We had just finished our community helper unit on the post office when we got the BEST surprise in the mail ever! We opened up Tessie and used a map to find all the places she had been before visiting us. The students enjoyed reading the letters that were left with Tessie and learning about some of the other countries. We let Tessie rest from her long trip for the rest of the day. Tessie spent her days learning our Pre-K routine. She swung on the swings on the playground, she did simple addition on her dry erase boards, and practiced her alphabet with the help of some fun learning games. Tessie took a walk with us to our local public library. Tessie got to meet Ms. Caitlin for story hour! We read stories about a silly pigeon who wanted to drive a bus. We all agreed that he should not have been allowed to drive the bus! Tessie enjoyed sitting in friends laps listening to stories. We also were lucky enough to get a class pet while Tessie was with us. A red slider turtle named Storm! Tessie also helped us with our school initiative to clean up our garden. We are located in Federal Hill a part of Baltimore City that has very little green space. Neighbors were using the garden as a dumping ground. With the help of students, staff, and parents we cleaned up the garden and made it a usable space. The Pre-K job was to research how to bring insects to the garden. We chose to study all about caterpillars and butterflies. We planted special bushes and flowers that would attract butterflies. We learned about the life cycle by having our own caterpillars that we watched morph into pupas and then into butterflies we let fly in the garden. We had some of the best times with Tessie and are sad to see her go!! 
