Snowflake brownies on our snow day.
Daycare had another short but busy week. Most of the school age kids were back for Christmas break so I had my week cut out for me coming up with games and activities for the kids to play all week long. As I learned last week with our Holiday Game For Kids, the Find The (Enter item(s) here) has been a hit. We played that game A LOT throughout the three daycare day, all with various items.
We had two theme type days: Frozen (which was perfectly timed for our snow storm we got that day!) and an early New Year's celebration. I made sure to have all of the big kids favorite lunches and snack because they were worried they wouldn't be eating them again until summer. Once again, just like the week before, the kids mostly spoke to each other about their different schools, stories, and what they've learned so far this year.
Here's a look at our week:
The kids put the indoor snowball fight to use. They separated into teams and had a dodge ball type game going with the snowball fight. Eventually it turned into every kids for him/herself and things got crazy!
The Find The Snowball game.
Having fun with new sticker books. Thankfully none ended up on my walls this time, just on the kid's faces.
Playing with the new magnetic dartboard. The kids loved playing this!
I can't exactly go outside and shovel during the days, but my three minis are usually quite enthusiastic to help out in the evenings!
They're only requests after shoveling was a hot bubble bath and thick hot chocolate (otherwise known as homemade crockpot hot chocolate...the time consuming one).
I love doing salt dough shapes for the kids to paint. It's something a bit different than a flat piece of paper to paint.
Snow flake grilled cheese. The kids ate A LOT of these.
Play Doh kept the kids entertained for nearly a full day on Tuesday. Even the 7 1/2 year olds were completely enthralled with it and even took the time to create birthday parties with it. I loved seeing their creativity in their numerous creations.
Our experiment/activity. First, we set our tray with figurines in water on the front porch to freeze over night. We spoke about how freezing happens at 32 degrees. The next day, we tried to get the figures out of the ice blocks. First, we poured extremely hot water on the tray and the kids were shocked at how the water went from steaming hot to freezing cold as soon as it hit the ice. The kids used different techniques to get their figure out. Some continued to pour hot water until it fully melted, others chipped away the ice using a (kids) screw driver, while others chose to eat their ice away.
Sleeping babes meant Hubs and I could set up for daycare's New Year's bash. For the second year in a row we did a balloon drop for the kids. The kids love the balloon drop so much that it makes the $20 and 2 hours it takes in blowing up the balloons worth it.
Our first order of business for our New Year's party was cutting out and decorating numbers 1-12. After they were decorated, I hid all of the numbers in another round of the beloved Find The _____ Game. After the kids found all of the numbers, they needed to put them in order. We also worked on some addition and subtraction with the numbers. I was sure to make the questions harder for the older kids and easier for the younger ones. We played this game several times throughout the morning.
The number 7 hung from the balloon drop!
Morning snack were bite size cupcakes arranged in a Countdown Clock. We counted down from 12 before eating.
The balloons from the balloon drop provided all day fun for the kids. One of their favorite things from the day is when I had them make a big pile of all of the balloons and jump into them.
The balloons from the balloon drop provided all day fun for the kids. One of their favorite things from the day is when I had them make a big pile of all of the balloons and jump into them.
Another favorite game: Keep the balloon off the ground. They separated into teams and hit the balloon back and forth. Their goal was to not let the balloon touch the ground. It was a close game....a real nail biter and the game ended in a tie.
Another game: The Number Walk. The kids would walk around the numbers, stopping when the music stopped. Then I would pick a number and whoever was standing on the number picked was the winner. They got to pick a prize from a bowl (the prize was a surplus of candy canes I wanted to rid our house of). Because of the sugary prize, this game was kept going for a while!
During naps, the big kids set up a flee market in a bedroom and tried their hand at selling pictures, toys, and even a few granola bars from the snack drawer.
We did a toast with sparkling cider. The kids loved toasting and drinking the cider out of plastic champagne glasses. Most of the kids took their glasses home with them and proudly showed them to their parents (who I profusely apologized to as their kids asked to drink their "bedtime milk" out of their glass).
Resting movie time. We started Swiss Family Robinson but only made it 30 minutes in before the kids decided resting was overrated.
Baking soda snow.
These three minis were ecstatic to have their friends back for Christmas break. They've already been planning what they want to do for summer!