My Dad

I dont have a lot to write about today. My mom called at 7:15 to let me know she and my dad were headed to the ER in Fayetteville. Dad was up all night with chest pains. As it turns out, he did have a heart attack. We dont know what damage was done yet or what their plan is . Dad is on a blood thinner and they cant do anything until that wears off . So... he is in the hospital waiting. It was good for my mom. I know that sounds crazy. But I think she felt good being able to take care of him for a change......

Dad is ok for now.
The kids had fun and they lived through the day...
They even learned a little along the way.
Randy and Kayla did a great job implementing my lesson plans. YAY! .

I am a poet and didnt know it!

Worker Trucks!

Today we took a little trip to the park to see trucks that work !   I knew they were doing some work down there and thought it would be perfect for our unit.  The cat followed us all the way down there and back !  We had a lot of fun.  It is amazing to see the growth in these kids over the year. And.. if you look at the picture of me , you see growth too.   GAH.... another diet starting tomorrow!

Wonderful Weather!!!!

Today is a day that reminds me how thankful I am that I teach in a family childcare home than in a public school setting.  With that said, can I be bold enough to say that I am glad your child is here and not  in  a public school setting ?  This is what they would have missed today.

Singing, dancing and playing with Randy on the porch! ( and his guitar !) 

Enjoying the neighbor kitty that stopped by to visit!

Getting hot outside and coming to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Having a neighbor stop by to enjoy our singing.

Taking pretty much our whole day outside including science and story time.

Watching the mailman deliver mail and stopping to talk.

Playing with the teachers grand-baby.

Those are just a few things that made our day special!

Row Row Row your Boat

The children are all sleeping.... shhhh.....

Today we started to explore water transportation.  We read Noah's Ark.  ( Yes, we can do that...)

The kids loved the story. It was told from Noah's grandsons point of view.   

We made sail boats from fun foam and little bowls.   The kids really had fun with that.  All day long they have sailed their boats through the water ( air) .  

I also added a Bass Pro Shop Boat set to the water table. That was a bug hit. It had a boat, a man, a fishing pole and two fish!

Tomorrow we will do some sink/ float type activities.

Overheard today:

I have patterns on my shirt -  yellow, green blue , yellow , green , blue 

I have patterns too -  red, black, white, red , black , white

Debbie puffs up with pride!!!!

My moms is having a baby boy and his name is going to be Ralphy!

Guess who I am marrying? My sister. We both have rings on from Fun City !

I have had four.. yes four.... of our friend SPITTING today. That is one of my pet peeves. PLEASE talk to you child about how gross and unsanitary this is.  

A few notes are going home about this.....

All in all, we have had a good day!

Paper Airplanes

Today  we expanded on our talk of things that can transport us in the air. We read a book called " Peter and Peggie" Pilot.  In the book we talked about the kinds of things that we see in an airplane but we also talked about P words. The kids came up with about 15 on their own!  Later we made paper airplanes. The kids decorated a piece of  white paper and then Randy folded it into an airplane for them. More than once, the hallway was a run way today!

We have a new bench seat in the playroom.  FCCRS standards (  the quality standards that we go by) states that the environment should have comfortable adult seating.  As I was thinking through everything again, I thought about this. The purpose for this is so that the adult will be more inclined to go in that room and facilitate or join play.  The green room has the big chair and a couch.  The downstairs playroom has chairs that are comfortable to sit in for us "taller people" but the dress-up area has none.   The dress-up area is the most active room in the house for the kids.  A LARGE part of their learning and socialization take place in there but the only seating is two child size recliners or easy chairs and two very tiny white chairs for the table set.  Has this impacted the time we spend in there? Of COURSE IT HAS!  I had never thought about it...  We walk in and talk to them or check on them, but rarely did we go in for a length of time and watch or join the play.    That really bothered me.  So... I went out Saturday after a training and bought an adult size bench.  I hate to sacrifice the space but I bet they will never miss the floor space but they will realize we are in there more often.   The bench is so cute. It is white and has two baskets underneath it for storage.  We put the play hats and the doll clothes in there.

The bench...

The quality indicators are there for a reason.  Sometimes, it just takes a little while for it all to soak in.

A funny thing I over heard today.

5 boys with one yoyo - trying to decide who gets the next turn.

eny minnie miney mo

Catch a monkey by his toe

My mommy told me 

not to choose any of you guys...

I thought I would laugh out loud.  They got it all figured out.. without me.  :) I love it when we come to the end of the year and I am not a referee- they have mastered problem solving skills and don't need me near as often.

5, 4, 3, 2 ,1 Blast off

Today we talked about ways to ride through the air. I am convinced that my kiddos watch too much TV. They ALWAYS say... a bird!   I would hate to see the size of the bird that I would need to ride. SCARY!

