Forgetfulness

I forgot what we were doing today. Has anyone ever done that?? I have my plans set, have materials at the ready, then I get going. And 50% of the time, I forget what I planned. Yes, 50% of the time!!! See, I don't follow any actual curriculum. I have an outline of things I want the kids to learn September through June and then another set of things for the Summer. This gives me the flexibility to change when I need to. I like to follow what the kids are interested in and only add things when necessary. I believe ANY academics in Preschool is a plus, not a necessity. If I don't go over it here, they will DEFINITELY get it in Kindergarten. I want them to move, socialize, have fun. If we learn ABC's and 1,2,3's that's great. I like to think I follow more of an Emergent Curriculum... so when we decided to change our Letter Oo and The Mitten Theme to the Letter Gg and Groundhog Theme, I thought No Problem!!! I have that stuff set for next week anyway, we'll just do it today. HaHaHa!!! Best Laid Plans, right :)



I started our day off with all sorts of Letter Oo activities. I had the Oats ready to put in the Sensory Table, I had the Oval ready to glue Honey Nut O's onto, and we were singing our O song at breakfast. :) I have a little homemade book that the kids can use to trace letters in, so The Princess was tracing her Letter Oo and coloring her little Owl when B comes up to her and says,



"Why are you coloring the O, we didn't do O yet!!"

The Princess: "Yes we did!! Miss Michelle said I could do this!!!" (please picture her hands on her hips because it helps with the whole scenario!!)

B: "But we haven't done it yet, you can't go do it unless you know it!!"

The Princess: "I know it, and Miss Michelle said it was OK!!"



So I chime in and say, "B, it's ok. We did the Letter O yesterday. She can color it if she wants."

B: "We didn't do it. We did Gg yesterday. For Groundhog Day!! Remember!!"

Me: "Hum... I guess your right B. My mistake. I guess Miss Michelle is a little silly today."

B: "A Lot Silly!!"

The Princess: "See!!! I can do it and I do know it." (hands off the hips and turns to her work)



Yup, that's me. A Lot Silly!! What can I say, I was so ready to do the Letter O, I forgot I changed it. We had fun anyway, and I am glad I can laugh at myself, because my boys are home from school and had fun teasing me all morning about it.

Little Miss M catching up on her reading during Free Play. She loves to look at the books and she loves these little Emergent Readers since the preschoolers have a lot of them memorized and will "read" to her. It is a win-win situation. The preschoolers get practice "reading" and Little Miss M get lots of attention and modeled behavior.

All the preschoolers and my son Luke worked together to make this cool fortress. They had all Luke's Army Men out and worked together to make the fortress. They loved lining the men up, they didn't want to stop or put it away.

Here are the kids gluing their Oo's on their Oval shape. They love eating their projects and when I put out the Honey Nut O's their eye's lit up. Little Miss M wanted to glue and eat. We had to keep a close eye that she didn't eat a glued O. She didn't. She did try to sneak the O's though. She didn't understand that some were ok to eat and others were not. :) In the first picture above she has just seen me watching her from across the table and the next one is her trying to make a joke out of Not Really Eating It!!! Like, "You didn't really think I was going to eat that did you!!!??? Your Silly!!" She's a PIP!!!

The kids are being Bears, Groundhogs, and Porcupines scavenging for food to fill their belly's for winter!! We learned about Hibernation and how the Groundhog, along with other animals, hibernate through the winter and some wake up around the middle of winter and check things out. So, we made "caves," scavenged for food, climbed in our "caves" and began our Hibernation. I turned out all the lights and played some "wintry" piano music while the kids Hibernated. When I turned it off we pretended it was February 2nd and they cam out and looked for their Shadows. Some saw their (if they were near a window) others didn't.

We also had water in the Sensory Table... after I realized I needed to keep the Oats for next week, I decided water would be great. We had Boats and Little People to play with.

"What??? These aren't my shoes??'

