It's October!!

Monday began with making a scarecrow.

Ours is donning a Garfield shirt. Thanks Mr. Ron for the donation.

We caught a tomato worm and planned to feed it for a few days. But it had other plans......

It made its cocoon and so now we wait and watch.

Have you ever painted on paper towels?

 

The highlite of the week was Macoy's #2 Birthday party.

We had to go with a Farm party.

After all, our letter of the week was "F".

 

Sorry if the sideways pic makes you dizzy. Imagine how the "bowling pins" feel

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Wishy-Washy is a favorite.

 

 

Macoy's gift set the theme. A gator with sound buttons.

 

Mom & Dad will know where he is :)



 

Sharing a Link

I want to share this link to a Moving Smart article.
It talks much the "Academic Creep". Parents want their children ready for Kindergarten and that is understandable.
 But I will warn against the movement towards learning Only letters and numbers.
Education is so-o-o-o-o much more.
And I quote:

Early childhood learning is a personal, follow-your-nose journey of play and exploration with no other agenda than what's fun and fascinating right now. That's nature's educational plan. In fact, a three year old's brain is far more receptive to learning from mudpies and monkeybars than ABCs and 123s right now.

Of course, gently introducing them to new things they haven't found on their own is a great way to expand their learning horizons. But expecting them to engage or "perform" academically or in any other arena, is another matter entirely. They'll do their best to oblige us, of course, but if they can't, all we're doing is setting the table for unnecessary stress and frustration.

 

So before you try to "keep up with the Joneses", Ask yourself, is it good for the children?

The pic here shows a 2 year old and 4 year old using multiple tools.

With interlocking cubes, they:

1.  measured lengths of table and objects
2.  filled spaces (dinosaur footprint)
3.   used cognitive skills (sorted colors)
4.  used large muscles (hammered the blocks)

Not to mention they colored around the cubes and the dinosaur you see here.

All these skills prepare their fingers for using that almighty writing tool,

The Pencil.

 

ATTENTION:

This is what Play looks like!

 

 

 

Cooking Monday

Today is Monday...

& we're cookin'!!

 In this pic the kids are demonstrating how Popcorn  "PoPs"!!

Did you know you should not cook popcorn 100 calorie packs the same amount of time as regular sized ones? 

They Will Burn :(

 There are Oreo Cookies in that bag. They are thankfully egg free & peanut free

 for our little guy who can't have either.

This is what Popcorn cookies look like. I would recommend not using regular chocolate chips but stick with candy melts. 

But they taste good anyway!

Ingredients:

1 snack size bag of popcorn

1/3 cup of chocolate chips (that will melt in the microwave)

4 smashed up Oreo cookies

A large ziplock bag to do your hammering

Stir them up & wait for it to cool.

A Letter to The President

Monday is Presidents Day, the day we celebrate our country's founding fathers.

So we decided to get a jump start this morning on a bit of talking about what we would do if we were president.

This led to a brainstorm of what we think we would want to say to the current president in a letter from the children in our home daycare......

It's said that a letter will get us stickers & such.

What a great motivater!!!

Here is our version.

I hope you'll enjoy their thoughts

We adults have much to talk to our children about.

So....

Talk With Your Children.....A Lot

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!!!!!!!

Conversation Starter in November

Fingerprint Turkeys

Our latest deep conversation went like this.........

"Pretend you grow a pumpkin so big that you are able to make 100 pumpkin pies! What would you do with that many pies?"

Adam - age 5:  I would share :)

Dexter- age 3: I would call a tractor because tractors have big trailers. Then my trailer would dump them out!

Weston- age 2:  Momma!

Gracie- age 4: I would give them to my mommy so I could have some for later.

Olivia - age 4: I would take them to the market. (future economist)

Brynn - age 4: I would put a lot of sprinkles on them.

Savannah - age 3: I'd eat them all by myself!

Quote from Plutarch (Roman historian) 

 "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled"

Conversation With Children

Love this bit of wisdom from B.B.King

We have been taking at least 1 day a week to ask "thoughtful" questions as a group. Many times children mimic each other in their answers; especially when in a group. But lately, I have been blessed with some answers that I certainly could never make up. I have decided to share this week's Conversation Starter. I hope you will enjoy......

"If you could grow a field full of vegetables and fruits, what types would you grow?"

Brynn (age 4):   Corn husk, peas, oranges, and tomatoes, but we gotta wait for mine to grow taller like yours.

Gracie (age 4):  Bananas. And I would like some eggs and vegetables and peas and oranges.

Lou (age 4):   I would grow eggs and some butterflies.

Dexter (age 3): Cupcakes

Adam (age 5):   Carrots

Olivia (age 4):  Corn and beans

Savannah (age 3):  I would do bananas and chicken nuggets!

Weston (age 2):  Pink!!