I had the honor of attending Jakob's preschool Valentine's Day party this afternoon. It won't be often that I have the chance to be at his parties as they usually fall on the same day I'm having one in my own classroom. We made his Valentine's and he helped a bit. He is a pro at using his Grandma's Cricut scrapbooking machine, so he cut several of the hearts. He was less than thrilled about smearing glitter glue over the top of them, but he did it on a couple.

I love the world of little people, their curiousity, their honesty, and their ability (or rather inability sometimes) to solve a problem with a friend. I played a preschool version of Twister by Leap Frog today. I managed to deflect the hard plastic colored cube from smacking Jakob in the head. He attends an all-ability center and from spending a little time with this particular classmate, I thought I should be on guard when it was his turn to roll the cube... he threw it with quite a lot of force and I realized he was still developing the dexterity to do things like throw or roll an object. It's easy to forget that not all children at almost four can do this yet.

One of my own first graders made me giggle this morning. I was out of half and half for my coffee and I asked her if she would like to go to the cafeteria to buy a carton milk for me. I gave her a dollar and a note. She returned to the class with my milk and I thought I asked her to put the milk on my desk. We started class and I looked over to see her drinking my milk at her desk! She had misunderstood, but was more than willing to go get another. I might have to start giving cartons of milk out as an incentive!

I love snow. I am giddy at the sign of the first snowflake. I realize that spring is more than a month away, but I'm ready for warm weather and the snow to be gone. Today's quarter-inch of snow, sleet, and ice leave me less than thrilled.



I remember when we would visit St. Louis from California, winter was fun, a novelty of sorts. Then we would fly home and be greeted by the warmth again as we departed our plane and walked out into the warm, balmy, smog of Los Angeles or Burbank. Now we have winter, all winter long... it seems to arrive somewhere around late Ocotber, early November and sticks around sometimes as late as the end of April. It reminds me of the book I read to my class, Old Man Winter.