Valentine collage....

Korina set out paper, doilies, cut out hearts, heart stickers, heart puffy 'sayings' stickers, and red straw pieces...with glue. Olivia asked what all the sayings were on the hearts. They said things like....LOL, BFF, Love You, Text Me, and Be Mine. She memorized them and read them back to all the kids. :) She will be reading by the time she goes to school!

Q-tip painting with all the Valentine colors.....

We got out tin foil...I thought to paint on, Olivia had a different idea. She cut it up and glued it to her painting....very good idea Olivia!

valentine....

This is part of our new science area. I want to do a few more things to it before I totally blog about it. They really like what is already there! Right now I put in pink playdough that smells like vanilla and cinnamon, smooth shiney rocks, large noodles, copper cake pans, heart placemats, and later I added heart cupcake papers.

In the sensory bin there is a variety of colors of rice. I made it simply by adding dropfuls of liquid watercolor from www.discountschoolsupply I added heart playing cards they can match up and heart containers.

The easle has pink, white, purple, and red....They all decided to come into the messy room this morning. I did just put out the playdough...nice and warm. The other table has some stamping. I just added some liquid watercolor to paper towel strips and let them stamp away with heart stamps.Armaan and Alondra are sitting in the reading area and Alondra was reading him a book. Of course she moved before I could take the shot. She loves to 'take care' of him!

Room arrangement

I am going back to school to finish my ECE. I have already taken most of the classes needed but am about 6 classes shy of having that degree. I started last Tuesday but signed up late so had already missed 2 classes, and I have been trying to make that up. One of the books we are working out of is an awesome book! I will give you the name in my next post. It is about room arrangement. I have always had 'learning areas' in my room, but have always thought something missing. I re-arrange my room sometimes monthly trying to find the 'perfect' way. I think I have stumbled upon it with the help of this book. So far I have changed 2 areas, the book area and the science area. I will post the book area first and then I will post the science area in a bit. Our teachers exampl of what NOT to do, was put the the reading area next to a doorway and to have it open...becuase then it is too noisy and traffic will distract. Hmm....Mine is open and next to the door. My room is small. I thought about moving the reading area somewhere else, but I love how much light comes in at this spot. This is where we used to do circle time and never really thought it that bad of a spot....until now. Try not to look at the mess....but wow! What a difference!

Just adding curtains and a few plants transformed this little area into a haven! The children LOVED it! All morning they hung out in there and read!!

I also added some new pillows. The board you see in the background has the childrens pictures, their names and birthdates, and pictures of their homes. (Some haven't brought in pictures.) I covered it with plexi glass so it wouldn't get ruined. Our little 9 month old Campbell loves to go look at her parents. The other day she was kissing her dad!!!

flour, light table, stamps, boxes, blocks, paint, and.....these amazing coffee filters.

My niece, Charolette, came to play today. I love when my nieces come to play!! She loved the flour table..then the sink...then the flour table. She went home a little pasty :)

These pieces of paper are the scraps leftover from cutting out small, medium, and large circles for the snowmen. One child painted hers and the other painted on the inside....

Ooops, Wesley spilt the blue...no biggie, just use it off the table!

I set out snowmen stamps, stamp pads, paper, and pencils. COOL! RIGHT? I saw these in the catalog www.discountschoolsupply.com You can't fill them with water or super small stuff (like glitter which, if you shake it, comes out) But the kids helped us with ideas of what to put in here. We have pom poms, glitter (don't do that one) pasta, buttons, sequins, and this cool white beaded stuff I got through www.creationstationinc.com They are at conference every year and I load up. We needed a quiet place...hmmmm...ooooh!!! I still had the box that the block shelf came in. It fits perfectly! A nice quiet place for one or two. Yeay!This is how our Art goes....Korina had a great idea with some of the packing pieces that were still hanging around (I never through anything away...it's good and bad :) ) She wanted to cut them up into shapes and have the kids do shape prints. I knew what would happen, but I forget that she hasn't learned all that yet. So quinn gets busy...oh so busy. I am pretty sure he is drive'n...drive'n those little shapes all over town onto his paper. After Quinn is done Korina says, "Well, they just painted big blobs, but they had fun!" I raise my eyebrows and nod yes, and realize she does know. :) My thrifty lil boy....he finishes on one side and turns it over to use the other side. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these coffee filters!!! I got them through www.discountschoolsupply.com and will buy them again and again! They come in 3 sizes. These ones are the middle size...yes, they come bigger!! Korina set them out with bubbles on top, hoping to get some bubble prints as they fell onto the filter. It really didn't work, but it made a different working space. Dylan filled up his whole filter!

