Halloween

Boy, do we know how to have a good time on Halloween.  We went out with Theo in his neighborhood (just a few blocks from us) and the boys had a blast.  They are just all joy and excitement at this age - no self-consciousness, no competitiveness over costumes, no concern about fair candy distribution.  Jordan was a jaguar and for a while he carried a plush duck as prey.  Later, he decided he would not carry the duck, and said, "When I see other children dressed as things a jaguar eats, I will just eat them."  Theo was a robot and had a hilarious stiff-legged robot walk.  Aaron would not let us get anywhere near him with any adornment at all.  Theo's little sister Zoe, though, loved her lion outfit.

The neighborhood here was quite wonderful.  Lots and lots of families, everyone super friendly.  Haddon Drive, we miss you, but this was some serious competition.  

And here's the loot.

We love school (II) (sort of)

To say that Aaron loves school would be pushing it; he still starts crying when he sees the building, and is very very sad when Dale leaves the room. (Dale does the dropoff.) But five minutes later he's fine, and engaged in whatever fun new thing is going on that day in his classroom. Yesterday it was little colored puffballs: good for throwing, putting in things, and just squishing in your hand. The toddlers were entranced. Today was markers on mirrors on the floor. Other days it's been crunchy leaves, rice, or foam paint. We get to see some of this, because his teachers do the same kind of documentation as in Jordan's class.

Here's his classroom. Sorry it's blurry; these kids move around a lot. And Aaron likes to get up close, which makes for a lot of weird pictures.



One of the things I like is the light table, with its basket of translucent objects.



For eating Aaron sits in a cute blue chair at a table, and uses utensils all by himself.



But his real joy is to be outside. We walked across the neighboring ballfield this afternoon.

We love school (I)

The lack of a camera really put me off blogging. Thanks to Jes, we now have a replacement.

The big thing at the moment is school. I tell you what, it's terrific. We are so lucky to have found a place that we like, that the kids like, in a good location, at a price we can pay - and we found it long distance! Jordan in particular seems to have taken to his classroom like a duck to water; his teachers say so, and we hear a lot of interesting stuff from him about what he's doing. He and I were taking a walk the other day and he said "Mommy, they speak English at my new school. Today I learned: Akhat, Shtaim, Shalosh. That means one, two, three." How about that! One two three in Hebrew! (Jordan often says "english" when he means a foreign language.) I was impressed. There are different assumptions about English literacy in his class, too... Jordan was not writing letters or spelling at his old school, and in his new class all the kids write their own name. The teachers here don't pressure him, but are providing him with a new wealth of writing opportunities, and he's joining in. Spelling, too: today he looked at his labeled milk cup and said, "That's my name, Jordan! J, O, R, O, A, Z. Jordan!" I actually love that he got the D and the N wrong: that shows he was really deciphering the letters, not just reciting the spelling. Here is his classroom in the late afternoon light:



And here is Jordan with some new friends, doing a word puzzle.



I also found a chart in the classroom of an "Apple Taste Test." This must have been done before Jordan started.



Jordan does a lot of Lego building in his free time, as at home (below left, where I snuck up on him). But he also participates enthusiastically in the art projects - we hear a lot about those - in fact we hear more about this school in one day than we heard about the last place in a month. Below right he's showing off the day's project, in which all the kids made creations to represent Light. Jordan's is made of gold rope, glitter, beach sand, and marker. The artworks are always annotated with a sentence from the child explaining their picture; the idea is that it helps the children to reflect on their work. Unfortunately I don't remember Jordan's caption for this one.



The teachers do a staggering amount of documentation and display of the kids' projects, typically including not only what the kids made, but also photos of the kids as they do the project, and a paragraph from the teachers about the activity and what particular children did with it. This is part of the Reggio Emilia philosophy, in which the teachers use detailed observations of the children to inform their emergent curriculum. They say that rather than being a burden, it keeps them engaged. And of course the kids find it thrilling. Here's a display of their activity "My favorite things about fall." Jordan said his favorite thing was the falling pine cones.

Magnuson Park

We had dinner early and went out to Magnuson Park before the sun set.  It was stunningly beautiful, with Rainier looming over the lake in the pink-gold light.  Sadly our camera is on the blink, and in this phone picture, Rainier is a mere shadow of itself.  But maybe you get the sense of things.

Little duster

We all dig the apartment. Aaron especially enjoys looking out the window, and he helps with the cleanup, too.

The Locks

Dale took Jordan and Theo to the Ballard Locks on Sunday. They talked politics the whole time. Theo is an ardent Obama supporter, as are all of our children. It’s actually a big topic of conversation among the four-year-olds. The other topic was cruise ships, which, as Theo informed Jordan, have a hundred apartments on them. Jordan has only recently learned what an apartment is and he was very impressed. Dale was impressed at the fish nets on these so-called cruise ships.

Seattle morning

What a terrific Seattle morning we had. We needed a toaster, so we decided to go downtown to Sur la Table at Pike Place Market. We petted the pig, marveled at the fish throwers, admired the crabs and clams and oysters. The toaster quest was unsuccessful so we walked out to Westlake Plaza and went to another kitchen store or two. Still no luck, but it was a nice walk, sunny and breezy; Jordan ran, and Aaron rode on Daddy’s shoulders. Back to Pike Place Market for lunch at the Athenian, where we were all captivated by the view. Blue water, dark trees, ferries, tugboats, a cruise ship under construction, seagulls flying at window level. Everybody loved it.

We jogged back to our car to beat the meter. Seattle has this cool new system replacing coin-operated meters: you pay for your parking time at a little automated pay station, and receive a sticker that says when you’re due back. You stick it to the inside of your curbside window. You can even take it with you if you change parking places. The most brilliant part is that you can use a credit card to buy the sticker. No more running into the store for quarters! I also like that it tells you what time to come back, rather than how much time you have remaining. This seems like the more customer-centered piece of information.

We got to our car at 12:10, and were pulling into our own driveway at 12:19. How cool is THAT. In DC we had to plan half an hour to get home from the Mall. From anywhere, really.