Open up and say AHHHHHH!  Today was all about the dentist!  We couldn't get a trip scheduled to the dentist office, but we had plenty of props to help make it real.  I have a whole family of dentists and they were more than eager to share some really cool things for the kiddos.

We had a large set of teeth, for counting and pulling teeth.  THIRTY TWO teeth!  Wow!  That's more numbers than we have on our calendar!  We had x-rays, lights, masks, gowns, toothbrushes, dentures, and even syringes.  We are starting to get the hang of playing "dress up" as community helpers, and using our friends for experimental patients, so looking in each others mouths and giving play shots was no problem today! 

Our book today was called Maisy, Charley and the Wobbly Tooth by Lucy Cousins. It was all about Charlie's trip to the dentist because he had a loose tooth.  He was scared at first, so all his friends went with him, but he soon figured out that the dentist office was not a scary place.  The dentist chair leans back and spins around, the x-ray machine takes pictures of your teeth, and sometimes you get a sticker for being brave! Everyone listened as we read, then we took turns matching things from our book to the real objects we had to explore.   

Ms. Angela came today and we worked on throwing and catching.  The first, and most important part says Ms. Angela, was warming up our arms for throwing and our ears for listening.  We did this by playing the drums!  Ms. Angela played a beat and we had to copy it.  Sometimes she played fast, and sometimes it was slow.  We had to be a good listener to make our drum sound just like hers!  Playing catch with a partner was next.  I know we have been dressing like doctors and dentists this week, but there might be some baseball stars in our group too!  We spent as much time running after the balls, as we did actually throwing and catching!  Ms. Angela had a finale game that was full of imagination and pretending.  She told the kids that it snowed in the courtyard last night and we were going to have a snow ball fight!  It was her against all the kids.....but they had to throw the balls over the net in order to get her!  Once all the balls were on the other side of the net, she called the kids over and told them to throw the "snow balls" at the teachers!  Well.....you can imagine the pure joy!  How often do you get PERMISSION to throw things at your teacher??  Ms. Angela is so fun and creative!  The kids love her and we are so lucky that she is a part of our program!

The ending of the day was a delightful surprise!  Joseph (and his mom) brought baby Juliette for Show and Tell.  She slept quietly while he told us all about what she liked to eat and how old she was, but the action really started when he took out her pacifier.  She started to cry and all the children suddenly became VERY interested in baby Juliette!  I'm not sure that they knew she was real until then!  Garrett had Space Ice Cream to share that he got on his recent trip to Washington.  The kids didn't understand how it could be ice cream when it was hard and not cold.  We had so much fun exploring it together!  Susannah brought her teddy bear and gave everyone a chance to give him a squeeze.  When we reminded the kiddos that there was no school tomorrow, there were a lot of moans and groans!  When the kids hate to miss school, it's always a nice boost to the teacher's ego..... I love that they love it here!