Art, Pictures, and 1 Adult

Ok, I know all you providers out there who watch your crew all by yourself will know what I am talking about. Today we wanted to complete our pumpkins we started this week and get to our marble painting spider webs. We started our webs when Scamp was taking her morning nap, as her hands are the fastest ones I have seen in a long time :)

It was a lot of fun... although Lil Bit and Little Man got a little white paint in places on my wall I didn't think it could get to, but apparently when you "fling" the spoon out of the bowl, paint can get literally anywhere, I digress.

Lil Bit had fun putting the marbles onto the paper, but she would have rather used her hands to smudge the paint around (which she did).


This was our first attempt... the rest we let her use her hands :)

I love watching the kids look on. There are so intent in watching.

Now it's time to Shake, Shake, Shake!!!

MY TURN!!!

SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE

(Little Man cannot contain himself at this point! He can't wait to get his hands on this project!!)

Look at his face... he is amazed.

He got the hang of the Shake, Shake, Shake part quickly... but he really loved watching those magic marbles create the "spider web"

Lil Bit LOVES to finger paint!!

Here Scamp and I are creating her pumpkin. It was really, really hard to get a photo of it

Being by myself with the kids and doing arts and crafts has proven to be a little bit of a dilemma for me this year. I have always had an open art area, where the kids have a certain amount of art materials at their disposal at all times. This year is the first year that I can't have that. With 3 little ones, instead of just 1 like I have had in the past, I just can't keep up with the dumping, mouthing, and breaking of everything. When I do get out a craft, which is pretty much everyday, I try to get photo's of it so parents know we do get creative on a daily basis :). Another dilemma!! With Scamp and Lil Bit I usually have to be right next to them helping, directing, or saving someone else's paper, so I usually have no hands free or just 1. As you can tell from the photo above of Scamp and I, I only had 1 hand free. But, I don't want to leave her photo out, so I make do. Maybe I will get one of those table top tripods with my next fancy, dancy camera and maybe it will have a remote with a button to take the picture when ever I want to and not a timer... ok, I can dream can't I??

Green Eggs & Ham and Sand...

Sickness has caught us again here at Child Care. Yesterday only Sprout and Princess were here, and today Little Man joined them. With the beautiful weather we have been having here, we get that false sense that winter is over, and along with it, the nasty germs that cause all those nasty colds and flu's. So, the 3 kids and I had a quiet, cozy Green Egg's and Ham kind of day. Starting our morning out right with some wonderfully bright green eggs and spotted green ham (I couldn't find my brush to "paint" the green on the ham). The kids thought it was funny none the less :) I couldn't find my camera this morning (in my son's room) so couldn't get photo's of our yummy green food.

We also put some sand in the sensory table today, and while pouring it in the table I sort of over compensated because of the weight and the sand landed behind the table and in our ball pit. Well, being one that doesn't mind the mess to much, I decided to use the pit as a "transport" area. I put the table next to the ball pit and put some sand in both. I gave them buckets, scoops, and containers, and away they went... it kept them busy for almost an hour.

Peek-a-Boo!!!

Little Man really loves the sensory table. He did really great keeping the sand out of his mouth. His favorite thing to do was transport the sand to the floor, watching it slip from his hand onto the floor was fascinating for him (well, all of them really). Watching him watch the sand was mesmerizing for all of us. He was so intent and concentrated on what he was doing. I just imagined all the synapses that were going off in his brain. All the information that was being stored. Looking at this, realizing how much babies are learning from this cause and effect kind of experimentation, makes cleaning up the sand so much more worthwhile, don't you think :)

When the ball pit went up, it gave Princess and Sprout somewhere, besides the floor, to move the sand to and they did spend a lot of time letting the sand slip through their fingers on to the floor of the pit.

TODDLER ART... PROCESS OVER PRODUCT

You can see how she is working those finger muscles!! Squeezing is such a great fine motor activity for toddlers. Squeezing play dough, gak, glue bottles, paint bottles, anything... the more they work those muscles the easier it will be to control their pencils or scissors.

Our "messy area" has been used a lot lately, mostly by the toddlers. They love to just explore and experiment with the materials there, never really caring about the finished product. It is actually interesting that when Little Miss M & Sprout are there by themselves they are totally absorbed in the process, but if you put just 1 preschooler or school-ager with them, they follow their lead and have to "show" me their work about 15 times a minute. I know it is because the big kids do it and they mimic them, I just didn't realize how much it happened until the toddlers were working on their own at the messy area, and never asked me to look at their work. They didn't need really any input from me, except how to use the equipment properly. Interesting.

Week in Review

Make a Smilebox postcard

We had a great week this week!! We had some yucky weather, but always found time to go outside and run around for a little while. We get muddy and dirty but we definitely had lots of fun.

We went to the nature area and picked out our tree to study the season's with. We explored apples & appleseed's. Learning about Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman was fun too!! The kids loved exploring the sensory table. We put in cornstarch, cinnamon & all spice. It smelled wonderful in our room and the kids loved making apple pies, apple cakes, & apple creations... didn't matter what it looked like, it was an apple-something.

The older-infants/toddlers spent some time with the preschoolers during "quiet work" time. They got to use some of the materials they don't usually get to play with... paint, markers, cornstarch... they had a blast!! They can't focus for very long, but boy when they do there is no stopping them. If they aren't done yet, forget it. They will sit there until THEY are good and ready to move on. Then when THEY are ready to move on... that's it!! Paint everywhere between the art table to the bathroom, move over kids... N & M coming through!! It was fun to observe and I am so glad they had so much fun!!!

Paint was our focus this week... we used it in a lot of projects and the kids are beginning to get used to it. It's slimy and some of the kids don't want to touch it, so we provided bushes, q-tips, and spoons to paint with... but thankfully they all ended up at least trying to use their hands and fingers when they made the apples for the apple trees!! I was very impressed!!

I think it was a great week... We will be visiting a farm next week, so we will be learning about farms, farm animals, & friendship!! I will provide some more open-ended activities where the kids can explore lots of different materials. Now... again... off to bed for me!!! I have a busy day tomorrow ;)