This week for daycare we had two repeat hit theme days from last summer, spin art, some time spent indoors thanks to quite a bit of rainfall, some time outdoors, and lots of time examining "new toys" brought up from the basement during the latest toy rotation (so thankful for a large basement for storage). Here's a quick look at our week:
We broke out the Melissa and Doug Art Spinner one morning for the kids to try it out. It's a manual spinner (there's a lever that you have to continually pull). To make it a bit easier, I controlled the lever while the kids squirted the paint. Even the younger than two crowd enjoyed this quick and easy art project!
We broke out the face paint not once but twice. We now have to go shopping for new face paint as the kids used all of it! This time around we'll be getting the sticks instead of the kind you paint on with a brush so it will be easier to manage for the kids.
What do we do when there's nonstop thunderstorms for an entire day? We bring all of the Barbie stuff into the kitchen, fill up the Barbie pool, have the Barbie's go camping and swimming, and end the day by flooding the kitchen with too many refills of the Barbie pool. Isn't that how everyone else uses their kitchen's too???
The costumes being out was a hit this week. The kids dressed up and played all week long. The girls dressed in skirts and jewelry and pretended to be "fancy mommies," we had explorers searching for the loud thunder (not a surprise, but they didn't find it), numerous superheroes, and doctors. My boys dressed up and pretended to be ultimate fighters (pictured above). They were shocked to find this landed them in the 'calm down corner' of the living room.
The older kids worked together to build a Cheetah cage using the Magformers. I'm always impressed with what the kids can come up with when I just simply let them play, but I'm even more impressed when they work together to accomplish something.
I can't believe we've already begun reading our back to school books (all books about going to school). Some of the kids are having a hard time with going back to school and some aren't quite understanding that when they go to school they'll no longer be with me during the days (difficult concept when you're four). Since nearly all of my daycare kids I currently have will be heading to school in just a few weeks, we've started talking about school and where they're going to help with the transition from daycare to school. I'm certain to be an emotional mess these next few weeks as I begin to say goodbye to the babies I've watched grow into big kids.
Round two of face painting gave me a little roaring tiger.
We ended our week with Camping Day 2015. Last year's Camping Day was a hit, so this year we added a duck and fishing "pond" and a scavenger hunt to the mix. The review post will be up on the blog later this week!
This next week we'll have a few theme days including a Pre-Halloween Daycare Party in the backyard. Last Wednesday afternoon, the older kids and I were sitting around talking about school and they began talking about everything they would miss while they were in school (break my heart). One of the things that nearly brought them to tears was that they would miss the Halloween Party we do during daycare. How did I avoid the meltdown of missing certain things? By attempting to squeeze them in during these remaining few weeks of summer break. Kids sure do know how to keep things interesting!