Dolls, Fairies, and Popcorn

Early in the afternoon Orianna and Josephine played with eachother and with their respective dolls. Here they are, all four, swinging together.

Later on the imaginary play of the day was that the children were all in Pixie Hollow, part of Tinkerbell's fairy world.

Here Ryan, Eden, and Marie enjoy a late afternoon snack of popcorn and apples.

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!

Painted Pencils

Over the weekend I found a package of unpainted pencils amongst my seemingly endless supply of art materials. We took out the acrylic paints, and they all busily painted their pencils.

Once we ran out of pencils, the enthusiasm for painting things was not quite satisfied, so they they painted anything in sight.

Here are the finished pencils . . . what fun!

Guest Contributor: Eden

Katie invited all the kids to "Club Calm." Everyone enjoyed it.

Katie and I had to make some rules or they would go crazy! I was the "helper." We had a really great time.


Drawing was one of the most faivorite activities. Orianna and Ryan liked drawing.

Katie and Gabriel were playing with the Litebrites while waiting for room at the drawing table.

I had to read because they didn't want to do Litebrites while waiting for drawing, so I read them two books.

Jo got her report card for being very good in Club Calm.

The people who drew and didn't want their pictures let us hang them up on the bulletin board.

Marie, Jo, and Orianna decided to bring out the tunnel and pretend they were animals.

I made puppets from a book that my mom gave me called 365 Things to Do and Make. I had the same idea as Rachel, because she had the same thing in her idea book.

Here are my two girls that I made. The one without the bow is Mary Jane, and the other one with the bow is her sister Fancy Nancy.

Jo decided to make puppets just like I did. I don't know the names of hers.

Here are the back sides of her puppets.

Election Day

Thursday turned out to be much like Tuesday, where thanks to Katie, my planned projects were shelved for a much more interesting activity. This time it was election day. Katie, Eden, and Josephine decided to run for president. They planned the election, made posters,

created separate voting booths out of manila folders,

created ballots and a ballot box, . . .

. . . and the two older girls composed speeches.

The girls also made little trinkets to be handed out to the kids after their speeches.

Eden's speech:

Katie's speech:

Josephine's speech:

After each girl gave her speech, all the kids all rushed into the dining room to vote. In the end, there was a tie between Katie and Eden. There was then a runoff election, and Katie emerged the victor. Everyone was very pleased with the result, even Eden, who was then declared vice president.

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/

Apple Coils

I'm still getting used to my new camera, so the photography here isn't the best, but that doesn't make apple coils any less fun . . .

Marie:

Eden:

Baby Envy and More Hot Glue Guns

Early in the afternoon David and Ria had some playtime together. David, almost 15 months, is a well-established walker, while Ria, 14 months, just really really really wants to be. Today when David so brazenly walked in front of her, she expressed her extreme displeasure at his "showing off."

After school the hot glue guns were out again, and the kids were extremely busy with their creations.

Lucas made this fantastic train for his younger brother.

Josephine worked hard on her creation.

Marie used one of the felt Christmas tree cones from the week before to make . . .

. . . this!!!

Iain also had a rather creative take on what a Christmas tree should be.

Shrinky Dinks and Hot Glue Guns

This morning before school Josephine exhibits her newly developed reading skills by reading a book to Monica.

After school, Marie and Jacob make shrinky dinks outside . . .

. . . while Eden and Josephine create sculptures inside using hot glue guns.

Shrinky dinks never lose their ability to entertain.

Iain tries out the hot glue gun for the first time. Very exciting!