Saturday, May 3, 2014

Week In Review: April 28 - May 2

Rainy, rainy week here. The kids managed to be kept fairly entertained with LOTS of pretending, new musical instruments, coloring with the glitter markers, and sensory bins. The backyard is a giant mud puddle it seems, so when a sun shiny day greeted us on Friday, we decided on a nice long walk, a nature hunt, and bubbles in the driveway. Having 5 straight days of rain was wearing on everyone and moods seemed much brighter when the sun came out.

Here are some highlights from our week:

The kids got to color white t-shirts with Sharpie markers. I put old undershirts on the kids so the Sharpies didn't get on their clothes and laid old crib sheets over the tables so the tables weren't stained either. This worked out really well and the kids did a great job coloring with the Sharpies, however they were very uncertain about coloring on a t-shirt!

They also got to color flower pots with the Sharpies 
My Awesome Dude(s)!
Cars in the Mud sensory bin. The mud was actually chocolate pudding. Several of the kids weren't too sure about this sensory activity and didn't spend much time doing it, but a few of the kids LOVED it once they discovered it was chocolate pudding. We had lots of hand, arms, and hair washing after this bin!

Max wanted to see what his chocolate handprint looked like on the kitchen floor.
The glitter markers (Up & Up brand found at Target) are the new "it" markers.


The kids baked and helped decorate brownies for a daycare dad's birthday. There may or may not been a good amount of chocolate frosting consumed during decorating time.....
A homemade racetrack for the Cars cars.

The hubs put together and I organized the kid's new bookshelf in the boy's room. Our book collection has grown a lot in the last month and the kid's other bookshelf became too full. We didn't want to spend a ton of money since nothing seems to last long in this house no matter how expensive it is. So we went with a $32 bookcase from Target and it gets the job done nicely. We also secured it to the wall so it doesn't tip when the kids try to reach the books higher up.
The springtime flowers sensory bin (see http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/04/spring-flowers-sensory-bin.html  for more details). The kids loved taking the flowers and the rocks out and creating their own "garden" in the living room.

My kids informed me and watermelon season was back in! So, we bought, cut up, and ate in 24 hours an entire seedless watermelon.
The kids painted "binoculars." We let them dry for 24 hours and then used them on our walk to spot things like garbage trucks, flowers, grass, birds, squirrels, mowers, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Since the sun was finally shining for the first time all week, the kids and I went on a 2 mile walk. Along the walk, the kids collected items for their nature collage.

My free window washers!
The 3 minis and I made May Day baskets for the daycare kids. This is the first time I've done May Baskets with my kids. They had a fun time getting them together and hearing about this tradition.
We've been collecting new instruments for the kids to use during our music times. Several of our "old" instruments got broke from being played quite a bit, so we added some instruments we've never had before to the mix.

I LOVED watching the kids discover, experiment, and take turns trying out each instrument in the bin.

I had some very creative Lego builders on my hands.
The kids hard at work making their nature collage from things found on our walk. I'm just not sure if they used enough glue.....

Blowing bubbles from the front porch. The Crayola colored bubbles can get messy because well, they're colored, but the kids have a blast with them and they're easy to wash out/off of things.
We ended our busy daycare week with face painting. The kids did a great job of looking in the face painting book to see what design they wanted on their face and then trying to paint it for each other.

Next week we will be working on the kid's Mother's Day presents for their mommy's, playing outside in what looks to be some gorgeous weather, walks, painting, a Mexican fiesta in honor of Cinco de Mayo, and a dinosaur dig in the sandbox.