Happy Birthday, Eden!

Today was Eden's 8th birthday. Yesterday Katie had talked about surprising her with a party, but we didn't have any concrete ideas of exactly what to do. After school today we were all sitting out by the field at school, enjoying the beautiful sunshine, when my phone rang. It was Melanie, Eden's mom. She told me she wanted to get ice cream to bring over to share with everybody and wanted to know what time would be best. I told her what time, but then purposely didn't tell Eden about the phone call. I told Katie about it, and we decided to make it part of the surprise.

Once home, party preparations were soon underway. Katie enlisted everyone to help in decorating the playhouse. All the children made birthday cards for Eden and signs to hang up.

Eden was made to stay in the bedroom so she wouldn't see the preparations. Surely she knew what was happening (as we do this whenever a child's birthday falls on a family child care day), so she patiently lay in Josephine's bed and strung beads.

When Melanie arrived, we made sure to keep it a secret from Eden, and we took her around the side yard into the backyard to hide in the playhouse with all the kids. I went to get Eden, to reveal the surprise. She knew that all the kids would be in the playhouse waiting for her, but she was thrilled to discover her mother there as well (with a vast array of ice cream!).

Katie helped to scoop up the ice cream (so many flavors to choose from!) . . .

. . . and the birthday girl enjoyed the celebration . . .

. . . as did everyone else!

Backyard Exploration

We have a plastic bin in which we keep binoculars, magnifying glasses, bug-catching paraphernalia, compasses, etc. It is Iain's favorite bin, and he asks for it at least once a week, and he asks for it always by calling it "Compass and Stuff," which is now what it is officially called (yes, I put that on the label on the bin). Today, somebody besides Iain asked for this bin. It was Katie. She then asked all the kids if they wanted to go exploring with her. So that was the major activity this afternoon . . . exploring.

Here Jo explores Mamma taking pictures with the camera.

Meanwhile, Lucas worked busily away with the hot glue guns and a large amount of popsicle sticks.

New Hot Gluing

Here Ria enjoys coloring from a standing position. Honestly, she was originally in a chair, but had far more interest in drawing after getting down.

Over the weekend I went to RAFT and replenished my supply of hot glue gun craft supplies. Needless to say, Iain was anxious to get started.

Lucas joined Iain at the table and created an elaborate home with multiple rooms.

Meanwhile, the girls enjoyed a quiet afternoon playing with dolls in the bedroom.

Guest Contributor: Katie

Today we had our first annual art show market. From yesterday to today we have been making arts and crafts. There was everything from paper drawings to colored cds.

Here is Ryan making our famous colored cds:


This is a sign I made advertising my both. Rachel let me put it on her door only if I took it down after. It says, "Buy from Katie she has awsome stuff," which was very true.


We made all of our stuff by hand. Some of the art took awhile to make. We were allowed to use anything we wanted to use. I am pretty sure that we bought everything there was to buy.

This is a photo of my booth. Eden and I got the biggest booths.The younger kids used stools and chairs. I had made some colored cds, bookmarks made out of string, some cds glued together, and some hot glue gunned art.


Jo sat outside about a hour before the art show even started. I do not know how she did it. She just sat there very patiently and it was cold out there! Jo was one of the kids who managed to fit all of their art on a little stool.

Ryan got the picnic table. His art was colored cds and a lot of them. On the table was Rachel's watering can. He took a cd and voila! -- it projected off the watering can. So then people started buying cds from Ryan, not me. Later we found linoleum in the hot gluing stuff. Then I got an idea that if we propped it up on the table we would have a projecting screen.

Lucas and Iain shared an area in the art show. The way it worked was that you would get your area and would use it to put your art. Iain was not here yesterday, so Lucas got to share his area with Iain. Since Iain did not have a place to put his art, I gave him one of my stools. Iain also got to make some art. So we had the art show later in the day.

I made up some rules like: only these tables can get up when these people are selling, no running, do not say mean things if you do not think the item is priced right.

This is Eden giving Gabe an item. Gabe used up his money a lot so Eden and I gave him some more to buy with.

Eden is giving change to Lucas in this photo. The change part was hard for the kindergartners and 1st graders. So we kind of just did the change part ourselves.

We had wallets to keep our money in. The money was paper. To start off you would get one 5$, four1$s, and 25¢. You would make more money so some of us ended up with about 20$ at the end.

Candle Holders and Rock Candy

This morning Gabriel worked on decorating a baby food jar with glitter glue and sequins. We later put a tea candle inside.

Later on Ria and Maya made candle holders as well.

In the afternoon, we pulled out the first of the rock candy--which Lucas then took home with him.

Rock Candy!

Today we experimented with trying to make sugar crystals. We followed the instructions closely, but the solution seems to be SUPER SATURATED . . . practically a syrup. We'll see what happens . . .

Before the end of the afternoon, small crystals were already beginning to form! We'll check it again tomorrow to see what becomes of it . . .

Water Globes and Melted Wax Painting

Now we begin week 2 of the renewed blog . . . there's so much to report! As the kids arrived this morning, the posted planned activities were:

This Week
At Children’s Garden
January 26-30
*Heart Collage Valentines
*Melted Wax Painting
*In the Garden- Weeding around Bird Bath

But first, the water globes are ready and going home! What seemed like a fun and simple project ended up being extremely complicated. As I glued the lids on, they were not completely watertight, but the glue took so fast that I couldn't unscrew them to fix them! Sven then used silicone caulking along the edges -- twice! -- and this took several days to cure. So here are a few photos of some of the waterglobes.

