Friday, May 27, 2016

Week In Review: May 23 - May 27

It's been quite a while since I've written a Week In Review post. I stopped writing them for a couple of reasons: 1.) I had quite a few little littles throughout the school year and we just didn't do quite as much and 2.) This post can get incredibly time consuming as I re-account our week. However, with summer starting next week and quite a few big littles returning, it seems like a perfect time to bring back WIR because there's just too much fun stuff NOT to share! So, I'll begin by catching everyone up to what we've been up to and what we did this week.

This week was what I call a transition week. This was a week we said goodbye to one child and began a slightly different schedule for a few of the kiddos. We've been talking quite a bit for the last few weeks about the school kids coming back, how some kids won't be here, etc. I kept this week laid back and calm for both my sake and theirs (that really came in handy when they all developed colds and no one was on top of their game).

We've been trying to find activities that all of the kids can do (ages 1-4). We've been playing a lot with animals, stuffed animals, figurines, building Lego animals, etc. Last week we even went on a Bear Hunt. The kids immensely enjoy playing with the stuffed animals and setting up a zoo, then they "go to the zoo" with their play binoculars and a packed picnic of play food. Just by watching the "big kids" (and by big kids, I mean the 2-4 year olds), all of the younger kids have picked up animal names, sounds, and even what they eat. I'm constantly amazed and just how much kids can learn from each other (this can be both good and bad!).

We've also been reading quite a bit. We've been reading We're Going On A Bear Hunt, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, The Lady With The Alligator Purse, Knuffle Bunny, and the Pinkalicious book series, pretty much every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Often times, the kids go in waves of what they play with. After a few months of being ignored much of the time, the books are now the "it" thing to do. The kids enjoy looking at books themselves and attempting to "read" the books to each other. I love hearing how they interpret books!

Singing the ABC's also happens multiple times a day as does shape identifying with the Magformers.

Here's some highlights from our week:


The little girl on the right, walking to center stage? She's mine and played an Indian girl in her class interpretation of What A Wonderful World. It was the sweetest program I've been too yet! I took the a day off this week to attend the program, her end of the year party, and then the boy's Art Festival at school. It was a busy day! By the end I was exhausted but incredibly proud.


 Three year old preschool completed and now she says she's all ready for four year old preschool!



She even got an ice cream party after her program!


Both boys were awarded for their art work. I wish I had a video of Harrison's face when the art teacher called his name; it was a look of shock and pride mixed together!



We've been ordering a lot from Amazon lately to stock up supplies for summer. One of my add on purchases were Spider Balls. I was intrigued. Turns out they were just melt away water beads. The kids enjoyed watching the green fade away, but then it took another 4 hours for the beads to expand. I was kind of irritated they weren't marketed as water beads, shoved them on top of the book shelf, and forgot about them. Until Friday. When I noticed they were still in the water (and fully expanded by that point) and added them to our slime. They didn't stay in the slime very well, but the kids still enjoyed playing with the two together.






The kids tried chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips Astronaut food. Only two kids liked it, the rest told me "yucky."


The caterpillars arrived this week! The kids are on edge waiting for the caterpillars to make their way to the top so they can become butterflies. I'm hoping that we won't be having any life and death discussions this time around when we release the butterflies....


We celebrated last days and the start of summer with chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes.


We took The Kidsperts weekly business meeting to our favorite Mexican restaurant for margaritas and queso dip. It was a very successful meeting.


I love how the kids all play together. From baby to big kid, they all do a very good job of playing together. The Waffle Blocks are one of my favorite toys for them to all play with because they're safe for everyone (and require some hand eye coordination work for the toddlers/preschoolers).


I'm really looking forward to summer to see what dynamic the older kids bring to daycare. Often times the little kids learn far more than I would imagine (again, both good and bad) and the older kids are old enough that they actually help with the little ones.