Some other ideas we have been using with these are using pipettes and liquid watercolor to make ty-dy-like designs. AND, one of my favorite so far is having them draw on them with markers and then using water and a paintbrush and having them run the paintbrush over their drawings to create a watercolor effect.

Snowball Fight!

We started out with cheese graters and soap. Yes, I have 8 cheese graters....wouldn't want to leave anyone out :) I use Dove for sensitive skin, and let the children grade away. I first let them know that the graters are sharp and demonstrate how to use them and how NOT to grade your fingers. A few of them took this job very serioiusly and grated the whole bar of soap...and yes there is more if they need it. Some just grated a litte...."What do we do when we are done??"Would you like me to wrap you in Toilet paper? Yeah! So we wrapped everyone up in toilet paper and they thought they were soooo strong being able to rip out of their capture.Dacia stopped by for a visit and got to help out....The Mighty Quinn....As they started to break out of their wrap, the natural thing is to throw it....we didn't have to say a word! Up in the air, on your head, and pretty soon we showed them how to roll it up to make a snowball. This was the best snowball fight I've ever had. It's warm, soft, and doesn't hurt when blindsided!It lasted for a good 40 minutes and Korina (My assistant) did not want to stop. "We should do this everyday Annie!"
We then gathered up big piles full of 'snow' and took it over to our buckets full of shaved soap. We added some warm water and stirred around and around. In the Lisa Murphy book, she calls it 'clean mud'. It is always a good indoor crazy activity! The kids love it and it's fairly cheap and easy to clean up! Just don't dispose of it down your sink....it will go into the garbage. We will leave it out a few days though....when it dries out a little, just add some more water.

Happy New Year!!

My New Years Resolution.......To Blog Again!
It has been awhile. One of the big changes for me in 2009 was to move from 8 children by myself to 12 children with someone helping me. At first I thought it would be hard, then I thought it would be easier with someone else around, and then I thought it would be hard again. It has ended up being a great decision and I love Korina who is our Assistant. It does get a little hectic sometimes, especially when the rainy days keep us inside, but we have figured out ways to seperate and conquer! My space is not huge, matter of fact it is pretty small, but we divide it into areas of play that give the children their 'own' space if they wish. Some days I just take the older kids to the kitchen table and give them a 'special' assignment to work on.
Another special thing we added to the mix.....babies! By mid February we will have 3 of them under 1! I am now trying to figure out how to safely block the front area off so we can still have preschool stuff out for the others. Right now we just block with boxes.

Before Christmas I asked all the kids (all of them celebrate Christmas) what they wanted for the playroom from Santa. I told them Santa was coming to preschool this year and we needed to give him a list. One of the boys said he would like to have a GOOD set of blocks...you know the kind where you can build things because they all go together. (I felt bad...no one has ever complained about the blocks before, but it was true, most the blocks I had were mismatched and hand made) So this is the block set that came and the shelving unit that goes with it. Yes it was spendy, but very worth every cent. I got them through communityplaythings.com The other items they wanted were new baby dolls, books, puzzles, cars...lot's of cool cars, flashlights, and an outside playhouse. I didn't get the playhouse, but we will have one built outside in the spring. The kids were so excited to come back from break and see all the new stuff!!We started off our first week with Ice, water, snow....I was trying to hold off with the snow until it actually snowed...and am still waiting! We did a white collage. We had White string, cotton balls, buttons, feathers, tissue paper, and stickers. They love the new flashlights...we are working on NOT shining in the face! :)Next day we painted on tinfoil with blues, purples, and white.....Here is Campbell enjoying her new friend Leigh! They are 3 months apart and will be great friends!! Oh my gosh....Quinn turned 3!!! I can't believe it!then we made snowmen...While I hung with the babies Korina observed this project. She talked about small, medium, large....and big, bigger, biggest....We set out popsicle sticks, poms, buttons, cotton balls, black felt hats, Q-tips, red straws cut up, and glue. Here are a few of the different snow men. Very Cute!They are very into the bottom of the fort lately....Here is Lexi coming out to say Hi for a sec.Dylan, Sam, and Bryan were all on the phone talking to family members :)

Smores....

We ended our week of camping (we will probably continue it next week also because the kids LOVE it!) with a fire and roasting marshmallows to make Smores. We got out there while it was sunny and by the time we were done we were getting rained on! As soon as we got inside the clouds opened up, thunder and lightening cracked, and the hail came down. Whew, we just missed it. The kids had a great time around the fire.Korina makes marshmallows for me and her......

