Busy week, this week!!!

Our theme is Teeth Tips. We will be talking about teeth and dentists and all that good stuff. Except for Monday....that's Groundhog Day!

We will also be introducing the Number 13, the color Pink. and the Heart shape.

We are very excited to be welcoming our new friend, Hadyn. Even the boys said we need more girls! Jennifer, from Right from the Start, will be here for awhile Tuesday morning.

Have a great week!

These are the Coloroto crayons that the beginning artists use here. I mentioned them in the February newsletter.

We had a lot of fun finishing up our fairy tales this week, even though we did get off to a slow start. The kids particularly liked "The Three Little Pigs", particularly the "not by the hair on my chinny chin chin"!

The 4-year-olds and I had a great time on our field trip. We listened to a lot of good stories and did some neat activties. Even though Bev had to help make snack, while Grandma was home making the daycare snack.

And we were thrilled to get to play outside on Friday morning, even though there were some wet clothes to deal with, and afterschool Cody had to rescue Colby's boot from the snowbank!

Happy Birthday to Realiti!!!

Regardless of your political views, it is a great day to be an American.

As I listened to Aretha Franklin singing right before the oaths, I shed a tear as the significance of the moment truly hit me. Because as I gazed upon the face of the man who was about to become our president, a man that I did not vote for but hold out the utmost hope for...and then looked around the room at the faces of six happy, beautiful children playing, half of whom are black...the realization struck me that this is the man who is going to show each of these six children that they can be, do, achieve...ANYTHING!

Tonight, a lot more parents can look their children in the eyes, and truly mean it when they say "you can be anything, even President of the United States".

I had the kids pause from their playing to watch the swearing-in, even though they don't understand and won't remember. But for those of you with children in my daycare today, I want you to be able to tell them, someday down the road when this bit of history comes up, that they did experience and witness this moment.    

So, apparently today was a fun day. I know this because I heard kids saying "this is so much fun" all day. However, they don't tell me this...they tell it to each other. Oh well, as long as I know they are having a good time.

This week is all about things with wheels. So, I got out the never before seen vehicle foam stampers. I'd been saving them for just the right time. Huge hit! You will find lots of proof of this in this month's art bag.

The big boys, while the others were still napping, had a car wash in the water table. They had a blast, and we have clean toys! Win-win!!

The view out our playroom window:

Lots of wintry stuff this week! Which fits in perfectly with the winter we are having. And, it looks like it may get nice enough this week to get these kids outside! Yay!!!

We will be talking about winter, icicles, frost, snowflakes and mittens this week. We will also learn about 11, Circles, and Blue. We will also be trying out some new center ideas.

We will celebrate Jory's 8th birthday on Thursday.

Some day this week, I'm expecting Jennifer to stop by for my Right from the Start orientation. Of course, that all depends on the weather!

Well, these past few days sure flew by! I somehow thought I was going to have all this time and get all these things done...yeah, right!

No, I did not get the Christmas pages done yet. Sorry! But with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, playing way too much Guitar Hero Aerosmith (I got it for Christmas!) and snowboarding with the boys (they got those for Christmas) on Friday, grocery shopping and a bit of cleaning on Saturday, and celebrating Christmas with my side of the family today (Sunday)....well, those five days were gone in no time!

Anyways...this week I really do not have much planned. You never know quite what to expect from the kids this week. They may be tired, they may be wound up...we are just going to play it by ear.

Our one definite plan is our New Year's Eve party on Wednesday. This will be from 3-3:30. I picked up the party box this weekend! We haven't had one of these for quite some time, so I'm pretty excited!!

And then daycare will be closed Thursday and Friday. Another lovely short week!

Seems odd to be doing this post on a Tuesday!

It was a short week, but it was a full week! Because of the Christmas excitement, we kept them very busy! And even though the last couple days were all about Christmas fun, we did learn about the Number 10.

The Christmas party, I believe, was a huge success! Nice simple activities that kept them entertained yet engaged. Peyton found the Rudolph Hokey Pokey particularly amusing. And Brooklyn thought "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown" was hilarious.

By the way, my meeting this afternoon was again postponed due to weather (she had to travel from Bismarck).

I plan on getting the party pictures and gingerbread pictures posted this weekend. Now I'm off to enjoy Christmas with my family.

Merry Christmas!

