It's been a while since I've done a Week In Review post, but daycare had such a jammed pack week that I couldn't not share everything we did!
We put out our bird seed Christmas shapes that we made last week (we made them at the end of the week and I completely forgot that they take 8+ hours to dry out, so we saved them so the kids could watch the birds). We used a simple recipe, but in the past we've found that the bird won't eat them if we make them into ornaments and hang them up. Instead we laid them on the ground. The kids thoroughly enjoyed watching the birds, squirrels, and rabbits nibble at them throughout the day.
The kids painted several pictures and such at the beginning of the week. Some kids used their hands, one kids ate some paint, and another got it caked in their hair. The younger the kids, the more interesting painting is!
The girls love playing babies. We also have babies at daycare and several of the kids have baby brothers/sisters. I found it funny when they took the dolls and laid them on their backs on a playmat because "little babies shouldn't be put on their tummies." It made me giggle how much kids pick up by just watching what's going on around them. Also, funny is that one of the babies is "rolling away off of the mat."
The kids were soooo excited for Santa to come visit them. We've been counting down for a while, but once we got to five days before Christmas, the kids couldn't contain their excitement. We sang Christmas carols through the day (their favorites were Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, We Wish You A Merry Christmas, and of course, Rudolph). We also watched a few Christmas movies that we hadn't gotten around to: The Little Drummer Boy, Elmo's Christmas Countdown, Prancer, and Prep and Landing. During lunch on Wednesday, we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas because all of the school age kids complained they weren't around for the first daycare viewing of that movie.
Painted Christmas shapes. I sent them home with the kids just like this so parents could do what they wanted with them: an ornament, displayed on a shelf, or how I like to do them, a magnetic strip glued on the back so it can hang on the refrigerator.
Christmas slime. The green smelled like peppermint and the red like cinnamon.
We tried doing a grow tree but the first time ever, this didn't grow at all. We discovered 24 hours after placing it in water that the cats were drinking out of the glass so that may have had something to do with it....Either way the kids were disappointed it didn't grow because we had plans to use it as a stamper once it was done growing.
The kids had a great time with Christmas sensory bins.....as evident by the mess on the floor! Luckily it all cleans up easily.
Pajama Day at daycare and school coincided.
I set up a school area for the kids to play. They enjoyed taking turns playing teacher and having the younger ones practice their writing. The two oldest enjoyed challenging each other with math problems. I wasn't exactly expecting them to turn it into doing school work but wound up being entertaining and educational. The kids have already requested that we set up a school area outside next summer. May not be a bad idea!
The Find It game with the Rudolph stuffed animals was the hit of the day. Read how to play here.
The fruit Christmas tree. I had to add a few bananas and raspberries as the kids ate them the most.
The kids decorated Christmas cookies. For the first time ever, the kids actually took their time decorating each cookie and didn't whine about eating one right away! I was impressed with them and by their cookies.
Holiday necklaces kept them busy beading for a while in the afternoon.
Last minute wooden ornament sticks.