partners next week so they can get to know one child at a time which helpss to build a friendship.