Squirrel, Cupcakes and Christmas Trees

Look at Chippy in her beautiful winter coat!  I think she is smiling.  I love how her belly fills out in the winter.  She always looks so round compared to how we see her in the Fall.  If she would just come inside and let me snuggle her, that would be awesome.  We had a Chippy photo shoot.  

"More peanuts, please?"

Smudge has a cold and wasn't feeling like playing chase.  He was content to watch. 

What a good boy.  He never hurts Chippy, they just chase up and down the tree and always stop short of each other. 

We had a lot going on yesterday at Henle House!  One of the kids brought some cupcakes to share with friends.

My first thought when I see store bought cupcakes is how quickly the frosting will end up on faces, shirts, chairs, table, floor, everywhere.

This is my solution:  wipe the frosting off almost completely before serving.  

The kids still love the cupcakes.  There is far less mess, no upset tummies or amped up on sugar behavior.  

We decorated some Christmas trees for art.

I got over my dislike of Elmer's glue and let the kids each use their own bottle.  My struggle is the large blobs of glue.  It's messy, it takes hours to dry, and the kids tend to squeeze out half of the bottle to glue on something small.  I haven't let them use it freely in over a year.  They surprised me and did an amazing job!  No glue blobs, they all handled the bottles correctly.

They just worked at their own pace decorating the trees how they chose to.  

The results were festive!

Poor Smudge.  He was pretty clingy yesterday.  I'm sure he was injured in a fight a couple of nights ago because he was slow and some of his fur was coming out.  He's had a cold for a while and is now taking some organic herb drops in his food four times a day to see if it will help his cold.  I'm trying to avoid the vet.  We will see. 

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

How They Play

Lately I have been enjoying watching a particular group of kids create bridges between chairs for the trains to ride on.  Sometimes they use train tracks, sometimes they use the kindling I put on the tool bench for them to build with.

They have been putting the chairs just far enough apart for it to be dangerous for any passing trains.

They play this for quite a while.  They congratulate themselves and each other on every disastrous crash.  

It doesn't matter how I envision them playing with something that I put in the playroom, they will always create their own way of playing with it.  I'm so glad they have each other to play the same ideas and have fun with it.

We are currently working on the letter Hh.  

The problem I did not foresee about tracing the H's was that the kids were confused about the line in between each H.   Drawing a few H's in a different color for them to reference was helpful.

We celebrated a birthday after school yesterday.  The younger kids were anticipating it ALL DAY!   Finally, when he returned from school the kids decorated cupcakes and enjoyed a rowdy singing of "Happy Birthday".

It's a tradition now to have a crazy dance party to The Beatles 'Birthday'.  We all wait for it, it is really loud, and the birthday child feels the buzz in the air about his or her own special celebration. 

Now playing at Henle House-  The Flower Waltz from The Nutcracker.  I'm still not finished saying that I wish I were a ballerina.  I told one girl this morning that I wish I were a ballerina but I am too old to dance like that now.  She said, with lot's of spunk, "(Sigh), You already HAVE a job."   She probably rolled her eyes, and it was perfect. 

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥ 

Perks Of Working At Home

There are so many perks that come with working at home.  One of them is that I can spend time with a small visitor!  Our nephew came for a visit yesterday, and all of the kids are always enamoured with him.   Look at his cheeky smile!!  He was having a small bit of cookie after downing a banana and an orange.  

Another perk-- homemade goodies!   I understand why schools do not allow home made goodies, but I am happy to allow that at Henle House.  One of the kids brought some cookies to share with his friends.  Yum!! 

Another perk is that I can get my own baking done while my kids are in school, and that leaves time for me to deal with dinner, lunch packing for the next day and homework help in the evenings.  I couldn't possibly be the only person who feels like baking is necessary, right?  Kudos to all of you hard working moms and dads who work out of the home and still find time to get baking done.  You are all super heroes! 

Another perk-- endless time with animals.  Chippy the squirrel came for a visit.  The kids really enjoy seeing her!  The cats are always around.  We have not seen the deer at all this year.  I wonder where they have moved to?

My favorite perk-- control of the music!  It might seem ridiculous, but to me it is therapeutic.  There are times when I just need to blast a song.  It might be to reset my mind after a particularly challenging morning, it might be just to get the kids hyped up for some exercise.  We call that a dance party!  We enjoyed one yesterday with the scarves.  It's great to swing them through the air and get out the wiggles!  Don't have any scarves?  Use toilet paper.  It flies effortlessly.

I love working from home. 

♥♥♥Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥

Candy Cane Pattern

To create a pattern, we made some simple candy canes on Friday.  A simple red, white, red, white pattern is simple enough for them to understand and repeat.

The kids tore some red paper into small pieces to add to the candy cane.  It was kind of difficult for them to understand to skip a square in order to make the pattern. 

