I am still struggling with trying to allow a creative mess. I can see looking back through my photos that I am getting even more clean freaky with our projects. Mess= fun. I do not want to lack fun or creativity, I hope I am not missing that! Maybe it is that the kids I have now are younger? I don't know.
So here is a prayer I need you to pray for me, that I will be able to relax and let the kids be creative and messy. It allows them good manipulative experiences, and creative expression, too. I don't want to always run their art projects to be able to keep things pristine. (Well, I DO, but that is what I need to work on!) There is a great blog over on my blog list to the right-Pre-School Play and I look at the messy fun those kids are having and I really want to make it a point to add some of that to our weeks. It is very hard for me. Will you pray for organized mess? I don't think any prayer is a silly request. I rely on God for everything.
Aaaaaahhh!! Look how good she was- the kids know that when they have painted hands they need to raise them up and follow me to the bathroom for a good washing. That's our niece, I sure miss having her around here!
If you haven't seen the song for today- it's so good! It's called Marry You by Bruno Mars, and the song was used in a fantastic marriage proposal that I have been watching for about a week.. It makes me smile. I love that we can watch her expression- priceless. ♫
Yesterday we worked in stations. Station= separate areas for separate activities. One station was for sorting and gluing colored squares.
The next station was manipulative foam dough play.
We always have book time right after snack, but this time we used it as a station.
None of the stations were as fun as the final one, magnifying glass looking. I didn't even tell them we would be doing that one, otherwise they would've whipped through everything else just to get to that point.
They were really excited to look at things through the magnifying glasses. Suddenly, the every day objects around them became interesting.
They took a good look at the lettuce and cucumber plants.
The veggie garden that could.. I think I can, I think I can.. it is R E A L L Y trying to gr o o o o o w.. but it is hard without warm weather. We'll see. The peas and turnips, carrots, lettuce and cucumbers are doing well. The beets, onions and corn, zucchini, pumpkins..not so much.
I enjoyed watching them look.
He learned that it's a bit difficult to see if it is right up against his eye.. lol
Look....
Look...
Look...
Look who they missed! Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥
Song for today is now playing at Henle House, California Dreamin' by The Mamas and the Papas. ♫
I have said it so many times, I love the internet. Instant information and helpful ideas. I thought I would share with you some of my favorite websites. Family Fun is a favorite, for sure. I subscribe to the magazine, too. Not only can I find great craft, cooking and adventure ideas, but they highlight great family vacation information, too. (Some day, our family will get to take a vacation. Some day...)
I think we found the idea for a polar bear mask on The Crafty Crow blog. This is the blog I always look at first. It's a blog that gathers great ideas from countless other blogs and compiles project ideas for kids each day. I have found and used countless project ideas from this stop.
A new favorite is Pinterest. Our teenage daughter loves it, too. She saw the melted crayon art idea and had to create one. Pinterest has a search engine, so if I am looking for something in particular, "Spring crafts" for instance, the crafts pop up in multitudes. It's helpful for me when my mind goes blank and we are in need of an art idea! Happy Tuesday! I hope that there are no spam links on my post this morning. I noticed it in my last post, sorry about that. I can't figure out how to stop them yet. Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥
Song for today is She Bop by Cyndi Lauper. When I was maybe 8 years old, I wanted to be her. Dream big, right?♫
We took something blue and ripped it into small pieces. The goal was to cover a paper plate in blue. We could've painted or used crayons or markers, but decided on the paper instead.
This was time consuming! I liked it because when I have a small number of kids, things go very slow. We end up.... bored. I have to admit, when things are quiet, I don't excel. I thrive in crazy, the more kids I have, the better I am at being creative and executing a plan. Silly, huh?
Both kiddos were off to a great beginning. These plates are the fish bowls, and the fish were going to need enough water to swim in. That meant we needed to really try hard to cover up all of the white.
Glue, stick..glue, stick. F O R E V E R. They were diligent!
When their little hands could glue no more, ( let's face it, it was redundant.) it was time to glue on our 18 fish. Nicely done, kids! Happy Friday! I have decided to take Memorial Day off to spend with my family. Woo hoo! Enjoy your three day weekend, those of you who will get it!♥♥♥
Song for today is by the beautiful and talented Tori Amos- my personal favorite. Song is called Siren.♫ Who is your favorite musical talent?
Most of the time I try not to schedule myself to have to bake snack. Sometimes I forget to check the menu for the day and am surprised by the fact that I was supposed to bake banana bread or something. Oops! Biscuits were on the menu for snack the other day. Easy squeezy- and so good, too.
I just whipped out the favorite cookbook and called my helper.
