Sunday night I found myself attempting to organize the art supply closet (still not done and one can barely move through our hallway. This has become my weekend project) and found a bag of goodies from Michael's craft store. I was thrilled, to say the least. The kids spent Monday doing lots of crafts. First up, the kids painted wooden shapes. At only .29 cents a shape, they are more than affordable and come in tons of different varieties. The kids can get pretty detailed when decorating these but I usually just have them paint them. This time, I told them to choose 2 colors (there choice) to paint their shape. All of the kids picked just one color and were very diligent in painting every part of their wooden shape.
The kids used Crayola oil pastels to color paper shapes. I had a choice of a boy paper cut out or a butterfly. The kids love using the oil pastels for coloring as the oil pastels are very bright, but parents beware, it will not come out of things without a stain remover.
During outside time, the kids learned how to play Bags and kept the game going on their own! They had a blast with it and I was very proud of how they cheered each other on.
Tuesday was my "slow" day, with only 1 daycare child. This left time for lots of projects I had been wanting to try out. First, I created an indoor sandbox for the kids (http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2013/07/indoor-sand-box.html). This activity was a HUGE hit with the kids and will definitely be used for a winter day. With the flour already out on the counter, I made my own play dough (http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2013/07/no-cook-play-dough.html).
After making homemade pizza for lunch, naps for kids, laundry for myself, I set out on my next venture: flour painting. This turned out great and there was enough paint to keep for outdoor flour painting on Wednesday. My last venture for the day was creating my own oatmeal pancakes (http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2013/07/recipe-created-on-whim-oatmeal-pancakes.html) for dinner. Tuesday was definitely my creative day and the kiddies benefited big time!
Wednesday was very busy, but I still managed to do some fun activities with all of the kids. It was a
In the afternoon, I got out the play dough I made on Tuesday. I had put it in the refrigerator overnight and when I took it out of the Ziploc bag, the dough was definitely more of a Play Doh consistency. 24 hours later, I got what I was originally going for.
The kids spent a good part of Wednesday playing doctor and two of the kids pretending to be married. It was incredibly entertaining to hear all of the scenarios these kids came up with!
After the daycare kids left, the boys continued with the pretending theme, and played "mommy and daddy." They destroyed our room rifling through clothes of ours that they could wear to be us, but hey, this house is used to messes!
Thursday had a rough start with two of my three being sick. Not. Fun. At. All. Hopefully a low key weekend will put Elizabeth back on top since she's been down and out since Wednesday night. Luckily, it was a gorgeous day Thursday, so the kids got lots of outside time. We also went back to art and crafts basics with markers and stickers. They created some wonderful masterpieces with these simple items.
Thursday after naps and resting, the kids did a letter project. I had a few of the older kids cut out
pieces of paper and I wrote capital letters on them. The kids then placed stickers over the lines of the letters. As they put the stickers on, we went over what letter each child was stickering and what sounds those letters make. When all of the letters are stickered, the kids can use them as flash cards to learn their letters. Some of the kids got bored with it after stickering one or two letters, but other kids really enjoyed it. This is a great activity for 4+ year olds to use as a letter review, but I know all of the kids will enjoy the flash cards!
