Last week on Monday was a child care day for me.  It was a no school day and I told the parents when I quit care if you need me on a no school day to let me know.  Happily, they did.

I really miss the kids and the life of childcare.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy more at ease days but I do miss the hustle and bustle.  I’m actually leaning towards going back.  Every time I have the kids for a few days, I can’t help but wish I was back at it.

I have appointments coming in December for my cancer stuff and after that, depending on the results of the tests and where I am going next, I’m going to make a decision about going back or not.  I’ve already committed to taking a new baby Monday and Fridays along with my grandkids and I’m excited about that.  We’ll see.  I have a couple of months to try to figure it all out.  In the meantime, I’m comfortable where I am at.

If there is anything we’ve learned with all of the coronavirus stuff it’s that it isn’t necessarily the best to make plans too far in advance.

Anyway…back to our day.

We had so much stuff going on…  What a mess, I know!!  Check out the block tower that got made.  This was amazing balancing skills.

I got creative and finally put together an activity I’ve wanted to do with the kids for a year.  Karl cut dowel sticks and sanded them.  I gathered some supplies and made them.

Here is what one looks like finished.  It supposed to be a caterpillar and kids are supposed to put hair ties on them in a patterned order.  You can see this little girl is making a pattern of blue, orange, purple.

They are great for working with kids of multiple ages.  The girl that was doing this pattern is in first grade.  She could easily do it and for her, was more of an art type project.

For Carver, he was just learning about patterns.  For kids that are two, they are primarily working on motor skills.

Anyway, here’s how I made them…
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No…I’m not going back to full childcare.  I do have a few childcare days though.  I regularly have Carver, Gannon, and Georgia on Mondays and Fridays.  A couple of my former childcare families have asked if they could join in on those days…and sometimes they do.  I love it.

This past Monday was one of those days.  There was no school as it was a teacher in-service day.  I ended up with five kiddos here and Gannon was the youngest.  We had lots of fun.  I didn’t make any plans in advance like I used to.  We had a “go with the flow” day and boy it was fun for us all.

Here are some of the things we did….

I have this butterfly puppet and it’s a real favorite.

The kids were having some trouble finding a way to share so I tried to think of a way we all could have one…This is what I came up with.

I started with a toilet paper tube.  I cut it in half and cut those in half.

Then with the hot glue gun, I glued it into a tube essentially making a smaller tube.

I folded a half sheet of white construction paper in half and then in half again.  Then I cut out a butterfly shape.

The kids decorated the butterfly and I hot glued them to the tube.

This one is mine.  I love crafting with the kids.

When they move their arm up and down the butterfly wings “flap”.  It was a fun simple craft…and virtually cost-free.  Try it with your grandkids or your own kids.

They asked to go to the park…and why not go?  So we did.  They all challenged themselves to walk backwards for a while.

They LOVED the park.  It’s so fun to see these kids playing that have grown up together playing.  This was the first time they ever really used their imagination.  They were pretending the play equipment was a pirate ship and they were trying to capture one of the girls.

How can you not feel joy listening to kids squeal in delight?  While they were playing there…Gannon was… Continue reading →