Alphabet to Birthdays

Yesterday I went to the Mailbox Teachers Store... oh what fun!! I bought a lot of great things that really inspired me. Last night I took that inspiration and put together some new work for the kids. I set up the Baby Washing area, some Transferring Activities for the littler kids, and set out a File Folder game I thought they would enjoy. I also set up a popcorn kernel mystery bowl, where the kids can find numbers and match it to the numbers on a paper in front of it. (I think they really enjoyed the sensory experience more than the activity itself)



We had a great morning, but having toddlers in the playroom is always an experience. They loved the transferring activities... but we spent a lot of time picking up beans, popcorn kernels, and flour (from the sensory table). A nice fine motor activity I hadn't planned on :)

This is a Upper Case/Lower Case Alphabet Matching Game... the boys were the only ones to try it and it took them a while to match all the pairs. (Note to self: I think I will only put maybe 10 pairs out tomorrow)

The Flour Sensory Table was still a hit today. I had to dump last weeks, as the dog got into it and ate most of it over the weekend... YUCK!! Why do dogs eat such awful things???

We learned about Penguins at Circle Time and the kids pretended the flour was snow and ice today. I think we will put a larger piece of ice in there towards the end of the week, so they can see what happens and have real ice for their Penguins and Polar Bears (Thursday's Activity) to play on.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Setting up a Birthday Celebration for Sydney!! We bought the Melissa & Doug Birthday Cake Set a while back and it came in handy today. Birthday's are ALWAYS a hot topic at daycare, so when one actually roles around the kids get pretty excited!!

We made Confetti Cupcakes and will frost and decorate them when Shell's kids get home from school. Picture tomorrow of that :)

Reading...

Okay, we know it is upside down, but she doesn't seem to care :) We all have to start somewhere!!

Look at me... there is so much flour on the ground we feel like we are ice skating on the hardwood.

Having Fun with Curriculum

I have been thinking about why I do what I do... I don't mean why am I a Family Daycare Provider, but why do I use the curriculum I do. I have a degree in Elementary Education, but have gravitated to Early Childhood Ed for as long as I can remember. So I guess I learned that I should have certain activities set up for the kids, why they should be exposed to certain things, etc... but I don't know. It still seems second nature to me that my kids should be able to play with play doh anytime they want (at the appropriate place, of course), have paint and crayons to experiment with, blocks of all sorts of shapes, sizes and textures, water to splash, logs to jump from, well you get it :)
I am finding out that not everyone thinks like that. Some providers don't want the mess, or the noise. It's not just in homes, I visited a preschool classroom where there was a sand table and the teacher laughed and said, "No, that's a book shelf!! Way to messy as a sensory table" Of course I decided that I would pursue the Daycare License instead of putting my son in that class. I wanted to provide for my children as well as others those experiences. So, each day I come up with activities that they can excel at. I follow a lot of different curriculum's, I love the blogs I read because there are so many wonderful people out there providing such unbelievable experiences for the kids in their care, that I get side tracked and have to do what they did :)
So I can't just follow 1 curriculum, I have to be flexible and be able to use whatever seems best at that moment.
As you can see below, we are really into blocks lately. Right now we are loving making ramps, towns, hills, and buildings for our Monster Trucks to go over, under, and through (at high speed and noise!!) I am glad I have a center based set up, this way they can move about the room and do what they feel their body is ready for that day.
We are also into reading. I have found some great emergent reader books that you can print from Hubbards Cupboard(http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/) that the kids really love. I put the sentences on sentence strips and in our pocket chart (Target $1...Yeah) and the kids use the pointer (lots & lots of fun with that) and read it whenever they want. We go over it each morning at circle time and they read with me and then by themselves. They are very simple and they memorize it quickly, but oh the looks on their faces the first time they "read" it on their own... PRICELESS!!!

My favorite picture.... We came in from the yard to find Shea with this trash can lid around her neck... We thought it was very funny and had a great time wondering what could have been in that trash can!! Lucky Shea!!