Sunday, October 12, 2014

Week In Review: October - October 10

This week we read a lot about leaves and pumpkins and how they grow and change. We did quite a few Halloween crafts, played with apple snow, had a theme day, and went on our much anticipated nature walk around the neighborhood. We continued to work on our table manners and using our words with our friends. Here's a brief look at our daycare week:

The toilet paper roll bats turned out adorable. Want to make yours? Check this out: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/10/toilet-paper-roll-bats.html
The kids LOVED the apple snow! Read how to make your's here: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/10/apple-snow.html
A special Halloween snack: carrot sticks and pumpkin shaped pretzels.
The daycare kids helped make chili one day and had it for lunch! We followed our own recipe and the kiddos loved dressing their chili up with cheese and crackers.
Elizabeth said bye bye to her pacifiers this week. Read how the big girl did it here: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/10/bye-bye-pacis.html
Ghost cookie cutter painting. Cookie cutters are great for making holiday pictures! We've used cookie cutters to decorate our homemade Christmas cards.
I was surprised that more Apple Jacks were not consumed during the making of the kid's Apple Jacks Trees. Learn how to make yours here: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/10/apple-jacks-trees.html
The kids have been very into crafting this week. We broke out the scissors, glue, markers, and googly eyes for some creative creations.
One day was extra sweet with our Donut Day. Read more here: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/10/donut-day.html
We had planned on a pumpkin day where the kids would get to clean out pumpkins, play with the pumpkin goop, and make pumpkin seeds for a snack. But it turns out the kids hate the grossness of the pumpkin goop so the day didn't go quite as planned. Read more about that experience here: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/10/notes-from-daycare-provider-when-things.html
Even my minis didn't like the pumpkin guts, but instead grabbed butter knives and attempted to carve the pumpkin themselves.....they are so unbelievably proud of their "red Power Ranger pumpkin" that I don't have the heart to tell them it looks like an animal ate the side of our pumpkin!
The Hubs gets big points for all of the messes he had to clean up in the kitchen this week! I'm just happy I'm not on kitchen duty in the evenings!
We ended our week with our fall nature walk around the neighborhood. It took us an hour and half to walk 3 blocks, but the kids collected TONS of brightly colored leaves, pine needles that had fallen on the ground, pine cones, twigs, bark, acorns, and more. The hot topic of our walk was our neighbor's scary Halloween display.....we had to find a way to not walk anywhere near it.
This was the first time we used our new walking rope for a walk. It went surprisingly well, the kids did a great job holding onto the rope (something they don't do as well when holding each other's hands), and they loved having their "own holder." It took a few minutes for the kids to figure out how to walk with the rope without running into each other, but they got the hang of it and the walk went very smoothly.

Next week we'll be painting pumpkins, working on Halloween decorations, leaf imprints, and doing our yearly fall collages. I love this time of year and seeing how involved this group of kids have gotten into learning everything they can about our activities.