Day off work

It was a beautiful day outside and managed to get in a walk with my husband in the morning.
Then after lunch I headed into school to do some clean up.


It was time to pack away all things pirate.

The families had a lot of fun playing in the pirate ship and acting as pirates.

We buried gold nuggets (painted rocks) and doubloons in the sand box.

One family built a cannon for us and it was a hit.

cookie cutter painting

We were busy making scrambled eggs today for snack so I put out paint with cookie cutters.

There was an egg shape cutter plus different shapes of things that hatch from eggs.

A few children did the craft but I also changed the paint pots at the
easel to bingo dabbers - which turned out to be very popular.

cottonball chicks

This week we continue are crafts related to eggs and what hatches from them.

This morning we used cotton balls and egg carton cups to make a cute little fuzzy chick.



Use egg carton sections, cotton balls (any colour - I found yellow and blue a few years ago at a dollar store), paper and glue.

The egg carton cup can be coloured or painted first (on the outside). Then put a drop of glue in the inside of the cup. Put one cotton ball on the glue. Another drop of glue on top of that cotton ball. Add second cotton ball on top of that. Cut a beak out of paper and use a hole punch to make two round eyes to glue on.

One of the children decided that their chick was hungry and we found some wool to add as a worm.

What creature am I?

On Friday for craft we thought of different things that come from eggs and what would they look like if we combined them with ourselves.


This was based on a riddle activity that has been out for the past couple of weeks.

I made myself into a Moicken. Some of the other creatures were a Tider (Tia and a spider, Maluck (Malik and a duck), and a Branesaurus Rex(Brayden and tyranasaurus Rex).

We used paper cut in an egg shape with a partial flap so they could draw there creature on the inside and write a riddle on the outside.

I found new pencil crayons. I love the brilliant colours and the triangular shape for an easy hold.

Egg shell mosaics

We had fun making our egg mosaics this morning.

Although I think the most fun came with just spreading the glue.

Wow I was impressed how strong the dye took to the egg shells.

The colours are bright and brilliant.

They are easy to make...
- cut out card stock to the shape you desire
- spread glue all around
- sprinkle on the dyed egg shells
(I used an Easter egg dye kit)

Planning for next month

Wednesday is my day off work and I'm using it to do some planning for May. Yes I'm already planning for May. I like to be a month ahead so at the beginning of the month I can post an activities calendar for the families. It includes days the centre may be closed, cooking activities, fieldtrips, going to the library, anything extra.

May's focus will be about Dinosaurs. I believe that this topic will always be an interest to children. I've been an Early Childhood Educator for over 25 years and the theme still comes up every year.

This past weekend I spent sometime shopping at thrift stores for dinos and games and also to the teacher store. Lucky to find some treasures the kids
will enjoy.











Today I need to go to the local museum and plan a visit to start off this theme.

Welcome

Ah my first day of blogging - it's taken me awhile to get started but here I'm ready to go.

I'm hoping to share how I plan and what I plan for my program. Also I'll tell you how it went or didn't go.

So here goes...

For the next couple of weeks we'll be focusing on "what comes from eggs". We didn't have a lot of time to do Easter type crafts or activities (we were busy with being pirates and searching for treasure), so I thought this would be a good way to extend 'egg' activities.

Today for craft we did paper marbling, using shaving cream and food colouring. The kids and parents enjoyed it - although for different reasons. The adults' reasons were obvious - it's messy and they were happy not to do it at home. The children loved the feel of the shaving cream and using the squeegee to take the shaving cream off the paper. Both adult and child alike appreciated how the paper eggs looked when they were done.

Materials you'll need are:

a tray to spread the shaving cream on
food colouring
eye droppers
something to stir the colour (we used a fork)
squeegee
paper



1. Spray shaving cream into small tray.

2. Use eye dropper to sprinkle the food colour on top.

3. Place your paper shape on the tray.

4. Gently push down on the paper. You'll see the dye stain the paper.

5. Lift the paper away from the shaving cream.

6. Place on to another tray (makes clean up easier), shaving cream side up.

7. Use squeegee to scrape all the shaving cream off the paper.

You'll be left with a beautiful marble-like design.
This craft is definitely a hit and we have a whole bulletin board full of marbled eggs to show for it.