teacher project vs kid project

What is this? Yup, it's a spider. We made it with our hands today. So tomorrow we will add eyes and maybe some 'web', and it will be cute, and you will love it.
So here is the problem. For the little guys I have to paint their hands to get it just right. Then I have to place their hands down on the paper just so, to get the 'spider' look. Then I have to take them over -right away- after I place their hands down, and wash them so they don't paint everything else black because I have to paint someone elses hands because they are waiting. That is alot of I's, isn't it? Sure the project is cute, but your child did not really make it. I did. :)So I let the older kids paint their own hands, but what happens if they do it.....wrong? Which is something that I stive very hard NOT to do, is make the kids feel bad about doing Art wrong. But I have to tell them exactly where to put their hands....and sometimes....They do it wrong. I don't tell them though...and we move on to the next piece of paper. I say, "let's do another one Lexi!"I started getting pretty frustrated at myself, and the things I was trying hard NOT to say, but ended up having to say, like....wait, hold on, in a minute, no, not there, stop!!!!! Because they all wanted to do it at once.
So, I put out a big piece of paper and let them do it themselves. Ahhhhh, much better! Quinn and Sam painted themselves for about 20+ minutes and I just sat and listened and watched and it was so peaceful and so much less chaotic. They learned much more by doing this than by me doing it for them.
That is why we don't bring home very much 'cutsie' art work. :) ....it's because I love your kids so much and love when they are doing it, not me.

Ooohhh, this is cool. I have plexi glass pieces that we paint on, shaving cream on, window crayon on, but today we used window pens. Have you seen those? Cool dude......I printed out some spider pictures and taped them under the plexi glass and set them out with the pens. Me likey!

Spiders and random pix.....

We are all over in the sand box and these two are giggling away over on the deck. I look over and this is what I see. Too cute!

These guys are working hard on the 'bathtub' bubble solution. They are using sand, playchips, rocks, and whatever else they can find laying on the ground.

Here is the bathtub. Right now just Lexi is in it, but they all take turns and all 3 were in at one time.

I put a hay bail in front of the bunnies. Now they can easily stand up high and feed the bunnies pieces of hay. Quinn loves to do this and at one point he looked at me, "hey annie, they are sharing!" Indeed they were.

We will add more webbing but here is a shot looking from the entrance doors.

Boys.....

I put out cooked spaghetti noodles and added plastic spiders.....They LOVED this!!These gloves are the best! I got them at Target....make sure to get enough for everyone.

Yup...6 pairs of skelly gloves!...well I got enough for the boys anyway. :)Spider discovery bottle. I added rice and many different kinds of plastic spiders. We are also in the process of making real ones with real spiders. I will show those after they have made webs.Anna loves the feel of the 'key chain rope'. It's for the magnet board.This is the magnet board....The easle has yellow, purple, white, and black. I put a hole in the middle to see what they would do with it. More spaghetti stuff......I added spiders to the beans......Potato prints......Dancin' girls.....Okay, this is super cute....Quinn is showing Alondra how to golf. He is explaining to her where to put the ball, how to hold the club, and how to whack it! I love him!Jackson is using his keen counting skills to make sure everyone gets the same amount of shells on their plates. Hot tray! If you don't have one of these I highly recommend it. The kids love it when I put this out. They will burn themselves, but thats how they learn and the burns are not bad enough to leave any damage. They can draw pictures and make prints, or watch as the crayon slowly melts and leaves a big puddle of colored wax. You can always tell when it is on because it fills the room with that distinctive melted crayon smell! This is one of mine and the childrens favorite activities. Oh...they also love to peal off the melted wax from their fingers....remember doing that with candle wax?

drummin'

Here is the video...for some reason only the picture posted before....

Drums...

Quinn and Kelly Drumming away!

bubbles.....

I put the bubbles out today....

I found these gloves at target....I knew the boys would love them!!

around the room....

The kids are really loving these tubes! I will have to put some out in the water bin.

Here is a shot from the back of the 'messy' room.....

Bryan loves the busses!.....People in...people out....Bryans best buddy Dylan came to join the fun.....Lexi washed this ball for about 30 minutes......It can get pretty slippery!

Carrots had babies.....

Our bunny Carrots, had babies. 6 of them. They were all dead. I think she was too young. There was no nest or anything.
I showed the kids. They wondered what we were going to do with them. "let's bury them" "Are you going to put them in the garbage?" Olivia wanted to set them on the Hay bail so that they could eat when they got bigger. "They are dead honey, they won't wake up." "Can I touch it?" ....."um...sure." So we touched them. they were cold. they were stiff. they didn't move. Olivia said, "Can we squeeze them?"
Dylan said, "Yeah, theyre dead"
Olivia was very fascinated with them. If I had the guts (no pun intended) I would let them dysect the little guys.
"Soooooo, what should we do with them?"
and after touching them and realizing they were dead, Jackson said we should eat them.
Olivia replied "Yeah let's have them for lunch...but we have to cook them first!" Smart girl.
Don't worry....I could never cook the bunnies.

Around the room......

