Monday, July 11, 2016

Week In Review: June 27 - July 1

Daycare got creative this week! Our backyard is still in the process of going through improvements, so we had limited use. We instead had a lot of fun indoors with dress up clothes, building structures, celebrating Max's birthday, dance parties, and ending our week with our Independence Day celebration. Here's a quick look at the week:


The kids LOVED having the dress up clothes out. We don't have them out often because they can make a huge mess, but the clothes kept them busy for an entire day. They changed outfits, created games, and role played over and over again.



Story time! Lots of good books were read, including The Night Before The 4th of July.


A couple of the kid's intense building skills. They spent a lot of time building houses for the pandas with the Panda Village, an amusement park, and their own "massive swimming pool for pandas that are learning to dive."



Everyone had fun on Max's birthday. Read more here.


Max got Collect A Case bugs for his birthday. They kept all of the kids entertained and very interested in learning about bugs.


Nothing beats a tea party, complete with chocolate pudding and vanilla wafers, on a rainy day. A lot of the kids loved the tea (it was decaf), the others drank water in their tea cups.


Feet painting was such slippery fun last summer that we tried out body painting this time around. The kids could use any part of their body (within reason, of course) to paint on the papers. I put paint in bowls and squirted some on the poster boards to get them started. I apparently didn't make it clear that they were to paint the paper and not themselves. Nearly every child wound up covered in paint from having their friends paint them instead. Then they went ahead and rolled onto the poster board.


Crayola Neon paint is my favorite to use for paintings during the summer. The multi packs have such bright, summery colors (I've found Target to have the best deal on the packs)!



The finished product (combined with sticks, dirt, and grass):


On Friday we had our annual Independence Day Celeberation. We didn't do as much as we usually do for these celebrations because we left for vacation the next day and I didn't have time to clean up a big mess/party. Instead, we did some fireworks, sparklers, Snappers, and snakes. The kids seemed to enjoy it all.



The kids love feeling the ashes from the snakes after it's cooled down.


The surprise hit of the day were the blank United States maps. The kids loved using other maps to help them fill in the states. We also learned where Iowa was, where Disneyland was in California, where Disney World was in Florida, and where the ocean was (because there's only one ocean according to the kids). The younger kids listened intently to the older kids filling in their maps, all while they colored in each state. I was shocked that all of the kids, ages 2-8, were so enthralled with learning about the States. They even chose to come in to "work on" their maps instead of having more outside time!


The kids made a 4th of July soup while they played. They claimed it was as delicious as turtle soup.

We're very excited to have the backyard back soon enough. After a week off, I'm sure it will take a bit to get back into schedule, but hopefully we'll all do it with ease. We'll be throwing the blog a birthday party mid-week (any excuse we can find to celebrate something, we take it!) and we'll be learning all about bugs as well (a common interest among all of the kids this summer).