February | 2016 | Outside The Lines Playschool

Happy birthday to Benji, our last birthday kid of the year! Watch him soar, ’cause Benji’s 4!

During open play, Eliza asked if I wanted her to do some acupuncture on my hand. She was such a gentle acupuncturist, I certainly recommend her services!

Penelope drew Eliza a picture and wrapped the picture in a piece of fabric, then delivered it to her. Eliza was surprised and thrilled.

Benjie and Joey were playing walkie talkies with the cylinder blocks. “Can you hear me, Benjie!” “I hear you, Joey!”

Meanwhile, our birthday boy arranged our whole menagerie to his liking. He even brought in his own giraffe and dinosaurs to share with us.

At Together Time, we announced why today is special: because it’s Benji’s birthday!

Here he is modeling his birthday shirt…

and the back!

Benjie Sr. was our snack leader today. Here he is calling all of his friends to the snack table. He decided to call everyone over by singing “Willaby Wallaby.”

After snack, we got all dressed up in our rain gear. Then Lilly and I announced a special rainy day surprise: WE ARE PLAYING IN OUR BACKYARD TODAY! We thought it would be fun to make mud pies.

Out we go! Here’s Benjie trying to catch some raindrops in his cup.

Everyone got a bucket and a shovel and filled their buckets with mud. Then we dumped the mud into this big bin to make one huge mud pie!

Eliza adds some mud to the bin.

Penelope dumps some in as well.

What great teamwork!

Penelope shows off a rock she uncovered when she was digging up some mud. Cool find, Penelope!

Then Benji found a rock, too!

Buckets of mud = happy kids!

The kiddos’ boots kept getting stuck in the squelchy mud and we’d have to help pull them out.

OOEY GOOEY MUD!

Benjie heads over to the bin to add some mud to our collection.

And Llilla scoops some mud into a cup.

Then we took the huge mud bin into our art studio, rolled up our sleeves, and stuck our hands in the mud for some very messy sensory fun!

“This feels good!” said Llilla.

“The mud is so cold!” said Penelope.

Everyone was so excited to sink their fingers into our mud collection.

After we got all cleaned up, the kiddos played a big group game of house. Here they are discussing their roles and how to take care of their baby.

Benjie was the baby. Here he is in his crib, saying “goo-goo ga-ga.”

At the end of the day, it was time to celebrate Benji Jr.’s birthday! We set up our candle (the sun) and Benji walked around it 4 times to show how many times the earth has traveled around the sun since his birth. After each lap around, he told us something he learned to do that year. When he was 3, he told us, he got a baby sister!