He was the only one here! I almost don't know what to do with myself when things get quiet. He placed himself OUTSIDE of the kitchen though- I guess he just wanted to dump ingredients over the counter. Ok, that works I suppose. :)
After ten minutes of baking, fluffy gooey warm biscuits came out and were ready for jelly. I eat mine with just butter.
Since I ended up with two little guys, we were off to the library! This is usually who ends up with me when we go. They were so good, enjoying each book they picked up. We came home with enough group time books to last a couple of weeks. I love the library! Happy Thursday!♥♥♥
Song for today is by Third Day called Children Of God. Shout out to adoptive parents- ♫
Anyone who works with groups of children knows that the childcare profession is not always easy. I love my job, but it's important that I allow myself time to unwind. Here are some ways that I unwind! The photo above is a regular wander for me. It's in the historic district in Snohomish, at about the half way point of my regular walking route. I love to take a walk. Just my headphones and I, the phone on vibrate. Me time. Unwind time. I like to see what everybody elses gardens are doing and watch the trees change. This block is one of my favorite places that I get to wander on my regular walk. Taking the walk usually lasts about 55 minutes. It's rigorous, up hill, steep up hill. I always feel great when I am done and am ready for more noise by the time I arrive home.
Another walk I have taken- The Hall Of Mosses trail in the Olympic National Rainforest. Escape is always a great way to unwind. I was trying to CATCH my breath, and this trail was so beautiful it took my breath away.
Another escape, an apricot orchard in the Tri-Cities. I can still smell it.
Gardening is another way that I unwind. My favorite part of gardening is just wandering around and looking for new growth. Finding surprises that I didn't expect, waiting for blooms.
Cooking and baking for my family is another way I unwind. It brings me great joy to feed people.
Adam felt left out. LOL- another way to unwind is spending time with my best friend Adam. We like to escape for dinner alone. It's awesome.
Loving on the cat is the final way that I can think of that I unwind. Smudge follows me EVERYWHERE. He throws himself on the ground in front of me if he wants me to pet him.
Here he is, watching me read. He tucked himself in under the table that was holding my water. What a good friend he is. How do YOU unwind?
Song for today was performed by our daughter Stephanie with the 7th grade band last night. I believe it's called Night of The Gargoyles. They have sure come a long way!♪
Smoothies are so good, and a great way to get kids to drink up a serving of fruits or veggies without them even knowing it. We made quick smoothies to go with snack yesterday- kiwi fruit, strawberries, banana, yogurt and milk. Mmm mmm.
I think it is impossible to mess up a smoothie. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's all good.
Meanwhile, all of the kids just throw away the carrots on their lunch plate every day. It hurts me. I just couldn't figure out how to get them to actually eat them. I made fruit dips, gave them veggie dip, peanut butter, you name it, I have tried. I have to keep offering it, even though it only feeds the garbage disposal. Yesterday, I actually succeeded. I used a vegetable peeler to create carrot peelings. They actually ate them because they were so skinny. Who knew?
Lucky for Twister and Lenny, they got the left over half peeled carrots. They always eat their vegetables.♥
Smudge was my printer kitty yesterday. He would go out in the rain, climb on me all wet, then jump up on top of the desk to sleep and watch from the printer.
He would have none of my focusing on Pinterest last night, though. "Hello!! I am here, you know. Pet me." I love Smudge. Happy Tuesday!♥♥ I'm looking forward to Stephanies band concert tonight.
Song for today is called Endless Summer by The Jezabels. ♪
"You can paint whatever your mind can imagine." I gave them q-tips to use. It's much harder to mix all of the colors together that way and it takes them longer to fill the paper with color.
I like to line the table with newspaper. Clean up is as easy as rolling the paper up and popping it into the recycle bin.
They began. Slow at first, watching everyone else to start copying eachother. I tried to get them to think for themselves and paint what their OWN minds could create.
One painted King Piggy from angry birds. Then everyone else wanted to paint that.
So he turned his King Piggy into a mess of spaghetti colors instead.
The other kids followed, each filling their papers up with color.
I love the random dots.
If we were to add googly eyes, it could be a creature..
I sat down with a one year old to paint after the big kids were finished. He enjoyed the changing colors part of it all. I purchase my Crayola paint here. I'm anxiously awaiting my recent order. We use a lot of paint!
I enjoy the brightly colored art wall! Happy rainy Monday.♥♥♥We returned from the bus stop DRENCHED this morning, and we all had umbrellas. If you know anyone looking for childcare, I will have a full time spot available the last week of June!
Rain Dance again, by Adiemus. It's rainy, and we love this. I love the photo at 3:42.♥
