Crestwood Day School: Celebrations

Today was our 2nd Annual Valentine's Poetry Party at school. Last year, each child chose a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson (from his book, A Child's Garden of Verses, a must-have children's book in my opinion) to memorize and recite. This year, all the poems had to do with nature. We were all anxiously waiting for the party- it was hard to get anything done before!

They all did an amazing job reciting their poem. One thing I did differently this year was to have them each record themselves reading their poem into the speakers of our computer (Garage Band on our Mac, to be exact) and I burned it on a CD. That way, they could just listen to it over and over, much like learning the words of a song. Doing it this way makes sure it's not learned "out of labor (I got some helpful information about this subject from this article)."

And let me be the first to tell you, it's a beautiful thing to hear a child recite a poem like "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I hope these poems are something that they will remember for a long time.

And every good Valentine's Party needs some chocolate, right? I made these "Fudgy Brownies" from The America's Test Kitchen Cookbook, which is now my go-to cookbook for everything. If you see this cookbook, buy it. Seriously. Another thing I made were homemade chocolate lollipops. I got all of the molds, sticks, and chocolate from Bake It Pretty. I was so happy with how they turned out- it couldn't be easier! You just melt the chocolate wafers in the microwave, put it in the molds, and freeze it for a couple minutes. I made heart shaped lollipops and my favorite- mustache lollipops.

Yep, it was a pretty good day. Mustaches and all.