Cornstarch and water...and some color. This is a favorite. Sometimes I just put out the cornstarch and water and let them mix...but today I had it all set up, even with color. Olivia and Jackson were the first ones to try it out. "What do I do?"....that question for some reason is always asked. I am not sure why they ask because I always say the same thing...."what do you want to do?" "Touch it!" "Okay...touch it" "But I don't want to...." "So what do you need"....which is a question I am learning to say more often.....She said "I need a stick!" So I got a wooden spoon and that seemed to work. "Wheres my spoon?" asked Jackson....so I went and got another one....and another one......

At the table behind the cornstarch were baby food jars filled with watercolor paint, crayons, and paper. Kelly thought it would be a good idea to bring some of the color into the starch....At the big blue table I set out paper and pie tins with different colors of paint. I put one car into the tin...and waited. Quincy (of course) loved this spot. He picked out all sorts of cars, trains, and even a person. "LOOK ANNIE!!! FOOTPRINTS!!!" "your right Quinn...footprints"Can you see the sound that a big person makes stomping on the paper with green feet?The watercolor table.....I love the look of the watercolor pictures. I also love that Alayna likes to mix the colors.....There are now beans in the sensory bin.....There are scoops and small containers but Quinn had a better idea.....He brought over the tubes....."ANNIE!!!! It goes through!!!He tries to make it longer....it didn't work and he moved on to something else....maybe tomorrow.

Back to School....

Today we read a book about hands and throughout the book there were painted handprints. Soooo, if you give a kid a book with handprints all over it, chances are he will want to paint his hands......Jackson LOVED how the paint felt...and he loved slamming his hand down on the table with a big splat!Dylan wanted to wear cool sunglasses while painting himself.We had a goodbye party for Connor. Ice cream sundae's. We will miss you so much Connor but I know you will have such fun adventures at your new Preschool and we will be excited to hear all about it when you come visit to pick up your brother!Jackson and Anna were feeding everyone....Dylan and Bryan were riding around on the xylophones....they were giggling up a storm.Korina finds a semi quiet spot to read to Olivia and Quinn....The sensory table is filled with Red, Yellow, and Blue pasta with yellow plastic mice cups....Red, Blue, and Yellow at the Easle.....Gluing Red, Yellow, and Blue objects to make a collage.....There are pastas, shapes, and little buses.

Mixing colors at the light table.....

Boxes.....

When I was on the 'tour of daycare homes', we filled out forms to tell the providers what we liked and disliked. A few of the providers wrote about my house and they told me I should get rid of the boxes I was storing on the porch. NO WAY!!! Kids LOVE boxes and I was fortunate enough to recieve these from one of our families....thank you Debbie! They hide in them, read and play in them, write and paint on them, and flatten them out to use as jumps or bridges for the bikes. At one point there were no kids in the yard. If someone came by the would wonder what was going on........Here they are....hiding in the boxes!!

Lunch time outside today.......

Random Photos.....

Making pie's and what-not....

Riding through the bubbles.....

Cutie pie.....

Bryan is giving Alondra for a ride....He is so gentle and drives nice and slow...He is also always checking to make sure she is okay....

These two hit it off right away.....here they are enjoying a little potato print painting.

Connor started this....but I missed the photo op, so I got Olivia instead. Connor was dressed up like a firefighter with his firefighter hat, vest, gloves, and a small hose. This is the piece that was connected to the hose (we had previously used it for a 'wall marble shoot') So they took off the end of the hose and taped it to their mouths. I sure wish I got Connor dressed to the T, but I wanted to show you this ingenious way to make a firefighters mask.

Bryan, Dylan, and Jackson working on a puzzle together.....

Kelli is practicing writing her alphabet.....

Fathers Day.....

I know it has been awhile since I have posted. Hopefully I can catch up and stay caught up! So a few of these posts will be from awhile back....like Fathers Day.... We chose our own colors and painted our hands on a long strip of white paper....

We let them dry and taped them to Braydens formula containers...thank you Dacia for bringing those in!.....We made cards and added cookies to the colorful containers.

Happy Fathers Day!!!

Salt Trays and Shaving Cream

I took a class many years back called 'Math Their Way'. It was a great class and in that class we made these little boxes...and in them we added salt. 'salt trays'. These are great. They can practice writing, drawing, or just making scribbles...and then shake it and start over. Here Olivia is working on her 'B'.

Jence made a 'C', just by chance. He was so excited that he shook it out and re-did it about 5 times. Guess who now knows how to draw a C?

Who doesn't love shaving cream? I love it because it smells good and cleans the glued and painted table....the kids love it, well, because it's messy. I call it the 'getting things clean mess'. Dylan repeatedly looked back at the table after he was done and said...wow, it sure is a big mess!

Anna is in heaven.....