Stirring the Pot

Hope you'll head on over to Stephanie's Stuff and read about our newest cooking experience with the children. We are keeping up with our Child-Directed activities and Letting the Kids Do It. Cabbage Soup was the topic and having a wide range of sensory experiences came with it.

• Taste - the obvious
• Smell- We had the Before and After of Cooking scents
• Touch - Bumpy and crisp raw/ and the opposite cooked
• Hear - Listen to the sound of it vegetables being cut, broth being poured, the sound of our voices wanting to 'be next' to help
• See- How much cabbage you get when it's piled up in the pot!

Child-directed learning promotes the natural development of self-confidence, initiative, perseverance and life satisfaction.

Have A Wonderful Week!

Upcycling wallpaper

You know those wallpaper sample books you can get for free at your local paint store? That is if your town/city still has one with all the large chain stores. (cough Lowe's, Home Depot, Menards, etc)

WE still have a couple here. My dad being a painter by trade during his life, this was a popular spot for us to shop. So... throw in a few decades later and you have me, painter's daughter doing childcare. And this is one of those ideas I use those sample books for.

Here's one example.

So we tear them out for this activity and use 'masking tape' (another painter's utensil) to attach them together. Thus, saving me $$$ from buying butcher block paper and also keeping my costs for families from skyrocketing due to needing more supplies. That( could be a whole other blog post)

 

 

 Now for the writing we picked out all the basic colors to keep track of them in case our little friend Hudson decided to run off with one to practice chewing :) And also, notice the print on the back is not a deterrent to the drawing going on.

 

In fact I used it to my advantage and created a writing prompt for Ben, age 2. Here's his little story.

Hope you enjoy our tutorial and story.

 

 

 

Two January Parties

January has been full of birthdays! We had 4 in our family and 2 in the daycare!

For the daycare setting we celebrated with some of the following activities:

 

A "What Will I Be?" Poster. This one is for the 1 year old.

An Artistic Rendering of the 1 year old with a life-size body tracing.

A game of Musical Hats. Who needs chairs???

& everyone loves dress up here!

These are the front & back of our latest game.....

Flower Action Beanbag Toss.

Toss a beanbag onto a flower and perform the action.

Special thanks to this website for the Birthday Memory game. Kids Sparks 

had this download available for free.

The ever-so-popular Pin the Jewel on the Crown. Repeated with the 5-year Old party.

Notice we wrote each child's name on each sticker as ownership is so important in the early years.

Of course what would a party be without Pizza?!

Our homemade variety on bagel thins is pure awesomeness.

Not too hard to chew and just the right amount for a good serving.

Cooking together is a great learning experience you don't want your child to miss out on!

Each child's name is written on the parchment paper underneath each bagel for more of that ownership.

Easy clean up too!

The newest addition to our parties this year will be these

Time Capsules.

(thanks to my father-in-law for the Christmas Card boxes)

With Sarabeth's we included her:

• What Will I Be poster
• Body tracing
• Pictures of the party
• Box label of her treats she shared
• Her crocheted Birthday Crown (my first attempt)

Wishing everyone a blessed 2013!!!!!!!

Sharing our Month of January

Dear Families,

 It has been a rough month with computer issues here. It took 2 weeks to clear up our main computer and I still am leery about using it. So decided to use the laptop and get on with business.

Tax info is ready to be picked up at your convenience.

I have not planned my vacation dates for the coming year yet as I may need to close for a few extra days this spring to redo our bathroom. When I figure all this out I’ll let you know well in advance.

Our recent themes have been short & sweet in an attempt to cover more learning areas. For example, we had a 3 day Airplane theme. And with the birth of another baby, we had a “Baby Day”. These are what child care providers call Opportunistic Learning. When we go with what the children are interested in, we gain more of their attention and therefore the lessons learned increase. I have so many ideas from the years past that I am very anxious to take them out again & again because they work!  So when your child doesn’t come home with a ditto sheet, don’t fret. We have been learning through life experiences and those are lifelong lessons.

Have a great week!    Stephanie

Check out my other blog for some pics of the

 children's activities in action :

Stephanie's Stuff

Learning Centers

Language:  Weekly Readers w/ activity pages – ABC Soup (cover the letter & name an ingredient) – Listening to Books on CD individually – S Tracing page – Rhyme page – Letter Listening Game – Pig Bingo – A Sound Cards – Snowman color word page - Writing Journals-

M & K Sound game

Math: Color match file folder game – Counting cookies file folder game – Sequencing file folder activity – match a snowflake page – Snowman maze page – Trace shapes & complete the pattern page

Science: Homemade etch a sketch – 4 Seasons cut & paste – Count how many airplanes we hear during a day

Art: Calendar puzzles – Airplane stamping w/cotton clouds – Airplane mobiles – Rectangle drawings made into puzzles – I draw a line, you draw a line art (taking turns) – Make a picture from a large Letter drawn on paper – Rectangle collages

Manipulatives: String color beads – Cut snowman shapes – Create color block runways to match color of airplane – Recreate Block shapes w/Legos ( E, X, Diamond, Triangle)

Music: Bananas in Pajamas on YouTube – I’m gonna catch a baby bumblebee – Dance to banjo tunes – She’ll be comin round the mountain – The Rectangle song w/shapes for each to hold up  

Large Muscles: Letter action cards – Dancing – Walk the path of rectangles, & tip toe, & march, etc – Letter Basketball – Snowball (pom poms) tossing – Bean bag toss

Dramatic Play: Doctor prop box – Dress up play – Baby play day – Little People & houses play – Horses & blocks for fences – hotwheels & maps

But What Do the Babies Do All Day???

If we engage with babies during caregiving tasks, they learn about their bodies and how to care for them. They learn language naturally and internalize it because they don’t just hear our words, they experience them through all of their senses. (“Can you help me squeeze the warm water out of this yellow sponge?”) Most importantly, babies learn that their participation is expected and highly valued. From: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2011/08/the-secrets-of-infant-learning/  We engage babies here with hugs, cuddles, singing, laughter, speaking, and plenty of eye contact. These are the ways we show all children how to care.