What are you thankful for?

We cut apples, onions, and celery...added to butter, and mmmmm...

These are our "turkeys"....First we rinsed them and got the 'guts' out...then we stuffed, seasoned, and basted them...then we cut. Yes....for those who see they are upside down....we did that to see if the breast meat would be 'oh so yummier', and it was.

Yeah....it's done!

What are you thankful for? We started with...

Bryan: Bryan :)....

Olivia: My Fishtank, Turkey, Anna, you, Jence, (and she started naming everything she could see.

Jence: Olivia, Quincy, Anna, Bryan, lightening McQueen car, lightening McQueen camera, Lightening McQueen computer,

Quincy and Anna just smile...

Annie: That I have the best job in the world, and I get to see all my favorite kids everyday!

Seriously....I am not just saying that! :)

We only had 5 today...Connor went skiing (hopefully you found snow!) It was a nice little pre- Thanksgiving meal.

Serving up the chow.....Quincy's favorite is the cranberry sauce. He wanted more but I told him he had to eat some turkey and potatos.She cracks me up all the time you know....A very posed picture...too bad her pinky finger isn't sticking up...it almost is...That look from her is just priceless....I cannot stop laughing...

In the dark....

It is dark. I was chatting away with Dacia and I looked up and it was dark. Kids don't care...matter of fact they love it. I remember playing for hours in the dark around the neighborhood when I was little...don't you?....back when parents were just thankful it was quiet in the house. :)

Yes....we still have pumpkins floating around the yard. They like to carry them, push them in wagons, and in Jences case...try to push them up the slide.

New Rope!

In light of the Indiana Jones movie and Bryans love to pretend to climb with a rope (he would find string, or bungie cords, or just the air) I thought we should get some ropes. I put one on the climber outside and one inside on the climber there. They all LOVE it....and especially Bryan. He is going to have some pretty big muscles soon with all that pullin himself up!

Here is Connor ready to go. He has his belt and his tool and the rope."Jence, help! Help! get me up....."I can save you Connor..grab on!"

SO cute!

And then there is these 2 little love bugs.....

Flowers...Thank you!

Thank you! Thank you!
These started out as beautiful tulips brought in by Jence and Anna. When they opened they turned into fantastic tulips!
I love the coffee, cookies, black eyed peas, flowers....and all the other random gifts you all bring me.
Thank you so much!

around the room....

A Little watercolor painting....notice Quinn is double fisted :) Anna LOVES books....

These are pretty cool. They are called Bilibo's. www.bilibo.com

They are your ultimute open ended toy. They love to rock in them...put them on their heads...try hide in them...stand on them...walk on them....and.....
slide down the slide on them...sleds! Fast!...very cool.

Quinn was here for about 30 minutes. It doesn't look like he is doing much, but he has been carefully placing the magnet circles where he thinks they should go. We talked a little through this, big, bigger, biggest (there are 3 sizes) and a few colors...but mostly he just worked. He was placing them on top of each other...but in a very purposeful way. If it wasn't just right he had to go back and fix it.

Happy Birthday Connor!

So serious....
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Connor,
Happy Birthday to you!
Make a wish.....

Ohhhh, spidey smoke!

Happy 4th Birthday Connor!

Where's Quinn?

Right here! On my leg...under my leg...in my leg. He was even trying to eat my leg...notice the wet marks on my pants.

Wha??? and no....I didn't give him any colored contacts....
Still here.....

Oh my goodness....him is going to break hearts!

The crayon melting tray is back!

Yeaaa...the crayon melting tray is back. We had one...and one day it just blew up. Literally. I plugged it in, it was making funny noises, I moved the cord, and it made this HUGE pop with sparks and all. It was super old...probably about 30 years old. Luckily no kids were around.
So, I have been looking for a new (old) one, but haven't been successful. Then while I was looking around in Target...there it was. Only $19.00. I could handle that, AND, it wasn't going to blow up! So....when you arrive and pick up, if you smell that 'oh so yummy' smell of melting crayon, you know what we have been up to.
Learning about cause and effect (heat=melting crayon
Creativity
Properties of matter (Solid crayon turns into melted wax)
Observations
Small motor
and of course socialization.

sensory bin...

These 2 are so great together! They have been working here for at least 30 minutes scooping, pouring, and measuring. They are using thier small motor skells and scocialization...yup, they were talking to each other. They are good buddies. Next time I will record what they are saying and put it in the message.

Clay

To stay in tune with our camping theme, I brought out the clay. Because if your lucky you can find clay out there in the 'wild' and clay is so cool! It gives them a whole new range of things to think about. For one...how the heck are we going to get this into more playable pieces?? They have to scrape and dig to get little bits off. It also feels very different. Cool, slimy, grittier, etc. Jence is working hard trying to break it in half.

Here they are pounding and 'forking'....I added a couple forks and they love making the fork dots.

Dylan has his own little special piece that he smashes and rolls up and re-smashes.

Eeek...bears IN the tent!

I got these super cute masks at Ikea. www.ikea.com I think they are supposed to be dog masks...but to us they are bears...since it is camping week. The bears are Ashley and Jence.

Cornstarch and colored water

This started out as cornstarch with one container of red water, one container of blue water, and pipettes (mini mini baster sciency tools that transfer liquid). When you add the water to the cornstarch it creates this thick, more hard like, consistency and when picked up, quickly turns back into a liquid. Very cool stuff. So today they wanted more and more and more water. Then it started splashing on the floor...which needed a washcloth to clean up. They do all their own cleaning by the way....which in this case turned out to be even messier. But hey, it's Annie's, right? We are all about making messes and learning about what happens when you hit the container full of purple goo with a washcloth. It splashes!...So very cool! They really had a great time...and it all washed out.

slice of the day....

Here is a little slice of our day. This is after circle time when we are engaged in the different morning activities. It can seem like caos when you drop off and pick up, so I just wanted to show your angels hard at work.

camping..around the room....

For the next few weeks we are going to be talking about camping. At circle today we made a web...it went a little like this.
Tell me what you know about camping.
There are butterflies....when we go with my grampa he gives us a flashlight....we drive around in a truck until we get to the lake.....I catch fish with a fishing pole.....we have tents....we have sleeping bags...it gets dark....there are trees.....we are up in the mountains.....we eat hot dogs and chicken nuggets....

painting on black paper....I put it up high on purpose...not to be mean.
The next couple of days the art will be all about circles.....

painting on bubble wrap and then making prints onto paper....

Quinn is graphing!! They can make shapes with the string and sort the bears. They can sort by size and color....They can also make patterns and sequencing.