Play Dough

We make playdough pretty regularly with our daycare kids. Its a great math lesson, then fun with 3-D art.  Here is the recipe that I use.

No Cook Play Dough Recipe

2 cups flour
3 tbsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup salt
4 tbsp oil
1/2 cup boiling water
food coloring

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix oil, food coloring and boiling water in a separate container. Stir liquid mixture until cool enough to knead. Knead until smooth. If play-dough is too dry, add more water, a little at a time. If play-dough is too crumbly, knead in a small amount of oil. Store in an airtight container.

Creative Minds

We had a great time at Creative Minds last week.  Here are some pics of the day.

Oh Christmas Tree

 

We had a great time working on these "Christmas Trees" in daycare last week.  I think they turned out amazing. 

We used glitter... and I know I condemned myself to clean up glitter for months. I can't wait.

Daycare Days

This was a week filled with beautiful weather.  Because of the my change in priorities with homeschooling, the daycare did a lot less schoolwork and spend a lot more time outdoors.  Less stress and generally better behavior flourished.

However, I did decide to put more effort into a preschool type of curriculum, rather than trying to force kindergarten work onto the 3-5 year olds.  Duh.

So here are some highlights.  In addition to TWO beautiful park days.

The Letter A:

A Circle:

A Circular Panda:

Sunday/Monday: Week In Review

Highlights of last week...

Mom's Night In on Friday night... interesting choice of activities (watching birth videos) but always fun to hang out with my team.

Yoga only happened twice last week.  By the end of the week, I was just beat. I got into a bad cycle of staying up too late and sleeping in.  Not conducive to yoga in the morning before daycare.

Daycare is going well.  We had a lot of fun this week, as always.

We learned addition with candy and then another day we used blocks. Candy corn really drives the point home.

We learned to read and write 3 sight words:  The, And, Is.



We went to the pond to feed the ducks after reading Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.

We bought Ethan and Emma new twin size beds and moved them back into the larger bedroom, along with all the pack and plays. 

 

All in all, a good week.  Looking forward to more addition, more sight words and three letter/sound words, traveling through Asia in History and reading Stuart Little. 

Last Week At Daycare

We had a fabulous week. This week we: 

Had fun with sunglasses.  This are in our "Reward Bin" for kids that fill up their birdie charts.

We played with yarn, glue and paper to learn number 11-20.  

This week, we're learning some addition!

We read The Tale of Peter Rabbit & The Story of Benjamin Bunny by Beatrix Potter. 

We made passports to travel, complete with self portraits.

 

And we "traveled" throughout Europe.  Reading a story from each country and learning about different ways of life.  Next week, we set sail for Asia.

We finished our week spending some time Friday at a local park, where we found a lizard.  Mr. Ian was kind enough to catch him to everyone could see him up close.  But no touching - because that's against the daycare rules.  :)

Daycare Days...

Last Tuesday after spending some time at the park, we ended the day with a little bit of classic "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours."  Yes, my friends we had penis and vagina show and tell this week. 

Three of the 5-6 year old crowd decided to let their curiousity get the best of them.  And Emma, of course because she's always in the middle of the drama.

It was icing on the cake telling three sets of parents that their children were involved in a little show and tell of inappropriateness.  Simply effin' rad.

After all that awesomeness, I talked to Ethan about what he should do (say no, run away, TELL MOM)  should the show & tell start again. I let him know that one of his female friends showed another male friend her vagina.  His response was an emphatic "EEEEW!" 

Well said, my son.  Well said.

p.s.  I'm pretty sure I'm not being paid enough.

Today is bittersweet

Today, Ian and I moved his desk into our bedroom.  We moved all of my fabric and sewing machines into our closet.  To clear out the office, to make room for a nap room.

It is nice because we will have more play space (because we'll be able to allow the bigger kids to go into our kids room to play with toys.  I'd like to designate one of the room (kids or living) to be the "school" room, where we hang up our space.  Maybe the nap room, depending on how much space is left after the pack and plays, I suppose.  Anyway, the school room would have learning posters and so forth.  It could co-exist with the play/toy room --- or not.  I guess we will just be moving forward seeing how things go.

Its sad because I had to actually put my sewing stuff *away*.  Its not out for me to sit down and sew.  If I want to sew, I have to get out everything to sew whatever and then put it all back. Maybe it will be good, I'll be designating time to sew, maybe I'll even get more done.  But its sad for me.  Its a very definite line in the sand.... dividing my life as a stay at home mom to my current life as a working mom.

Sorta sad.

Its been a few days...

....which is really unfortunate, because I'm now very behind on journaling.  I've had a lot of decisions that I've made for my daycare business.  Wow...

I hired A Wednesday afternoon and I let V know that I did that - which meant that I wasn't hiring her full time like we've previously planned on and discussed.  Good business move, bad friend move. Really that could be the end of the discussion here.

(Except my next post is likely to be an open letter to V)

In other news?  I did the JM 30 day shred yesterday morning.  Man, I'm freaking sore today.  Holy cow.  The upside?  I've lost 5 pounds now (officially though not until Monday)  I'm pretty excited about that. The Divas are doing a Biggest Loser Challenge that I'm a part of.  Probably why I've been staying on task eating lately.  And exercising isn't coming so good, I only exercised yesterday - but hopefully I'll be able to do it tomorrow morning.  Exercise on a Saturday morning?  I'm committed!

I Got It!

I finally got my child care license! Its a great day! I'm so excited.

A little stunned too - now what am I supposed to do?

I know I need to sign up for the food program and state assistance. I also have a big ole stack of receipts to catalog so I can apply for my start up grant; which is supposed to reimburse my start up costs. I hope it does... I'm about $600 in the red at this point with this license.

Today is a good day.

Daycare Crafts

We made suns!

Something about glue + scissors + construction paper = HEAVEN for kids... Even Emma was loving it.