Bye Everybody

I picked Tani up from school today at 3:45 pm to take him to his yoga class. His classmates were sitting on the steps waiting for their parents who would be arriving shortly for the 4 pm pick-up time. As we walked down the steps, Tani shouted "Bye everybody". No one responded to him and the children kept doing whatever they were doing. So Tani said again "bye everybody". Still no response. Finally he said, "This is your last chance. Bye everybody!". All his classmates in unison said "Bye!". The teachers took note of the phrase "this is your last chance" for future reference.

Willy Wonka week

The theme of this vacation has definitely been "Willy Wonka". While visiting Aunt Shari in NYC, Tani wanted to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp) on Shari's big screen TV. We tried to get him to choose "Alice in Wonderland" but he definitely wanted Charlie. So he watched it - three times! Then Melissa gave him some gold paper from her oragami set to make golden tickets to put in pretend candy bars. Then Shari or I would unwrap the "candy bar" to find a golden ticket and get to take a tour of Willy Wonka's factory (Shari's bedroom). Tani was WW. When we got home, Tani's friends Chaim and Elez (and their mom Holly) who live in Harrisburg came to visit us on their way home from Brooklyn. They both read and write so amongst their many activities together (drawing pictures and playing, visiting the Liberty Bell, Franklin Institute, and Morris Arboretum) they wrote up a list of rules for entering Willy Wonka's factory (e.g. don't drink from the Chocolate river, leave the squirrels alone). The Hyman-Fessler family singers arrived on Friday and under Ariella's direction rehearsed all weekend for an abbreviated performance of Willy Wonka. Tani forgot half his lines during the performance but he loved the process - rehearsals, learning his lines, performing, singing Candy Man. Then everyone watched the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Tani said he liked them both. The Hyman-Fesslers thought the Johnny Depp film would be weird but hadn't seen it so then everyone watched that one. Melissa downloaded the "Willy Wonka" soundtrack from Amazon and Tani's been listening to it. He's got the lyrics to Candy Man pretty much down now. I'll write more about our vacation week but Willy Wonka was definitely the theme.