We spent a lot of time talking about Earth Day this week and doing several Earth related activities. I've tried to better help the kids understand what Earth Day is all about and why plants and animals are so important to our planet. This has been a difficult task when it comes to the 2 to 4 year old crowd. I did have a little bit of proof they were starting to get it late in the week when they asked if the baby's diaper had to go in the trash or recycling bin!
We also got in quite a bit of outside time, dealt with a lot of runny noses, and had quite a few "think about it" times. Here's a brief look at our week (minus the runny noses and "think about it" times):
The kids love having me quiz them on their letters. We used the Little People Blocks to make words and spell out each child's name.
We had one of my favorite breakfasts for snack one day: chopped up banana at the bottom of the bowl, favorite yogurt on top of the banana, and then choice of toppings. On this day we used Cheerios, but in the past we've used chocolate chips, berries, Kix, and granola.
The kids enjoyed the dress up clothes for another week. We'll be keeping the boxes of dress up clothes out for a while because they've really enhanced the kids pretend play interactions with each other!
One day the kids weren't listening well at all and lost their outside time (they were VERY distraught afterwards) so they made sure they were well behaved and followed directions the following day! To make up for lost time outside, we played with the water tables, water beads,number ducks, playing Ring Around The Rosie, and tag.
The kids got creative and built themselves a train track (actually they waited for Max to get home from school to help them complete the track). Sometimes I tell them no that I won't do things for them and I love watching them try to figure things out themselves. I was very proud of them for nearly completing the track on their own.
The kids tried out patterning with the Waffle Blocks. It looks like we'll be working on patterns in the weeks to come!
The kids spotted a dead lady bug in the yard last week and it's still been a hot topic of conversation among the kids (mostly at lunch and snack times). To get their minds off of the dead lady bug "that's never coming back," we made our own lady bugs using a paper plate, black construction paper (I did the cutting this time around), red paint, and black paint. It didn't take their minds off of it for long, but these sure turned out cute!
We got a new Thomas The Train tent. Thanks to all of the kid birthday parties we'll be attending the next few weekends, the minis begged "for something for us too!" I broke and bought the daycare a new tent. The kids loved it, but it had to be heavily supervised, making sure the kids didn't run into each other going in and out of the tent, no one destroyed the tent (we've had several destroyed in the past), and everyone was sharing the tent.
The kids totally didn't understand how to play Connect 4, but we got in some patterning practice with them. Eventually we just gave up and had a contest who could put the chips in the fastest.
The beautiful butterflies we made out of toilet paper rolls, paper plates, tape, and paint. This was part of our Earth Day discussion on how we can re-use things. These turned out really cute, but required quite a bit of tape because it had issues sticking to the glitter paint (we used the Creatology brand from Michael's).
We walked up to school for a PTA meeting. The minis thoroughly enjoy taking walks around our neighborhood.
I put the kids to work washing the dirty ball pit balls. They mostly just enjoyed getting wet and playing with the soapy water!
We ended our week with a pizza party picnic and a movie. We had originally started our picnic outside, but after 35 minutes of no eating and a lot of "look at the fly! It's going to get my water!" "I hear a airplane somewhere!" "There's a squirrel in someone else's yard" we moved the picnic inside. All week long we read books pertaining to Earth Day (the kid's favorite wasLittle Critter It's Earth Day) and watched two movies: Sesame Street: Being Green andDisneynature: Earth. Earth was a great movie to watch and talk about (very simply) why animals are important to our planet. The mention of planet brought about the request for a Space Day. So I'll have to get planning on that one!
The cats caused a ruckus when they made themselves a bed with the dress up clothes!
This week definitely had a few challenges, but thankfully we ended the week on a decent note. Next week we'll have our Earth Day celebration with cupcakes (this was a stipulation from the kids) with some really fun activities and crafts. The weather will be a little bit cooler so we won't be spending all of our days outside, but the kids will get a treat when they discover the sandbox is open for the season. We also have our Little People area set up in the front living room. This is a great way to get the kids interacting and promote sharing and using words which is something the kids will be working on this next week.