Christmas Holiday Fun

What an amazing couple of days. The school kids kept me busy and I didn't get a chance to post what we did! On Monday, we read the book Gingerbread Baby by Jann Brett. We tried the gingerbread cookie recipe from her book Gingerbread Friends which we read on Tuesday. Anthony, Lillian and Tori helped me bake the cookies. AJ, Edison, and Bronwynn were busy playing in the daycare with Grace. A.J. and Bronwynn came to check our progress a few times, but didn't want to help. Then we went outside and had a blast sledding on the hill. A.J. giggled the whole way down and sometimes was too excited and wouldn't wait for a sled. He would just run down the hill!! Edison was very serious when going down with me, and very mad if one of the children took him down with them! The older 4 did a great job sharing the sleds and everyone got to try them all!  After nap time, we decorated our cookies for snack, and to bring home to share with our families. The older 4 had a great time  decorating, and forgot that I said they could eat one at snack. They ate two and then got the hang of decorating and saving them to bring home!! A.J. ate the icing all on its own. And Eddie only ate his candies! Then it was back to the hill to burn off energy before parents picked up.
Tuesday, we did some painting (and a lot of free art both days). We went sledding again, and Oden and Freya came for a visit. We walked out to the barn to see the 2 little calves both only a few days old. Then inside for Dominoe's pizza (thanks Tori and family) and cupcakes and cookies (thanks AJ and Bronwynn and families). In the afternoon we ventured out again with spray bottles to paint the snow. We got awfully wet, and came in except for Tori and Anthony who were busy making camoflauge snow!
Hope you all are able to get some time off work and enjoy making memories with your children!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Busy snow day!

We had a blast yesterday. We sledded, shovelled, napped in the sled, and made snow angels and forts. We did lots of crafts, baked cookies and watched The North Pole - thanks for sharing, Tori! It is neat to see how the group dynamics change with the older kids here all day! Edison didn't want Tori to go to school this morning. Cute! Seems quiet here today with ONLY 4 !!!!

Christmas gifts

We were busy working on gifts for mommy's and daddy's today! The kids were so excited they didn't even want to play. They just watched each other when it wasn't their turn. So cute!!

December is here!

My favourite time of year! The children are getting excited too! We have been reading Christmas stories and singing Christmas songs at circle time. I had a great time this morning watching the children as I did circle. Freya loves my songs, as soon as the story started, she was gone! Edison stayed until about halfway through the story, when Grace, the dog interrupted. I asked her to leave, and Edison followed her. He was giggling and petting her right behind me, but Oden never took his eyes off the book, If you take a mouse to the movies, by Laura Numeroff. I thought they all did what I expected of them developmentally, and I'm glad my circle time can meet all of their needs as they are not forced to sit and listen to me!!
I don't think I had a chance to update last week... we got a boogie board from Scholastic which is an LCD writing tablet. The kids love it. They can draw on it or practice letters, spelling words, and then erase it with the touch of a button. Even the babies are enjoying it, and so far the stylus has not gone into anyone's mouth!  I also got my books with CD's set up beside the CD player for the older children to listen to. They like that! I will change the books and CD's for them too after they have listened to these a few times!

What a week!

Soooooo glad it is Friday! Thank you all for making alternate childcare arrangements while I had the flu, and I'm glad so far that we haven't shared our germs with any of you!
I am back to my old self again. Yesterday, I admit I put a movie on for the kids -Disneys Aristocats. I noticed the boys doing some of the motions for our opening circle time songs, so today I was back at it! We started singing some Christmas songs, and read a story about Santa having a cold. They loved the part when Santa said, "Ahh...ahh....ahhh....ACHOO!"

3 of us did NOT enjoy outside (or maybe 4, I found it really cold too). Guess who! But the other 4 loved it. Dump trucks were full of snow, sliding on the driveway with just snowsuits, and we even tried making snowballs starting with pieces of ice we found!

pyjama day

we had a great PJ day! Wee decorated bags for our popcorn, did free painting, played on the trikes outside. We were excited to do self serve lunch again.  The toddlers had a nap, and the older children did there journals, and workbooks. Then we watched the movie Babe andhad our popcorn! Now it's snack time and then uoutside!

sign language

I really enjoyed watching the babies sign parts of our good morning song at circle this morning. They are really catching on to the meal related signs, so it's neat to see it expanding. I have plans to begin working on signs for colours in the upcoming weeks. This is a great way to communicate before words. I will let you know any signs that your child is doing here!

Time change

We have almost made it through the first week of the time change. Wow, everyone is so tired! And now I've been wiping 4 runny noses today. The cold is back. I have been really trying to get lunch ready earlier, and to bed earlier and most of the week everyone has been sleeping well! I am going to continue this as it gives me much needed more time to get outdoor clothes on before the bus! ( Or for those who need it the chance to sleep while everyone else gets up!)

No photos :(

Well, I took lots of pictures at our Hallowe'en party, and tried to put them on here over the weekend, with no success.   My parents computer seems to dislike my camera card. I can get photos from their card, but not mine.  So you'll have to take my word for it - we all had a blast and looked cute!

This morning we had a great time riding on AJ's skooters, thanks for sharing with us! Anthony and I put away our summer toys and brought the dump trucks out to the bus shelter. The kids enjoyed sitting in the dump boxes and riding down the hill at the end of our driveway!  Crazy kids!!

Happy Hallowe'en!

We had so much fun at our party yesterday. It was busy, but good! Thanks to all for treats, dressing your children in orange and black or costumes!  We played pumpkin toss, pumpkin bowling, bobbed for apples, face painting and had to break through a spider web. Oh, I almost forgot, we had a quick visit with puppies! Anthony and Lillian's Grandma and Aunt Mel brought them to the school and stopped here on the way by. I was dressing everyone for the walk to the bus, but I think the children had fun seeing them!

We have a quiet day today which I am enjoying! The boys did one more cute Hallowe'en craft. Since it's just the two f them, I brought Anthony's ride on tractor  up for them so they could each have a ride on toy. They are actually taking turns on the tractor and cuddling with me because it is just so hard to sharee the tractor!!!!
Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Hsllowe'en!

Almost ready!

After weeks of planning, I am almost ready for all my little spooks tomorrow! I made some pumpkin muffins (a healthy Hallowe'en treat) and some cupcakes today. I'm excited to decorate them! My games are ready or at least organized, some have to be set up tomorrow!  I'm going to get some goodies for my little spooks to bring home ready.... Yes, everything is falling into place! I am going to try to get some pictures on here over the weekend, so be sure to check back on Monday!

Hallowe'en is almost here!

We are getting excited for our party on Thursday. I have some simple games planned for the morning for the younger children. I am getting my games ready fr the older children after school.  I have asked my neighbour, Lexi to come help me after school so that the younger ones aren't too left out while we play the older games.  She is no stranger to my daycare Hallowe'en parties, so I am had she'll be able to join us!

Hallowe'en is coming!

Last night, Anthony and Lillian helped me get the Hallowe'en costumes out! Don't be surprised when you come to pick up your child if you find a little spook instead!  I have also saved old candy wrappers and stuffed them with newspaper, so the older kids have had alot of fun trick or treating.

Fire Safety Month

October is fire safety month. The school children had a presentation on Friday, so I corresponded my monthly fire drill with that. Of course for the babies, I have to get them out of the house, but they are being exposed to the sound of a smoke alarm. It was nice for Oden after school when everyone was excited about the fire presentation, and he got to tell them we had a fire drill.

Beautiful fall day!

What a gorgeous day. I am so thankful that my job allows me to enjoy the nice weather. We went outside early this morning and Tori and Lillian helped me rake the leaves. Anthony and Carson were too busy working on the tree stand! We made a big pile and jumped in, buried the girls and threw leaves at Edison! Then we had to walk out to the bus. When we got back to the house AJ had arrived so he and Eddie played in the leaves again. Then it was so nice out that I brought snack outside and we played in the sandbox and in the cars until it was time for me to start making lunch!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Enjoy your weekend!
Thanks to all for you October book orders. We made $36.54 in bonus coupons!!! I will let you know shortly what we decide to get!

Turkeys!

We had fun learning some new Thanksgiving songs and that turkeys say 'gobble' at circle time. Then at play time we got to see four wild turkeys outside the window!!
 Our new song is to the tune of If you're happy and you know it!
Gobble, gobble, gobble gobble, says the bird.
Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble says the bird.
Mr. Turkey gobble gobbles,
 and his head goes wobble, wobble.
 Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble says the bird!

Enjoy:-)

Apple sauce

We made apple sauce today! Oden and Lillian liked using the apple peeler/slicer/corer. The other kids were a little young for it but really liked watching. They were so excited to try an apple for dessert! I thought I was spoiling them by giving them peeled apples, but Oden and Lillian asked for the peel anyways! Freya and Edison liked the different shaped apple. AJ (who doesn't like apples) was so excited to try it, but very disappointed when he realised it was just an apple! :-)

Short week

We are almost done our short week. Everyone here has been little troopers. No one is feeling great. I hope this cold leaves before next week. We have been enjoying some fall stories about apples and pumpkins. And learned some fun apple songs. We also did a painting with fall colours. The children are loving the train set. I can't get over how long so many of them can play together with it. It is neat to see before and after school how the older children set up the track for the younger ones!

First PA Day!

We had a great morning here! Grace came back to help us! This morning we decorated paper bags to gather leaves in. Then we played a few board games before snack. We walked through the apple orchard (which is our 6 trees in the field behind the house) but we only saw 10 apples. Some of us got wet socks, others were happy to have rubber boots. We saw some frost still on the grass in the shade, and it felt a little cooler there! Then we came in and did some patterning with fall counters while Nancy made lunch.  After lunch we used our leaves and made all kinds of art work!  Then we did our journals and work books, and now everyone is playing quietly waiting for Edison to wake up.  We are going to try sack races and maybe 3 legged races this afternoon!

new routine

We are all getting used to our new routine. I am getting a lot done at nap time! And it is so quiet! We are all enjoying our walks, bike rides and stroller rides to the bus!  I have been answering a lot less questions, but I am singing a lot more. Our favourite song right now is The Wheels on the Bus!   For art, we are still focusing on the process and not so much the product, but we are just beginning to experiment with different mediums. This will continue for many months, and will increase as we stop mouthing everything.

Bike ride

This morning I only had one little one, so I hooked my bike trailer to my bike and everybody had a bike ride to the bus shelter. That was fun! Hope we won't get wet when we all bike back in this afternoon!

Baby Animals

We had fun getting to meet Rolo and Oreo last week. Thanks for sharing your kittens with us AJ! Today was Bronwynn's last day and her buddy, Oden brought in his chicks to show her, and us. We saw them hatching and now they are little chickens. We even let them go free inthe day care!! That was pretty exciting! Thanks Oden and Freya for bringing your chicks!

kittens

We are excited to meet AJ's kittens after school. We are having fun with our new friend, Freya today!

First day of school!

Wow, it is quiet in here! We sent Anthony, Lillian, Tori and Carson to school today.
Bronwynn is having a great time taking care of the babies for me! She keeps reminding me how helpful she is.
AJ and Eddie seem to be looking for Anthony. He often would play with his Lego in the living room, and they keep looking in the door!
I'm excited to hear how everyone's day went, but I'll get busy with these guys first.

Last day of summer holidays.

I can't believe we are already at the end of summer holidays. Now my holidays start! Please check the September Newsletter for dates that I will be away. There are a lot of them this month.
I am so glad that it warmed up for our last week of summer holidays. We had a lot of fun in the pools the last two days. Today, Grace is bringing a special art activity for the children. We will also be making butter. We will put cream in a jar and shake and shake and shake! Then we will try our butter on some homemade banana muffins as our afternoon snack!
 We will be saying goodbye to Grace and Wyatt today. (This has always been my least favourite part of my job.) I know Grace will be back next summer, and most of us will see Wyatt at school!
Enjoy your last few days. I know I will! See most of you on Tuesday for the first day of school!

Homemade Ice Cream

On Monday, Grace's family made ice cream for us in their ice cream maker. They put an ice cream custard in the container with ice and salt in the outer container and stirred and stirred and stirred...

I found a recipe for chocolate ice cream that was a little different. First I asked the children how they thought we could make ice cream. Lillian  thought we could put chocolate in the freezer and maybe marshmallows. So we tried that! Tori thought they would just get hard. We tried our frozen chocolate chip and mini marshmallow. They were NOT ice cream, but we were surprised that the marshmallow was still soft!

For our ice cream, we took turns beating cream until stiff peaks formed. I tried to let everyone have equal turns and Lillian was last, and I had to cut her turn short because we were starting to make butter. We stopped in time! Then we mixed it with chocolate and put it in the freezer for the day.  It was delicious!

 Next week we're going to make butter and maybe some kind of biscuits.

If you are interested, here is the recipe we used
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup chocolate syrup
2 cups heavy cream

Line a 9x5 loaf pan with aluminum foil. In a large bowl, stir together condensed milk and chocolate syrup until colour is even. In a seperate bowl, whip cream until stiff peaks form. Fold cream into chocolate mixture and pour all into prepared pan. Cover and freeze 6 hours, until firm.

BBQ at Grace's!

A great big thank you to Grace and family for inviting us! We had a wonderful time!

We got to see Molly and Olivia's lambs. AJ had fun chasing them around and dumped their water pail! Eddie wasn't so sure about them at first, but then grabbed onto one and began laughing! So cute! Anthony Lillian and Tori all made sure to touch each lamb, there were 4 of them!  Then we went to the calf barn. The older children went with Olivia to see the bigger calves and the younger ones tried to make music with the head gates for the calves. They really rattled!
Then we checked out the combine and tractors. The horn in the combine works great!

We played the rest of the afternoon on the swing set, in the sandbox and in the play house. It was so much fun! Tori, Lillian and Anthony were brave enough to get into the pool. Anthony is a fish and was hard to get out, but the girls just took a quick dip!!!
We had an amazing BBQ lunch (thanks again Reid family!). We had hamburgs, hot dogs, sandwiches, veggies, fruit, cheese, and cheeses! Then we got to watch (and play while we waited for) homemade ice cream to be made! It was delicious, and we got to put toppings on it if we wanted!
Then the babies had a quick nap in the stroller and Anthony had a swim. Tori and Lillian both put their swim suits back on, but when they got to the pool they changed their minds and didn't go into the pool!
Then walked back for snack and a quick play before pick up time!

Feild Trip to School!

What an amazing day we had! Grace's sister Molly is babysitting one of my neighbours so the two of them came with us! Oden's mom and sister, Freya, came too. Our two old friends who live right next to the school came over to play too! That made for lots of playing!!!
What a cold summer day. Thanks to all the parents for dressing your children warmly.
I brought hot chocolate for us on our picnic. We all enjoyed our lunch and just as we were finishing, there was a little rain shower that got us wet. Before that we climbed and slid and played catch and played in the sand. We walked around the school to play on the old climber and show Tori where her classroom will be, and around the front, Grace lifted everyone up to peek in Lillian's new classroom. When it was time to head home, Edison fell asleep in the stroller before we started walking and AJ fell asleep shortly after. When we got back to daycare, we watched the movie Frozen. Thanks to Grace for bringing it! I think everyone had a good time! I did! I will try to get the pictures on the blog this weekend!

What a week!!!

We have been doing so many fun things that I haven't had a chance to write about them. On Monday we played in the little pools, baked lemon bread AND date squares! We also brought the easel outside to colour! Yesterday was a rainy day, so we washed and changed the toys a couple of days early, but we were still a little stir crazy. We decided to play follow the leader with umbrellas outside. It was lots of fun!
Today, Grace's sister Olivia came to play and she brought some of her books to read to us. We did more baking and played go fish. We made a big fort, but Holly our cat, liked it more than we did. AND we planned a trip to the school tomorrow morning for a picnic! I hope the showers hold off!!

Math

We have been busy working on math today. We have been sorting and patterning. We have practiced printing some numbers and counted in English and French. We are about to do some more counting with beads.
We played hard this morning (or the weekend is catching up with us) everyone needed a little rest this afternoon!

Quick update

We had a busy but fun end of the week last week, and now we are starting our short week. I would like to thank all of the parents for your compassion about my grandpa's death. I really appreciate it.
We had a busy morning - lots of swinging today. The new markers were a hit, even the babies got new markers and not one went into a mouth!!!
The children are really enjoying the journal-workbook routine at nap time. They don't show a lot of interest in the movies (makes it harder to get dishes done and snack prepared, but I'm really not disappointed about that!) I got the geo boards out, so they are busy with elastics and learning about shapes. Also still mastering ELECT skill 5.3 fine motor skills. Bronwynn is now making patterns with her elastics little, big little big.  Shhhh, don't tell them their learning about math right now !

caterpillar hunt

We went for a walk out the driveway this morning to look for caterpillars on milkweed, but we didn't find any. We did find a tiny tree frog which was pretty exciting!