Some chose a woodland scene with deer and evergreen trees . . .

. . . some chose oceanic themes with either whale heads or tails and a blue tint to the water . . .

. . . and then Lucas clever combined the two themes by using a whale head, blue tinted water, and a "Christmas tree" decorated, appropriately enough, with tiny seashell ornaments. It turned out rather lovely.

So today we started our melted crayon painting experiment. It started with an old mini-muffin pan and a whole bunch of old broken crayons in a variety of colors.

They spent some time in the oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit . . .

. . . and soon started melting into little wax pools . . .

. . . and then were placed onto an electric griddle to be kept warm. Cotton swabs were used as disposable paintbrushes.

Nicholas, Luke, and Gabriel were the first to try it out, and it was a great success.

Crystal "Hearts"

This week the kids made Borax crystal “hearts.” I was a little worried that I had planned projects which were too closed-ended and that I had done the kids a disservice by creating models (my intention in making the models was to entice them). Well, the first child followed the heart shape, just like the model. Then the next child, Marie, asked if her heart could be made out of two pipe cleaners of two different colors. Of course! She cut them herself and figured out how to create the heart out of two versus one, and was very pleased with the result. Josephine followed Marie's example and made a bicolored heart, and then Lucas asked if he could use three colors. Of course! He made a red, white, and blue pole with a small heart on top in honor of Inauguration Day. In the following days children formed their pipe cleaners into the first letters of their names, double hearts suspended from each other, and the shape of the cross. I’m so glad they made the project their own and were able to see beyond the model.

This turned out to be a wonderfully simple and successful science/art project. We boiled water, and for every cup of water we added three tablespoons of Borax. Borax is commercially sold as a "laundry booster" type of detergent, but basically borax (with a lower case b) is sodium borate (check out Wikipedia for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax ). The kids formed their pipecleaners into whatever shape they wanted, and then we suspended the shapes in the solution using a string. Within a few hours we could see crystals beginning to form, and then in about 6 to 8 hours, the pipecleaners, along with the bottoms and sides of the container, were completely covered in crystals. For complete instructions, check out:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/winter/crystalsnowflake/

The Letter Writing Club

Right now I'm taking a child development class and have the opportunity to plan my own special project. For my project I am going to work on curriculum planning, putting together 2 or 3 projects to be done throughout the week, and then I will restart the blog which I haven't touched for the last 11 months. I love contributing to the blog, thinking back over our days and sharing them with the families, but on average it was taking about five hours a week and just became too much. But with renewed energy and inspiration, here we are again, and I am so excited to share what we did this week!

As the kids arrived on Tuesday, they were greeted by a paper on the magnet board which read:

This Week
at Children’s Garden
January 20-23

*Recycled Paper Heart Mobiles
*Melted Wax Heart Window Suncatchers
*Borax Heart Crystals

The morning started out very slowly, as it was Inauguration Day, so I didn’t have any of the boys in the morning. After Obama was sworn in, Maya’s and Sam’s mothers dropped them off, and the fun began. Maya was very excited to have a project all ready to go-she’s always looking for something to do. Much time was spent using the pencil sharpeners to obtain crayon shavings, and I think they really enjoyed that part of the process the most. I think they showed an amazing amount of focus for 4-year-olds. They were both very proud of their creations (wax paper/melted crayon hearts) and then moved on to cutting paper with a variety of scissors and then drawing with markers.

After picking up the kids in the afternoon, I explained how there were three projects planned and that they could choose whatever they wanted to do. Once we got home, I showed them the three projects and then explained that there were also envelopes, paper, stickers, and stationery out in the playhouse in case they wanted to play office or post office. “Post office,” Katie declared, “I love playing post office!” I made snack for the kids, and while they ate snack and watched a short show, Katie snuck out to the playhouse, skipping the show and taking her snack out with her. Just before the show ended, Katie re-appeared with 6 letters in hand. She handed one out to each child and told them to wait to read them until the show was over. A few minutes later, the show ended, and the children eagerly tore into the envelopes. Here is one of the letters:

Well, there was an immediate stampede on the playhouse. Katie had created a "mailbox" for each child out of bags, and each had a name on it. I was left inside, alone, so anxious to share my projects with the kids, but I knew that there would be time later today and later this week, and that what they were doing with Katie was just so much fun for all of them. They were practicing their literacy skills all in the guise of play. I know for certain that if I had said, “Okay, everybody, today we’re all going to write letters to each other,” that I wouldn’t have had anywhere near the success that Katie did. I snuck outside for a photo of the excitement, but other than that left them alone until things naturally came to a close.

Bubbles and a Rainbow

Today was the last day of Winter Break . . . back to school on Monday. But until then, there's much fun to be had. Wet and rainy days are perfect for making bubbles. With all the humidity, the bubbles last longer, and when they land on the wet ground, they don't pop right away.

Here's Lucas busy at work making plenty of bubbles.

Ryan shows off a big one that he caught again afterward.

And then later on we discovered a rainbow in the sky.

Lucas ran outside to get a look at it.