With a bit of help, they started to see what I meant.  We also looked at a real candy cane, but I'm not sure if they truly understood the point.  Well, alright then-- we are just making a candy cane.   Sometimes I just have to retreat as far as getting the point across.  They were all happy to create a candy cane!

They added some glitter glue to the red to make it sparkle.

Pattern or not, it was a simple project that looks festive on the art wall!

We had a family birthday party for Aiden last night, he enjoyed his chocolate with chocolate and extra chocolate cake!  The sides of it were crusted with mini chocolate chips and I had to store it in the fridge to keep it from melting.  I don't really like cake very much, but it was pretty good.

♥♥♥Happy Monday!♥♥♥

Happy Birthday Aiden

Aaaw, there he is.. NINE years ago, all snugged up in his blanket.  I can still smell his perfect scent.  He is my sweet heart pie, my "Snuggie", the only one of my babes who prefered a morning snuggle on my lap every morning.  I would just plop right down onto the floor to receive Aiden with his glorious smell and we would have our morning snuggle.   He is nine years old today!

I love his little pouty lip.  Look at those tiny feet all cozied up in nice thick socks.  Smooch!

There he is in his plagiocephaly helmet, painted by grandpa.   I can't believe how fast time is flying by. 

Yesterday we got out the pattern blocks and completed some pictures with them.  The kids actually put forth solid effort to create the pictures the correct way!   It was a nice long table time.  

The kids all received a book to practice their counting skills up to ten.  

I hope that they actually do this!  

♥♥♥Happy Friday!♥♥♥

Just Let Them Play

Every now and then I am reminded of something- most preschools only operate two, maybe three days each week per class.  My preschool program is a five day program.  I suppose that I just figured that since they were here, I would teach them something.  Nobody is making me do it.  The Department Of Early Learning hasn't forced me to write my curriculum, or even schedule one.  They do, however, require that we follow a daily schedule.  ANYWAY- my point is that I often forget to just step back and let these kids play all day.   I'm an orderly sort of person.  The schedule is invigorating to me.   It helps me pass the time, and this is a long work day for me.  (Usually 11 hours.)  

We have been so busy that we just decided to play all day yesterday.  The kids got out toys and dress up clothes.  They moved at their leisure to any activity they chose, all throughout the house.

 It's therapeutic for them to have an extended free time.  Some of these kids could build block towers for hours.  The house was busy with chatter!

I couldn't get through it without a group photo, at least once.   We had a pretty energetic Cindy Lauper dance party.  Free day doesn't mean that I get the day "off".  I'm just as busy as usual, even though we are having free time.  I am the one who must "look at this" or help the kids work out their differences.  Even in the chaos, the kids are still supposed to clean up after themselves, and they all do a fantastic job of  that.  It's impressive!  Sometimes I write "Free Day" on the curriculum schedule, but not nearly enough.

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

Showing Seven/Toy Reviews

We are working on counting to seven, but also working on actually what seven items looks like.  To help us out, we got out some foam cubes to use.  

First we counted out seven cubes together.  Next, each child took a turn counting out seven blocks for themselves to use.

We built towers of seven.  We created snakes of seven.

I cut worksheets into two so we could staple them into a small book about counting and showing seven.  The kids placed the cubes onto the items to help them show seven.

Simple, but effective.

Amazon has been having such great deals that I have been restocking the play room.  Time to give the kids some fresh toys.  This particular item- "Zoob" is one of the two best that I have introduced to them so far.  You can purchase some HERE.  These are solid, fun, and little hands can build  with them easily.  For me, it's always a bonus if something comes with it's own tub or case for storage.  

Even our own boys loved these.  Ethan build this T-Rex last night for the kids to see this morning.  The possibilities are endless with this product, and I give it a full five stars for being so awesome, and on sale it's worth every penny.

The other purchase that was a home run is this Black & Decker tool bench.  I purchased it from Kohls online Black Friday for under $30.00 .  The key for me, is that IT is it's own storage unit.  Not only that, but I already have a really cool toy tool box that had even more power tools in it.  I just replenished batteries and added to this set.

Here it is, fully loaded.  I put some wood on the bottom shelf for them to play with, too.  I love the action that this set sees every day.  They get the tools and blocks, toys out and fix everything.  There are a total of 8 tools, so everyone has a tool to use if they want to.   The song "Hallelujah" plays in my head when I see that it all just fits right back onto the shelves.  I don't like to spend $30.00 on a toy.  I will hold off until it reaches the lowest price I have seen, and even then, if I don't have a coupon I usually pass.  This was a splurge that needed to happen and I am 100% happy.  Other toys the kids have been playing with are a new set of Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, A Bubble guppies hospital, and a Minnie Mouse getting dressed set.  

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