I went to a pre-k meeting at Northside last night. It was really uplifting to hear the principal talk about how they can tell kids  that come  from quality programs.  They also gave us a list of things that studies show as early predictors of child success.  I am proud to say that most of my kids are already there.  Randy and I sang a song there too.  That was fun. It was the first time we have pulled out one of our " concert songs" since August.  ( On that note, if you are wondering, we are up to 63 concerts this summer.  Also, did I tell you Brian Kinder and his wife came by to visit us the other day?)  

One of my college professors said that I wandered in my last paper. WHAT could she mean? Me wander. I think I blog so much that I have adopted that style of writing!  Not  good.. in the collegiate world. 

Today has been a fun day, the weather was perfect.

Randy and I have classes and meetings all day tomorrow. Enjoy our day off!  :)

You have a WHAT up your nose?

Usually once a year one of our friends succeeds on sticking a bead or some other foreign object up their nose. Today.... tada... .was the day!

Thanks Katie, you are right,nap time was a little boring today before the "bead drama"!

Thankfully her daddy is a paramedic and came to the rescue.   He said he had done " bead duty" before and was familiar with bead removal.  

UPDATE- Katies mommy just called and  as she was driving home like a lunatic ( sorry Deanna ) daddy got the bead out!   YAY!!!!

The last time this happened, the next day another child did it. So, tomorrow we will have the talk.  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING GOES UP YOUR NOSE EXCEPT LIVE CHICKENS! 

The Wheels on the Bus

The wheels on the bus go Round and Round

Round and Round

Round and Round 

The wheels on the bus go Round and Round

All through the town !

Since we are studying modes of transportation we had the school bus come visit today! The kids were so excited!  A couple were a little scared at  first, I think they were afraid we were going to get on it and go somewhere.  But Randy got one hand and I took the other, and we all loaded together.  It was a great learning experience. After the bus left we came back into circle time and talked about what we saw.

1.  Numbers on the wall ( assigned seating )

2.  Numbers on the bus  11- 6 35.  The last two are the child's bus number

3.  A fire extinguisher in case there is a fire.

4. A first aid kit.

5.  THREE doors

6. Lots of buttons

7. LOTS of seats.

8. A camera

I got a new wall applique off ETSY and I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!  Below my new applique are MY ARTIST renditions of tire tracks!

So cool.  I love great days!  

Thing that go!

The kids were greeted this morning by all kinds of new things to explore on the table.  We had tiny jet airplanes to count and sort.  A new 25 piece puzzle that three of the kids DID PUT TOGETHER TODAY! YAHOO~   about 75 little match box cars that they can sort, count, stack.  It was funny , I didnt even really suggest what to do with them and they automatically started sorting them into colors.    There are also new lacing beads that are shaped like cars , boats ,etc....

Fun stuff!

Circle time was great.  I introduced the unit " transportation" and the kids made a few guesses at what it meant.  Gavin said  " travel" and I was really proud of him.  That isnt a common word for  preschoolers to use !  We took our chart paper and I wrote land, air and  water on it and as they brainstormed different ways we could " go places", we put them into a category.  

Air - rockets, airplanes, helicopters, parachutes, gliders  They said birds , like Diego, but I explained that really can only happen on TV. :)

Land - They said the obvious ones but were quite inventive as well. Some others were stroller, Honda,digger ...

Sea - Boats , submarines, turtles - wait ... that is another TV idea!

One funny thing was someone said umbrella and I said, " an umbrella can't take you places, can it?  "   Adam replied, " yes, it can if it is windy!"  But, he is also the little one that told me his mom said Yellow on a stop light means go faster... Lacey?

It has been a good day. I think they will enjoy this week !

Happy Presidents Day !

Today has been a slow fun day.  I would guess it was a lot like Saturdays at your house.  The kids helped me take all the Valentines fun down and get ready to go a different direction.

I am REALLY trying to be child centered so in circle time today I talked about what a great time we had doing Valentines types of things  . I asked the kids would they like to learn about anything else.

Answers:   reading  ( we do that every day !)

                 My mommy went to work...

                  My mommy took me to see the movies

Then.... out of nowhere comes - " Ms Debbie, I would like to learn how cucumbers from the garden become pickles! "    Well, I dont eat cucumbers or pickles but I bet I can find out.  Maybe in the spring we can plant some.

I was leaning toward maybe a transportation unit so I started throwing things out there and THANKFULLY, they bit.   So, for the next couple of weeks we will be doing a transportation unit !

Ten kids here today.....  

Mommy and Me Tea

It was fun . Thanks everyone for showing up  and celebrating Valentines with me!

I Wuv You...

