Holiday Gifts

Simple retro toys may be the best holiday gifts advise developmental psychologists
http://www.temple.edu/newsroom/2007_2008/11/stories/christmastoys.htm

A great site to find out about the led in our childrens lives
http://nontoxickids.blogspot.com/

T is for Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving! We made a little feast. The kids helped with the turkey...a little. They got to see the giblets and feel the turkey inside and out. We stuffed it and put it in the oven. The kids were in charge of checking the little red timer stuck in the turkey. They were soooooo excited when it had popped up! We also made fresh beans, fresh cranberry sauce, and had canned mandarine oranges. We ran out of time for the potatos. They didn't notice.
The cranberry sauce was their favorite!......oh, I mean the sparkeling cider. We did cheers!

I am so thankful for all the beautiful children I get to spend time with during the day. I have the best group of children and their families.
Thank you so much! I hope you all had a Yummy and Thankful Thanksgiving.

Happy Birthday Connor!!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Connor!
Happy Birthday to you!!!
Mom brought in cool cupcakes
and everyone had fun.

Forest of Trees

We taped some of the leaves that we collected on our walk, to toilet paper rolls and then painted them. The final result was odd...but the kids loved this project! They taped all by themselves and painted.
Remember, most (not all, but most) of our projects are the "project vs product" approach. Meaning...your children are learning during the 'doing' of the project. And, you can tell I am not the one doing the project. The end product might not be so cute and fantastic to our eyes...but the children love them and are very proud of what they have been working on. When they say don't you love it???....you can say, "wow, you used many different kinds of leaves, can you tell me more about them?"
After all our tree's were together, we had a forest!

Indian corn rolling pins

Ella: I was rolling the corn in the playdough.
Ashley: I'm rolling the corn on the playdough to make it hide. To make the corn hide. When I always do that Ella and me are nice together.

C is for Corn

This wee we are talking a little about corn. Today we talked about how corn grows. It grows in the ground in a field. Corn stalks are tall. They are like so tall. They are taller than Paul and taller than my dad and my mom. Ears of corn hide....until you peel them. They taste sweet. Corn has to dry and then you can put it in oil on the stove and then it POPS! And then it is Popcorn.
We painted with Indian corn and rolled our playdough with it.

Leaf Hunt

We went out on a leaf hunt today. We found lot's....all different sizes and colors. We put our leaves into baskets. When we got home we seperated them into groups of shape. Then we dumped them all into the sensory bin. We kept our favorite ones to glue onto a paper.

Face Painting

Kamil looks a little unsure in this picture but he actually was quite pleased with himself. While I was helping someone in the other room, he decided to paint his face. "It's tickley" he said with a little smile. We looked in the mirror and he really enjoyed the image looking back. Amazingly he had no paint anywhere else (except a few drips here and there). He was focused on his face. Unluckily....the paint at the easel is the 'washable' paint....The purple does not wash. Luckily.... Kamils mum supports his curiosity!
Too Cute!

Our Hands Can

We made a book called 'Our Hands Can'. We brainstormed ideas of what hands could do and then I took pictures of them doing those things. I am hoping this link will take you to the book. I created it using Shutterfly....very cool site by the way.
Here is the link....share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AZMXDFo3bsXLw
If this link doesn't work I will be back to fix it.
The kids love seeing themselves in the book. You can purchase it, or just enjoy it at our daycare.

Cute or Scary?.....

Fairy Greta and lil bro Kanga and Roo. Mason LOVES his baby roo! I was trying to tell him a baby Kangaroo is a Joey (our hamsters name) and he wouldn't have any of that nonsense! Giddy-up Kamil....He wasn't too keen on having his picture taken, not even with Greta.
Awwww.....Two little fairy princess'......so angelic....
And then there is FRANK. Connor would not take his costume off for nothin! He loves it. Watch out Fairy Girls....Here comes FRANKENSTEIN!

What is Halloween?