This is what I fed your children for lunch today:

And after wiping out this entire plate of treats, they all very surprisingly took very long naps! Half of them actually slept until 3:30!!

By the way, did you notice that Aiden looks like he may be thinking he's doing something wrong?!?

I don't understand why so many people dislike paint and glitter? Look at what you can do with a bit of each and three popsicle sticks:

The unfortunate part of this project was that it was supposed to take a lot longer than it did. We had a group of loud, excited kids here today....and I was looking to occupy them! They are getting far too good at this whole painting thing, so this was good for all of 10 minutes.

The funny part was that I was not too crazy about Aiden and Colby's choice of paint colors (black and brown, respectively). However, once they added their choice of glitter color (red and blue, respectively), they turned out so pretty!

We have a very short week this week, but it should be a fun-filled one.

Monday we will be making one more tree ornament. It will involve paint and glitter (woohoo!).

Tuesday morning will be our Christmas party. Nothing fancy...just a few games and special activities. We will have a simple but special lunch, followed by dessert (woohoo again....we never get dessert at Bev's house!).

It is a tradition at Bev's house to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas DVD on party day. I have a meeting here at 2:30 or so with someone from Child Care Resource and Referral, so to keep the kids occupied, they will get to watch the DVD at that time.

Daycare will be closed Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday so that I may enjoy the holiday with my family. December 26 falls under my Tueday/Thursday holiday rule this year, but I normally take that day off anyway. I do it for my kids. If I don't, we have to start cleaning up the house on Christmas Day for daycare the next day. Plus, it gives them an extra day to have me and the house to themselves.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

This week was all about gingerbread and Christmas. We made puppets and cookies and other Christmas things. The excitement for next week is quickly building!

Have a great weekend! Hopefully we don't all get snowed in again!!

Face of a baby who does not want to wait until snacktime for a gingerbread cookie:

Today was the first day of our Gingerbread Cookie adventure. Fortunately, Grandma actually read the recipe and discovered that the dough needed to sit overnight. So Colby and Aiden helped Grandma make the dough. It sounded like they had a good time, judging from the amount of giggling that was going on up there!

And where, you ask are the pictures? Can you believe that  someone forgot to take the pictures??

At lunchtime Brooklyn started to sing Jingle Bells (again). Then we heard Colby very quietly chime in to help her with the words she didn't know. It was just too sweet! Then, we got the whole group to sing it to end lunchtime.

More about cookies tomorrow....!!!

We read Book Number 100 today! Yay!!! And the kids are very excited that some other little kids like them are going to be getting some new books!!

http://classroomscare.scholastic.com/Edit/ClassRoomEdit.aspx

We had a fun day of making ornaments for our playroom Christmas tree as well. We made beaded candy canes, foam snowflakes, and silver bells (egg carton cups and tinfoil). I think the bells are my favorite!

This week our theme is Fasten Up! We will be talking about different kinds of fasteners. We will also be introducing White, Star, and 9.

We will also begin talking about the upcoming holidays. We will set up our Christmas tree and begin making the decorations. Always a lot of fun! This project will last until Christmas. We will also be doing lots of other Christmas art, listening to Christmas music, etc.

Happy Holidays!!!

This morning was the first day since it snowed that we went out with all 6 kids. We have been going out in the afternoon so only the ones that are awake have went out...no more than half. I was quite impressed with us that it only took a little over 10 minutes to get everyone ready. Of course, I had my helper Colby to assist (Colby, can you grab Peyton's hat for me, please? Colby, can you grab Realiti's boots, please? Colby, can you....you get the idea!!)

All seemed to have a good time, especially Lyrik. He loved the snow! He was crawling around all over the place...and then he discoverd that snow is yummy. Except he doesn't just pick it up and eat like Brooklyn did last winter. He just sticks his face in it! 

Peyton, on the other hand, was perfectly content to just watch from the spot where I had plopped him.

Brooklyn joined in on the snowball throwing with the boys; however, she was wearing fuzzy mittens, so sometimes the ball stuck to her mitten when she would throw it.

Good naps this afternoon! 

This week is all about Thanksgiving! A lot about turkeys and some about being thankful. And it's a short work week - hafta be thankful for that!!

We will be introducing are Ii and 8. We have a new setup in our playroom and our trying out the idea of learning centers. While we always have some of the standards (blocks, art), we are going to have two special ones that will change every day or so. 

Have a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving!