Spooning
Choose two different sized bowls from your kitchen and fill one of them 1/4 full with dried rice, beans, or seeds. Give your child a spoon and have them move the seeds from left to right- from one bowl to another. This is good for their their fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, sensory experience, language, and left to right progression for reading! You can also talk about seeds and how they grow as well as descriptive words regarding quantity. put the bowls on a tray for less mess and remember you can always clean a mess quickly and easily.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Strawberry Spring Faire
I will be doing a circle time and face painting at Strawberry Rec center for their Spring Faire on Saturday April 3. Please come hunt for eggs and have fun with me. Bring your family and friends. We will be making hats that Cookies n' Dirt kids can wear to show Cookies n' Dirt love.
Life cycles and St. Patrick's Day,
We have been talking about change for the past two weeks. We have focused our learning on the life cycles of the butterfly and seed.
Talked about things that grow from a seed and tried to name a few. We weren't too sure so we looked at pictures of things that grow. I put some seeds in bags and had the children guess what grew form each. This is definitely a good lesson as our friends found it confusing and had a better understanding when we were done. Now everyone can name something that grows from a seed. We have birdseed, split peas, and beans in our sensory bin and we play with them using plastic eggs, egg cartons, and spoons. We planted peas and bell peppers in our garden and we are waiting for them to sprout. We learned that seeds need sun and water to grow.
We saw blue jays eating the strawberries that we are growing!!
While digging in our garden we found 8 cocoons buried in the ground. We were surprised that they had buried themselves because the cocoons in our container inside hang themselves from the lid to go into make their cocoons. We think maybe it's so the birds won't eat them? We marked on the calendar when the caterpillars started to change. We estimated how many days it would take for them to change into butterflies. We will see who is right and cont each day until then. (science, nature study, language, categorizing, sequencing, math, sensory, working together)
We had a great St. Patricks Day week. Thank you to all of you who remembered to pay to see the Irish dancers at Strawberry Rec. center! The girls thought their dresses and curly wigs were so cool and of course, I forgot my camera! (cultural and artistic experience)
We made a letter G by cutting green things out of magizines and gluing them onto our G. (hand eye coordination, language, reading readiness, colors, fine motor)
We made green play dough and sprinkled gold glitter into it. We played with it using rainbow colored Popsicle sticks. (colors, fine motor skills, sensory experience)
Thanks to those of you who also remembered to bring something green for our St. Pats Day party! We painted our faces and our friends faces at the park. We also got to take our clothes off and paint our bodies green. I won't post those pictures but I will give everyone their own copy- FUN!! (sensory, colors, fun!)
We all got to celebrate Ryan's birthday with him last week. He brought chocolate cupcakes with dinosaur sprinkles! We got to have a picnic lunch outside that day and we ate our cake outside too!
That week we did torn paper art using rainbow colors (practicing fine motor development, colors, creativity).
We made leprechauns and told little stories about our own leprechaun (language, storytelling,creativity, cultural folklore).
We made windsocks by gluing circles onto paper. We then used streamers in two different colors to hang down in a pattern. They are beautiful! (patterning, math, shapes)
April activity calendar coming soon!
Talked about things that grow from a seed and tried to name a few. We weren't too sure so we looked at pictures of things that grow. I put some seeds in bags and had the children guess what grew form each. This is definitely a good lesson as our friends found it confusing and had a better understanding when we were done. Now everyone can name something that grows from a seed. We have birdseed, split peas, and beans in our sensory bin and we play with them using plastic eggs, egg cartons, and spoons. We planted peas and bell peppers in our garden and we are waiting for them to sprout. We learned that seeds need sun and water to grow.
We saw blue jays eating the strawberries that we are growing!!
While digging in our garden we found 8 cocoons buried in the ground. We were surprised that they had buried themselves because the cocoons in our container inside hang themselves from the lid to go into make their cocoons. We think maybe it's so the birds won't eat them? We marked on the calendar when the caterpillars started to change. We estimated how many days it would take for them to change into butterflies. We will see who is right and cont each day until then. (science, nature study, language, categorizing, sequencing, math, sensory, working together)
We had a great St. Patricks Day week. Thank you to all of you who remembered to pay to see the Irish dancers at Strawberry Rec. center! The girls thought their dresses and curly wigs were so cool and of course, I forgot my camera! (cultural and artistic experience)
We made a letter G by cutting green things out of magizines and gluing them onto our G. (hand eye coordination, language, reading readiness, colors, fine motor)
We made green play dough and sprinkled gold glitter into it. We played with it using rainbow colored Popsicle sticks. (colors, fine motor skills, sensory experience)
Thanks to those of you who also remembered to bring something green for our St. Pats Day party! We painted our faces and our friends faces at the park. We also got to take our clothes off and paint our bodies green. I won't post those pictures but I will give everyone their own copy- FUN!! (sensory, colors, fun!)
We all got to celebrate Ryan's birthday with him last week. He brought chocolate cupcakes with dinosaur sprinkles! We got to have a picnic lunch outside that day and we ate our cake outside too!
That week we did torn paper art using rainbow colors (practicing fine motor development, colors, creativity).
We made leprechauns and told little stories about our own leprechaun (language, storytelling,creativity, cultural folklore).
We made windsocks by gluing circles onto paper. We then used streamers in two different colors to hang down in a pattern. They are beautiful! (patterning, math, shapes)
April activity calendar coming soon!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
New Website!
OK... I haven't blogged in a week or so because I have been working on my new website! Please take a look at cookiesndirt.com. I am so proud to say that I did it all on my own with NO knowledge of that kind of stuff. Lucky for me intuit.com makes it SOOOOOO easy! I will take the time later to blog about our week.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
music, rainbows, and leprechauns
This has been a busy and stressful week as California State Licensing Agency came for a vist and approved my Family Day Care license. This licence does't change much other than I am now official and they are "watching" me.
The children have been on a musical kick lately. You may have been lucky enough to see our dance performances at pick up time. We have been learning about solos. Each child gets a turn to dance on their own while their friends watch from the side, not only is this great entertainment for me but it helps them with confidence and large motor control. Everyone is is a costume too!
In the car we have been listening silently to Ella Jenkins. She is the BEST at teaching the properties of music to young children. They have been engaged in call and response, rhythm, time, and tone- and they LOVE IT! Every time we get into the car they yell- Ella Jenkins! I hear them singing the songs all around the house and singing back and forth with each other. I will make a copy for each family.
We got some new pattern boards that Amelia and Addison have been into- they are so good at spacial relationships-puzzles.
Madi has been taking such good care of her babies that she brings and always reminds us that we have to be quiet cuz her baby is sleeping. She is also a good friend and the first one to share and take turns. It's rare and I give her so much praise for this special quality.
Kali has been reading many stories out loud in the afternoons as well as trying to teach the children letters on the chalk board. She has been helping set the table for lunch and making beautiful creative art work.
Ryan loves to learn about dinosaurs. He loves to sit with the viewers and ask me questions about each dinosaur he sees. We bring our plastic dinos to the park and he plays in the "jungle" with them. He also likes to chase all of his friends around while roaring as loud as he can. Sometimes he is so realistic that he scares them!
This week we talked about Leprechaun folklore. We learned that stories of leprechauns come from a place called Ireland in Europe. We talked a little about how Ireland is very green because it rains a lot. The children learned that it is said leprechauns keep their gold at the end of a rainbow and that they are very tricky little men. We made our own leprechaun crafts and told a little story about our leprechauns. This activity taught geography, culture, language, creativity, listening, and following directions.
We have been talking about the colors of the rainbow and that a rainbow is made from sun and rain. We made torn paper collages. We learned a little about science in this activity as well as being creative and using our fine motor skills to rip paper.
We didn't get to our seeds so we will save them for next week.
The children have been on a musical kick lately. You may have been lucky enough to see our dance performances at pick up time. We have been learning about solos. Each child gets a turn to dance on their own while their friends watch from the side, not only is this great entertainment for me but it helps them with confidence and large motor control. Everyone is is a costume too!
In the car we have been listening silently to Ella Jenkins. She is the BEST at teaching the properties of music to young children. They have been engaged in call and response, rhythm, time, and tone- and they LOVE IT! Every time we get into the car they yell- Ella Jenkins! I hear them singing the songs all around the house and singing back and forth with each other. I will make a copy for each family.