We were busy baking this morning. We made Oden a birthday cake, made pudding popsicles for tomorrows snack, and watermelon pizza for today!

Grace is heading out on family vacation tomorrow, so I will be on my own.  We will continue to many neat activities, but I'm not sure how often I will get on the internet. I will do my best to keep you posted.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating Oden's birthday, and I have an outdoor scavenger hunt planned, and it's Ali's last day with us. We're glad you can bring your sister with you for the last day!

Buffett (self serve)

It is nap time, and Grace is helping the older children with golf ball painting. That's were you put paper in a tray, put paint on the paper and gently shake golf balls through the paint.

I've been meaning to write about our change to our lunch routine for the summer. We have been using the higher table as a buffet table at lunch. It doesn't always work - with hot foods - but most days we have at least veggie sticks or salad they can serve themselves! The older children love it. They take as many of the veggies that they like, and can go get more during lunch (instead of waiting for me to serve them). I also put salad dressing in a bowl with a spoon so they can choose between 2 dressings and put it on their salad.
The children are excited for self serve, and it is a great life skill for them!

New life

Our caterpillar changed yesterday afternoon.  Lillian and Bronwynn were quite disappointed that we got a moth and not a butterfly! It is a neat moth that looks like it has horns! We are a little sad that we have to let it go this afternoon!
On Friday, Oden brought one of his chicks who is all grown up! Bronwynn held it and sat with it until it fell asleep! Oden's mom brought an egg that was hatching. That was so neat! We got to see the little beak moving around, and pieces of the egg shell fall off. If we were really quiet we could even hear it cheap. Thanks Oden and Tina for bringing your chicks!
We are so excited to welcome Tori to our group. We are excited to get to know her better, and really enjoyed playing with her today, and showing her around!

caterpillar update

That's right, caterpillar update, no butterfly yet. We are watching our chrysalis closely. It has been two weeks and nothing yet. I wonder how long it will take?

We started a neat project with Grace yesterday. We glued broken crayons to a canvas, and when I am done updating this blog, we will use a hair dryer to melt the crayons into a design. Should be fun.

journal entry

It's Tuesday, and we are having so much fun at swimming lessons! I am so glad that I am able to bring Bronwynn with me. Today, her journal entry was about swimming lessons and she drew a beautiful picture of Sara's pool and the slide and diving board! Lillian's journal entry was about swimming lessons too!
We have the small pools filled up for this afternoon, and Anthony will show us how to play water balloon tag.

Feild Trip pictures

I think these pictures speak for themselves.  We had a lot of fun exploring the sand and climbers.  Lots of exercise and fresh air.  It was a great trip.   Enjoy...

These boys were tired on the way back.  My bike trailer is not as comfortable to sleep in as the stroller, but it got us safely home!

Birthday Party!

Wyatt wanted a construction cake, and Lillian wanted flowers and butterflies, so I did my best.

Fruit kabobs for snack!

Balloon painting!

What party is complete without playing with balloons?!

Teddy Bear sandwiches.

Coloured cream cheese rolls and bagels

Hope everybody had a great party.  It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun too!

Lots of pictures!!

Picnic Time!

New play dough.

Pecky and Checky, our chickens.

Another picnic.

Our new toy cat!!!!

Everyone loves when Grace brings her face paints!

Just vegging!

Big thank you to Oden for bringing your chicks to show us!

Being silly with the doll clothes!

Ali, Bronwynn and Lillian like to play hair dresser at nap time.  Ali put every clip and elastic into Lillian's hair for this do!

Oden's chicks are so cute.

Thanks to Bronwynn for bringing Rosey, the hamster, in for the day.

In this picture, you can see the caterpillars last molt (old skin) beside the crysalis.  We are still waiting for the butterfly to come out.

Anthony is such a great helper this summer.  Here he's pushing Oden on the tire swing.  He also showed all the older children how to get on and hold on to ride the tire swing.  Love having him home from school:)

Bronwynn likes to ride Lillian's bike, and Lillian loves getting a ride on her rack.