Paint, Park and the Big, Big Kids

Although we got off to a late start this morning we packed as much as we could into the time we had!!!  

We are exploring the color Pink this week, so what better way to begin that exploration than to get out LOTS of paint and just dive in!!!

SQUEEZE!!!!

Look at me!!!

Working to make those little fingers strong!!

I love this photo showing them all working with the same things...
gaining something different or maybe the same??

What??

I'm not so sure about this...
It's everywhere

Watching & Learning

Watch Sissy.... I can give you more!!!

 After a busy morning getting dirty, messy, slimy and very, very pink... off we went to the PARK!!!

Up & Down
We are even learning at the park ;)

The big kids using the swings...
Little Man wants in on this too!!!

Aren't I just the cutest, Shell!!!

Practicing going UP the slide...

Laughing when she came DOWN the slide!!!

My Kozy Kids!!!

The big, big kids had the day off from school today.  It was really great to have them play with us today.  Having siblings around and showing off is always fun and having all those big, big kids laugh at everything the little ones do and say, has got to be the best part of their day!!! 

Learning When You Don't Even Realize It

I know, everyone thinks Kozy Kids is a place for only arts and crafts, games, fun, hugs and kisses, singing, or dancing... but we do a whole lot of learning and growing too.  I realized that I don't really talk much about some of the daily learning we do.  I think it is because it is so second nature to us that I don't think of it as "worthy" blog material ;)  So, today when Little Man was getting such a kick out of using his big boy cup I thought I better get a few shots of this, then I thought, look how big this boy has gotten, using his own glass cup at Shell's.  I knew I had to include it in our post today.  Self help/Independence skills not only help me, and believe me I start teaching them as soon as I can ;) but they help the child who is learning them.  They feel so independent, in control, proud, successful, and BIG.  

The little ones not only learn from me, but watch the big kids closely, and learn from them,.  Little Man has been watching Sprout and Roo put their cup on the counter everyday since August, and he watched his sister and friends last year, so when he finished his breakfast this morning he made sure I knew HE was going to put his cup on the counter and his bowl in the sink (which was the cutest thing ever, since he can't reach either one) I had to put the stool next to the counter, but with little help from me he accomplished his task and without waiting for the fanfare I wanted to bestow on him, he ran off to get ready for nap.  As much as I know it is inevitable that these little ones will grow up, it doesn't stop that little bit of loss I feel when it happens, okay, I'll be honest, A LOT a bit of loss when it happens.

You are right though to conclude that we do accomplish a lot of fun stuff during our time together.  If it isn't playing dress up or house, it could be building with blocks or train track.  Today we happen to introduce the letter Ee, the color PURPLE, a Square, the number 6 and VALENTINE'S DAY!!!  

We read Purplicious by Elizabeth Kann, at the end of the book it talks about how if you mix blue and pink you get PURPLE... so we decided to see if this book was really telling us the truth.  What fun we had investigating this hypothesis ;)

We started with BLUE first...

Then added RED...
and what do you think happened???

It turned PURPLE!!!
Right in front of our eyes!!!!

I love how Lil Bit is stretching to get to the top of her paper.

These two were very funny together...
They would continually touch one another's papers, but act very put out when it happened.
That didn't stop them though :)

Today, yeah we learned that blue and red make purple, but we also learned to share our space, to take turns with materials and toys, and to communicate with each other.  Miss Michelle learned that Little Man has learned things that she didn't even realized she'd taught him.  It was a good day.

Paint, Glue and Cotton Balls

It's a start to the new week, and the start of the Christmas Season.  I love the month of December... not only do we get to learn about the birth of Jesus, the music is great, and I am never without some sort of project to do, art or otherwise.

Today I just set up the easel, with pink paint (I ran out of red and green).  The kids love the easel and as long as I'm nearby it goes pretty smoothly when the littlest people use it.   

"What, I'm painting... just not the paper!"  ;)

"I'm just showing her there are OTHER ways to paint."

Mixing our glue with water colors, then gluing cotton balls onto small stars we found in the drawer.

Little Man carried those sneakers around with him most of the morning.  He only put them down if he wanted to paint, glue or put them on :)

Concentrating on not getting the glue on her fingertips.

Pulling apart the cotton was fun enough for Scamp, but...

She did want to try her hand at the glue.  As you can tell, I had to put the camera down for this part.  I didn't want glue on my nice new camera :)

The cotton, glue and stars were a spur of the moment craft that the girls pulled together as I was going through a drawer for something else.  They found the stars, they found the cotton and asked what they could do with them... so after asking a few questions, they thought some colored glue would work out just right.  

It was an added bonus that they got so many tactile experiences.  The cotton was easily stuck to their fingertips if they got the least bit of glue on them.  Then it became very webby on their fingers and even if they tried to pick it off, the cotton would just tear and spread.  It was fun to watch.  Scamp, however, found just tearing the cotton apart was fun.  She would tear it apart, then drop it in the glue.  When she did her star, she didn't quite understand that the cotton ball was to stay on the star and we would get another one, she didn't want to let hers go.  So she kinda "glue painted" on her star.  My mantra this year... Process over product here for this age, process over product :)

A Wonderful World of Paint

Painting is such a wonderful medium for the kids to work with. It can be done with fine motor skills in mind or with gross motor skills in mind. Below the kids are using small brushes to create on small paper that I cut. They really explored the paint with the little brush, actually discussing how "tiny" the bristles (they used the word "top" for the bristles) were. They noticed that L's brush top was a little fatter than Roo's and that his marks came out bigger than hers. Little Miss M noticed that her brush was more like L's than Roo's. It was an interesting conversation for two early 3 yr olds to have, but one they were very comfortable having.