We got some new pattern boards that Amelia and Addison have been into- they are so good at spacial relationships-puzzles.
Madi has been taking such good care of her babies that she brings and always reminds us that we have to be quiet cuz her baby is sleeping. She is also a good friend and the first one to share and take turns. It's rare and I give her so much praise for this special quality.
Kali has been reading many stories out loud in the afternoons as well as trying to teach the children letters on the chalk board. She has been helping set the table for lunch and making beautiful creative art work.
Ryan loves to learn about dinosaurs. He loves to sit with the viewers and ask me questions about each dinosaur he sees. We bring our plastic dinos to the park and he plays in the "jungle" with them. He also likes to chase all of his friends around while roaring as loud as he can. Sometimes he is so realistic that he scares them!
This week we talked about Leprechaun folklore. We learned that stories of leprechauns come from a place called Ireland in Europe. We talked a little about how Ireland is very green because it rains a lot. The children learned that it is said leprechauns keep their gold at the end of a rainbow and that they are very tricky little men. We made our own leprechaun crafts and told a little story about our leprechauns. This activity taught geography, culture, language, creativity, listening, and following directions.
We have been talking about the colors of the rainbow and that a rainbow is made from sun and rain. We made torn paper collages. We learned a little about science in this activity as well as being creative and using our fine motor skills to rip paper.
We didn't get to our seeds so we will save them for next week.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Mommy Activity Tip
Plastic trays(the serving kind) can be very useful when children are doing messy activities. I get them at the $.99 store. You can also purchase them from learning stores like lakeshore. They give the child a space to work on without messing the entire table around them. They also prevent children from fighting(when you have multiple) as you can set up each with their own materials.
Try putting a little shaving cream, foam soap, or foam paint,on a tray. Let them go for it with their hands and or a paint brush smearing it all over the tray.
Use an old shirt with a slit cut up the back as a smock.
Mess is fun!!
Try putting a little shaving cream, foam soap, or foam paint,on a tray. Let them go for it with their hands and or a paint brush smearing it all over the tray.
Use an old shirt with a slit cut up the back as a smock.
Mess is fun!!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Check out some of my reviews at mamasource.com . Click on childcare-at home childcare and scroll down! I swear I didn't pay them to say those things!!!!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Fun and learning at Blackies Pasture.
Things have been as busy as ever here at Cookies n Dirt. I sent a new calendar of activities and events home with everyone and I hope you are enjoyed it. We were outside as much as we could be in the past two weeks as there has been some sun after all of the rain. We even got a chance to do some water play with few clothes in the middle of February! We took the parachute to the park and had our park friends join us for circle time outside. We have also spent a lot of time lifting rocks up to see all of the creatures that live beneath them. We find salamanders, grub worms, rolly pollys( I'm sure that's the technical name for them), earthworms, ants, slugs, and pincher bugs. Last week we went to the beach at Blackie's Pasture and tried lifting the rocks along the shore. We didn't find bugs but we found SOOO many sand crabs. We spent and hour watching them scurry when they were uncovered. We learned that the birds that we see on the bay all the time like to eat these little crabs. We think we saw baby sand crabs that looked like little slugs too but we have to research whet they look like on the computer. We also found a sea anemone that squirted water at us. As if that weren't great enough hundreds of lady bugs are hatching all over Blackie's. We checked those out for quite awhile. We collected and counted shells, rocks, and sticks and ran as fast as we could along the shore.We were a sandy mess and my car is still a sandy mess- A messy day is a fun day and we live in a learning paradise!!
Our friends have been busy working new puzzles. We also got some alphabet stampers that the children love to use.
Our little friend Dillon has discovered that hand washing can be so much fun with lots of foam soap and the ability to turn the faucet on and off all by himself. He spends a lot of time at the sink!
Our friends have been busy working new puzzles. We also got some alphabet stampers that the children love to use.
Our little friend Dillon has discovered that hand washing can be so much fun with lots of foam soap and the ability to turn the faucet on and off all by himself. He spends a lot of time at the sink!
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