What is Halloween?
Greta: It's when you have to carve a pumpkin and you have to get one first. Then when your done carving them, you put a light in it, then put on your costume, and then start to eat.
Ashley: It's where you get candy and then you get home and bring some to your teacher and say Thank you, I love you Annie. (I swear I didn't tell her to say that!)
Olivia: (I have to remember to let Olivia to go before Ashley) Where you get candy from your class...I love you soooo much Annie....I'm your sister. (?)
Connor: When you dress up and get candy.

Pumpkin Still Life Watercolors

First we looked at the pumpkins shapes and lines. Then we drew the pumpkins with a pencil and then we copied it over with a black crayon. Then we painted on it with all the colors.
'A Pumpkin Girl' by Ashley
'Pumpkin Neighbor' by Greta
'A Pumpkin Rainbow' by Olivia

Washing Pumpkins

We washed our pumpkins....nice and sparkely clean. Mason enjoyed dumping his pumpkin into the water. He did this over and over and over.....'Whered the water go Annie?' 'I dunno Mason...where do you think it went?' 'It jumped!' Yes it did.

Brainstorm... Pumpkin Patch

Before we left for the Pumpkin Patch, we brainstormed ideas of what we might see there. These were the ideas. *Pumpkins*Cool Pumpkins*Tractors*Mud Pies*Green Pumpkins*Long Stems*Yellow Pumpkins*Purple Pumpkins*Pink Pumpkins*A lot of People and *Fat Pumpkins.
Tomorrow we will review what we actually saw compared to our list. We will then review the sequence of our day in detail.
After nap today we will wash our Pumpkins outside in this super warm weather!
Connor found some mushy pumpkins! Good thing we had our boots!


Dacia's car was full of Pumpkins....and mud. Thank you so much Dacia and Karen for Driving us up to the Pumpkin Patch!!!

Pumpkin Patch

Here are a few pictures from the Pumpkin Patch! It was freakishly hot today....and many of the pumpkins were rotting, but we had a great time.

Boots!

We Love our Boots!
Boots can Run and Jump.
Boots can Splish and Splash.
Boots can Walk and Stomp.
Boots can get Muddy and Boots can get Dirty.
Boots can get Sparkely and when they get
Dirty again they can get washed and get cleaned.
Best of all....We can put on and take off our own boots!
Annie Loves our Boots!

S is for Spider

GRETA: Sometimes our spiders eat bigger bugs on their web. Then they go and walk a little bit and then they jump back to their web. That's it.
ASHLEY: When spiders eat bigger bugs we always say "you spiders are great at getting big bugs." I love you. When we love them we always like theim for every time. When we make spiders it look so cool. When we do stuff for spiders we use eyes and different colors on them. When we always do that we just like putting little feet on them and we like them becauss they eat big bugs. and alwyas when we do that it looks so pretty.
OLIVIA: We used legs for our spiders.
KAMIL: Spider. Eyes.
MASON: Spiders crawl on people. Spiders throw up. (?)

Chillin' with me pal

These two are becoming little pals. I gave them each a cup of crackers. They both went to sit on the stairs.They started sharing...back and forth...adding crackers and taking crackers from each other. They were giggling and having a great time. Then they ran out of crackers.
More?!

A is for Apple

Today we painted with fluffy paint. I just squirted it onto the table and let them have at it.
Ashley:"When me and Greta and Mason and Kamil and Connor and Olivia and when we paint it's fun. If we paint thats fine but if we don't paint it's OK. "
Greta:"I like to paint with pink paint. Pink paint is my favorite. I like to paint with all my friends. We are painting Apples. Red Pink Delicious ones. "

Googly Eye Glasses

$1.99 for 4 of these amazing glasses at Target!! Love these silly glasses. Love Target.
These are called open ended play items: They use them for magnafying glasses, doctor glasses, veteranarian glasses, kitty glasses, outerspace glasses, hammering glasses, painting glasses, and just pretending to see glasses.....see dinosaurs, crocodiles, spiders, fire, and fireworks, just to name a few.