Building Boom at Navasota Head Start

Building Boom at Navasota Head Start

The first of our many family projects have started to come into the center.  As usual they are fabulous. Our "study" that we have been working on is Buildings.  We have been looking a different types of buildings, what they are made of and also who works in those buildings.  We sent a request home with the parents to make a building.  You can see the amazing projects that have come back to us.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so this blog is going to be mostly pictures for you to enjoy.

My friend Pete!

I have never seen anything like it.  My friend Pete the Cat can charm 3-year-olds like no one else.  Pete and I have been together for many years now.  It never fails, Pete shows up the first week of school, amid the tears and the defiance, the not knowing how to sit and listen to a story and the lost little ones who look like they have been left by the roadside.  All of a sudden when a small, blue cat appears over the back of a big book stand, everything is OK and all is right with the world.

I have to give you a little background on how I happened upon Pete the Cat by James Dean and Eric Litwin.  I was visiting my grandchildren and noticed this book in my granddaughter's room from one of the book fairs they had gone to at school.  I glanced through it and noticed it had colors in it, I thought "great a new color book I can use with my Head Start kids, I'll have to get one."   And that was that.  I got home, ordered the book and went on my merry way.  The book arrived from Scholastic and I actually read through most of it and was really upset.  It only had four colors, red, blue, brown and white.  What kind of color book was that?  I did notice that I could download the audiobook for free, so I did.  I also ordered the little doll that went with the book.  OK, enough background.

I took Pete into class with me and after I had read one of my big books I brought out Pete the Cat   I Love My White Shoes book.  I took out my iPod and started to share the story with the class.  I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this story and how mesmerized the children were.  When we got to the end of the book, which was my first time to hear the end as well, I laughed out loud.  The children didn't understan


d why I was laughing, but it didn't matter.  Pete and I have been best friends ever since.  Pete can calm a room full of children quicker than anything I have ever seen.  He whispers in my ear and tells me about how wonderful it is to see all the children waiting to hear his stories.  He sits and watches as I "read" his books.  It's more like how I interact with the story.  We still listen to Eric Litwin tell the story on the iPod, but I'm right there with him, reacting to what's happening and interacting to what's going on.  Before long, so are all the children.

When the children move to Pre-K I usually try to get to each Pre-K class at the beginning of the year with Pete to check on them and let them know we are still here and still watching out for them.  Thanks to Pete, they know "It's all good".