In the next photo you'll see Roo using her whole body to paint on the plexi glass easel. She was huffing and puffing as she reached for the top most corner of the easel. When she decided it was time to clean the paint off, she was very happy that the spray bottle's spray reached those corners, but she still had to reach with the squeegee to remove some of the paint. The amount of energy exerted was amazing... she needed a rest (in the reading tent) and a glass of water when she was finished. She felt very proud of herself, she accomplished what she set out to do, paint and clean the ENTIRE easel :)

Then we have Little Man here experiencing the paint with both his fine motor skills and gross motor skills. He starts out tentative and moves onto to a more robust way of manipulating the paint. He thoroughly enjoyed himself on that day, working with the paint for almost 20 minutes (which I deem almost a life time for a 1 yr old :)). I think the only thing better than the paint, was the cleaning up in the sink when he was finished.



Paint is a gift to any Child Care Provider/Early Child Teacher. It provides the children with rich experiences, that can be explored through utensils, brushes, hands, feet, elbows and spray bottles. You can paint on something smooth, rough, multi-dimensional, or yourself. We can paint above our heads, on the floor, or right at eye level. You see, there is no wrong way to use paint. Paint proves to be one of those early childhood tools that is never ending and multi- faceted, something that all children from infant to preschool and older (I love paint days!!) should have access to. Look around your providers home, or your child's preschool classroom... are there paints out, splatters on the floor or wall, creations on the wall?? I hope so.

U is for Utensils

Today we talked about Utensils. What a word. The kids had a hard time figuring out what the word meant. I took all the Utensils and laid them out on the floor in our circle and covered them with a towel while we talked what we thought the word meant. Then I took the towel off and all the kids said, "OH!! Those are Utensils!!" We talked about how utensils are things that have to do with eating, making, moving, or mashing food. We talked about forks, spoons, butter knives (utensils we use all the time) and then pointed out the ones in our stash that we don't normally use on a daily basis. Like the potato masher (smasher, smusher), the baster (which all the kids pointed out looked a lot like a paint brush) and measuring spoons.

It was a lot of fun listening to the kids talk about how, when, where and with whom they use certain utensils with at home or Grandma's. We noticed that we had 2 potato mashers, but they didn't look a like. One even took a guess that one of the potato mashers was a waffle maker because of the design, they are pretty smart kids!!

We didn't use our Utensils in the normal way. We decided to use them as paint brushes, thus the connection to the baster. We were all very excited to see what would happen when we used each Utensil. They found out that "painting" in a stroke type of manner wasn't all that easy with the potato masher, the spatula's, or the tablespoon, it was more like stamping. It was a lot of fun to go out of our comfort zone and use something silly to paint with. So look out Mom's & Dad's, if they take the whisk out of the drawer and you find it at the paint easel, I'm Sorry in advance :)

(the bottom of the plate was used also, not quite a Utensil, but who cares)

Little Man was taking his morning nap when we did our Utensil prints, but he had a grand time working on those gross motor skills when he woke up!! He has been climbing everything he can, and his balance is getting so that he doesn't fall backwards to much anymore!! He is growing so fast!!!

Yesterday & Today

I forgot to post yesterday... actually I didn't forget, I was exhausted for some reason and when all the kids left, I simple sat down and didn't get up again. Closed my eyes (when I should have been cooking dinner) and took a nice little nap. My wonderful husband and children took care of themselves and let me relax... how nice :)

Anyway... yesterday started out with one of my friends taking out a puzzle (with many pieces) and then not wanting to put it back together. So, as a group we painstakingly pieced it back together... with these two finishing it off for us... How proud!!!

We have been reintroducing our Montessori practices... which I have missed!! I reviewed with the kids how to use their mats, and trays. It seems to be helping us define our work space and even putting our work away when we are done, instead of just leaving it and walking away. Not sure how we got away from using them, I guess babies can veer you away from somethings sometimes :)

I was going through some of my drawers, in the garage, and found this lacing apple... I forgot how much they enjoy it. I think it has been used pretty much all day... I just have to remind some of the 2's to use it on their mat and put it back. They have a tendency to walk around with it.

Little Miss M practicing rolling her mat.

For snack yesterday we had Chocolate Fondue... YUMMY!!! Little Miss M & her Mom brought us special organic chocolate chips to make the fondue and we got to dip strawberries, banana's & yummy marshmallows into it. It was a big hit. My son was a great help in combining the milk and chips...

We were going to do the communal fondue pot, but with all the sickness going on and the ages, I thought double dipping was inevitable... so everyone got their own "pot" of chocolate, a fondue stick and their fruit. Lots of sticky faces, clothing and fingers.

Some liked the fruit either way... but as you can tell, the chocolate was a great addition.

Ok, Little Man couldn't have the chocolate, but he had a good time watching us anyway!!


Today...

Sprout is really doing a great job of being independent. She is trying to take her smock off, getting her whole body through the neck hole was tricky... but she did it!!

And hung it up as well... Good Job Sprout!!!

We read the book Snowballs by Lois Ehlert. It is about using "found" materials around the house to make a Snow Family. The illustrations are beautiful and just looking at them makes you want to go outside and build snowmen. Unfortunately our snow is all gone and we had to make do with paint and paper snowmen.

Each child took a silhouette snowman, taped him onto a white piece of paper and sponge painted with blue and white around him. We then took the silhouette off and whala... a perfect snowman in a blizzard :)

Little Miss M wanted to just paint the silhouette snowman... but she finally got the hang of it.

I wish we had the collage material like the book to make more exotic snowmen, but alas... we again had to make due with black paint and the back of a pencil to make the features of our snowmen. The kids didn't seem to mind.

They came out nice I think...