Today has been another fun day.  It has been nice to have Valentines fun without working up to the inevitable sugar buffet, crowded room and chaos.  Today has been about what all holidays should be about the relationships.

Example-   

As the children came in they placed the Valentines they brought in their friends envelopes.  I watched one of the little girls place little gift bags on everyones envelope and then she stood back and looked.   She went over to her envelope and removed one and hurriedly took it to Adams cubby.   She caught my eye and I said " You don't want one?" She said " Naw.... he can have it." I said " well, he has one already." She replied" I know.... he can have another one."  I just smiled. I could tell she was embarrassed.  I was also impressed. She understood the meaning of Valentines!

Then later in the morning from the puppet stage area, I heard - help he is having a baby. As I went in the room one of the little boys had his legs up in the air and a little girls standing there ready to CATCH the baby. We had a little calm discussion about what they were doing?  ( Having kitty cats) .  Randy , being the older guy couldn't stand it and said  " Can we leave the having babies to the mommies!?"  They all agreed to . I again was impressed. It seemed to me that someone had been watching TLC and the show about babies being born.  What was funny, is I don't guess it occurred to them that boys ..don't.. have ... babies... Well, unless, they saw that one other TV show.  

I am  excited about our Mommy and Me Tea tonight!  

Happy Valentines Day!

Oh wont you be my Valentine

Today we worked on our Valentines Envelopes that will hold out friends valentines.  It is really fun to watch the kids creativity as they decide what to do. Planning a project is actually a benchmark that we look for and work toward.   For some the planning still just includes - using as much glue and glitter as possible!  :)  

The girls made Valentines crowns today.   That was fun.  I took some pictures of them making them but I dont want to post them until I can take a picture of them on their head.  I remember last year for Thanksgiving the kids made Indian headdresses. They were really cool- especially the part when they put them on and the excess glue dried to their hair. Yeah.. it wasn't pretty.

We got a new monitor in today.   It is hooked up to our 4 existing cameras.   We can see everywhere now even if one of us is not in the room.   The dress up room seems to be the room that gets overlooked by us.  When they are in there and busy bees, an adult body just seems to get in the way. We do try to pop in and facilitate their play by asking  questions like " what are you cooking?" or pretend talk to them on the cell phones.

Speaking of cell phones and new technology. Mykah comes running through the house today and said " Ms Debbie, your email is here."  It will be amazing to see he technology that our kids get to experience.  Just look how much has been accomplished since I was a little girl.

1965 Disposable diapers

1969  First walk on the moon

1973 Cell phones

1980 Post It notes

1989 WWW

2001 IPOD

2007 Touch Screen phones 

Hodge Podge

Ok, no quote today about play, it has been TOO crazy.  I wish some time you could just hang out and see what all we do all day.  We did it all again today but add in-

DHS vouchers came by to introduce themselves and drop off new packets. I  dont have voucher children but "just in case" I guess.  

The phone rang atleast 15 times.

Two of my friends called and did not pass their QA inspection.  This is Debbie getting nervous....

I went through 60 books on tape that I have in the playroom. These are  just the ones that are for fun listening in the alone space or loft. They are too long for group time.  I had to take out atleast 30 books that I think I would lose marks on. Example:  a dragon blowing fire, a lion growling at another animal. They consider these frightening.  Go figure.  Randy is going to have to take out the climbing rose bush over the trellis- they may prick their finger on a thorn. ( seriously?)  I am sure the kids told you about us taking the play dome out. I went from a large climber, to a small climber now to this.... I guess eventually we will be on a concrete playground that lacks challenge or personality. Ok.. I will stop.  Grrr....

The coop came to start services on a child for speech. That means I sit around a table with four people shuffling paperwork from one to the other signing off.... 

Last night Randy and I recertified CPR- so, feel free to fall out on the parking lot , we can handle it.  :)

As you can see, today has not been my favorite day.  I hate it when politics  gets in the way of doing what I need and want to do.  Play.

Oh, dont forget the " Mom and Me Tea" Friday night.

Lacey enjoy your Valentines weekend and yes, we are open on Monday!

Happy Hump Day everyone.

Valentines Fun

Randy and I are attending a 30 hours class right now called Frameworks and I have seen some interesting research on play and a child's developement.  I want to share some with you!

Randy and the girls playing beauty shop!

There is overwhelming research that supports  the importance of play in young children's  overall development.  The next few days I will highlight some position statements that noted authorities have made.  

The National Academy of Pediatrics recently said:

" Play allows children to use their creativity while developing imagination, dexterity  and physical , cognitive and emotional strength. Play is important  to healthy brain development.  It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them. Play allows children to create  and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while playing  adult roles, sometimes in conjunction with other children or adult caregivers."  

 ( http//www.asp.org/pressroom/playFINAL.pdf)

driving a car