It was a zoo...

... in 2: Cool for School when Tommy returned after his trip to San Diego on Wednesday morning, brimming with impersonations of the animals he saw when he visited the city's famed zoo over the weekend. Although he didn't see any of his two favorite animals, dinosaurs and pumas, Tommy's excitement was contagious nonetheless, leaving Amy and Yamileth eager for the morning's Kid Fitness class, during which they hoped Vino would be able to channell some of the kids' animal frenzy into a healthy group workout!
Tommy didn't get a chance to see Thelonius in full knight regalia on Monday morning, but luckily for him Lyouba did what she does best and took myriad photos of Thelonius in battle with the mighty giant Edwin! While Tommy and Thelonius were delighted when Amy showed them Thelonius' picture on this very blog, no one was more pleased by the photographic evidence of Thelonius' cardboard sword fight than his dad, who expressed gratitude toward Lyouba for not only capturing the precious moment, but for sending him the photos as well. We're sure Edwin will be delighted to see himself on film too when he returns from a well-deserved vacation in Miami next week. Edwin expends more energy horsing around with our Explorers than most men have to expend, so we hope he's having a blast and getting some rest on his trip so that he'll be renewed for his return on Monday.
While the royal role play took place on Monday, the Explorers waited to celebrate the color of royalty, purple, until Wednesday morning, when P was the letter of the day and fun was the name of the game! After singing purple-themed songs during circle time (http://stepbystepcc.com/colors/purple.html), the alliterative craft of the day was to make purple play dough! After learning about primary colors and that red and blue mix to create the royal color, Lena, Jackson and the rest of the Explorers helped Yamileth mix blue and red food coloring into water to color the homemade dough. The fun with colors continued when Vino finally arrived, as a make-believe search for peacocks ended with a fun feather collage!
The Explorers Club tots also enjoyed fun making colorful collages this week, designing buildings out of colorful basic shapes cut out of construction paper and felt. After a morning song circle that gave one-year-old Reza an instant mood lift, the glue, paper and shapes were set out on the tables and the creativity began! As usual Simone took extra care crafting her project; as her father is a talented painter, there's no question where Simone gets her creative flair!
A busy morning of activities continued for the Explorers at Atlantic Avenue, with Haven, Liliana and Cole getting into an animated discussion about bedtime routines during a reading of Bedtime for Bun-Bun. Lili talked about the importance of brushing her teeth, and Haven said that she doesn't like to go to bed without a kiss from her mom and a hug from her dad. Bun-Bun wasn't the only rabbit to make his way into the classroom today; the letter of the week at Explorers Club is R, and to complete the rabbit theme Brittany, Amy and Ka Yiu led the tykes in a most delicious bunny-themed craft, creating the cuddly creatures out of marshmallows and cotton balls. It may have been a time for Arts and Crafts, but for some of our toddlers, it turned into eats and crafts as well!