Childcare Chronicles

I shouldn’t say this as I’ll likely jinx it but I think we’re over the hump on sickness here.  I have two that are finishing up colds but no new outbreaks as of yet.  My fingers are crossed as we really need a break from all of that.  I’ve been busy over the last few weeks.  Typically I would be ramping up doing tons of paperwork to get things ready to renew my childcare registration but I’ve decided that I’m not going to be registered anymore.  It’s been great as instead of doing all that meaningless paperwork I’ve been making things we are using!

The things we are working hard on is learning colors and letters.

This is an activity I put together using monster clips and some clip art.  It’s a circle time activity we do in the morning.  The rhyme is call, “Six Silly Monsters”.

This is a great story retelling activity.  It goes with the book “The Mitten”.  The idea came from here.  Kayla crocheted the mitten for me.  The kids love it.  The book is too advanced for my kids so I show the pictures and tell the story.  They really love this.

I make lots of my circle time activities out of felt.  Here’s one of the latest with gingerbread men.

Here’s another…this time with snowmen.  We’ve been doing this one lots as colors are something we’re working on and we’ve had several snow melting days in a row.

This one they adore.  Remember the old nursery rhyme “Three Blind Mice”.  I made this go with it.All I did was find three cat toy mice in the pet aisle.  Then hot glued them onto the glove.  I put it on my hand and sing the song.  The kids love it.

Here’s another.  I’m trying to get all the older kids to recognize their name.  It’s done to the turn of “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar”?  The kids guess the names and then I turn the “cookies” over.  They have a picture of the person on the back of the cookie.

The latest thing I did was take flat black rocks that I got at the Dollar Tree and painted them to look like penguins.  I’m going to put them in a tub with rice and let the kids play with them.

We do a couple art/craft projects each week.  Here we are playing with puffy paint and making snowmen.  They LOVE anything that involves painting!

I have lots of letter related things all around.  One of the favorite things to play with are the two computer keyboards I have.  They are junior sized keyboards that I cut all of the wires off.  They play secretary and store with them.  If they sit down by me, I always encourage them to “find their letter” (the first letter of their name).  Believe it or not, my two two year old are really getting the hang of it.  They can recognize at least six letters.  My three year old knows about 15 letters.  I have some smart little ones here.

No childcare chronicle would be complete without a Ruby picture.  Here she’s being a pillow for a sleeping little one.  Check out her hands.  A blog reader sent a box of goodies for the kids and she has claimed this and the scepter as her own.  We had to put the scepter on the television so she could play with it again after nap time.

I’m so excited.  We are adding another kiddo to our little group.  Can you believe it’s not a baby!!  I’m getting another three year old!  It’s a boy so the boy who has been here surrounded by girls will have a playmate!  I couldn’t be happier.

I’m loving that I am not doing paperwork and can instead use the time to make some fun activities for the kids.  Circle time is the best way they learn around here.  So many rhymes are set up to teach math and counting, colors or letters.  I love circle time and kids do too.  If anyone has any good rhymes or activity ideas, I’m always looking for more so drop me a note in the comment section.  THANKS!!