It's Spuds Time

We have participated in the Spuds in Tubs program since 2010.

It's a fantastic program that I would recommend to everyone.

The program includes the tubs, soil, fertilizer and the seeds.

It provides an opportunity to learn about gardening.

This week we filled the five tubs with rich, dark soil.

The children mixed the fertilizer into the soil.

Enjoying the feel and getting dirty.

Next we checked each seed and removed extra sprouts.

The children dug holes in the soil, dropped their seed in

and covered it up.

One more step - water.

Then they rest till we come back from Spring Break.

How much will they sprout?

A Little Colour Magic

Last week we read the book "Planting a Rainbow" by Lois Ehlert.

I chose it to have some fun with colours.

Prior to story time I dyed sunflower seeds to match the colours in the rainbow.

 After reading the story,

I showed the children coloured sticks.

We put them in our garden box in order as they appear in a rainbow.

The children were then given 6 seeds, one of each colour.

They planted them, matching the seed colour to the stick.

Another book we read, during our second storytime, is called

"Plant the Tiny Seed" by Christie Matheson.

It's a fun interactive story.

It also helped inspire the idea of magic.

We watered the seeds and left them over the weekend.

 Monday morning magic!

At story time we had fun comparing the coloured sticks to the flowers

that magically grew over the weekend. 

Another Homemade Toy

I've been away from blogging this week as I've been busy

visiting with my daughter and

playing with my grand daughter.

During the week I brought home the PVC pipes that we used at school

 and built an activity centre.

I also brought home a few mini disco balls that I had

bought at Christmas.

And two icicle lights that I had hoped would change colours

but were only blue.

My two month old grand daughter loved it.

I tied the first disco ball on the pipe before I realized I could slip them on.

But we discovered that the it spins better when it hangs lower.

It's been an exciting week watching, singing, playing and cuddling.

Final Additions

The children have been enjoying the many books about fire fighting that are available in the room.

They have given us information about the trucks and also the equipment 

the fire fighters wear.

Another piece of equipment our truck needed was the control panel

where the hoses connect.

We used jar lids, milk jug caps and tuna cans.

The tuna cans are the perfect size for the hose to fit in.

Next was the axes.

We don't have a pull out panel like the real truck

so we made hangers (with zip ties)

on the inside of the back door.

It has been exciting to see all children, boys and girls,

enjoying the fire truck.

I think this is the first year that I've heard the term

'fire fighters' used more than 'fireman'.

Our finished truck.

One of our grandfathers, who is a retired fire fighter, checked it over.

We Added More

Each day we continue to add more to our card board fire truck.

Fire fighter Greg gave us stickers to add to our truck

so we named it Engine 10 just like his.

 He was happy that we decided to paint the truck red like his too.

We added a light and bell.

We went 'old school' with the bell because we already had one

and wasn't sure how to make a siren

or certain that we needed a loud noise 

in our already noisy room.

One child was playing with toy fire trucks and pointed out

that we needed lights.

As she was painting the lights she decided we needed a hose too.

Continuing to hurry to fires and put them out.

A Ladder for Our Fire Truck

After our tour of the fire station and learning about the different equipment

needed we began to build.

We started with the ladder.

 I was given a railway track that was a wall decor in a child's room.

It is really long, so today we measured our fire truck and cut the track down to size.

The children took turns using the saw 

sometimes needing help from their grown up.

Once it was the right size we used zap straps to attach it to the truck.

It is meant for a decoration not to be used.