Spring fun 🤩

 Having a discussion today with fellow educators on how to expand children’s interest and exploration of emerging sings of spring colour and their shadows - creating cool “sun-catchers” that they can actually PLAY with so that they can move the colour and source of light and shadows of different effects is awesome! 

Photo credit Sabina Sawula 

#earlycbildhoodeducation #earlyyears #earlylearning #learningthroughplay #playbasedlearning #spring #colours #sciencenaturediscovery #stemeducation 

February 💕 in the early learning program!

I love Valentine's Day - not the actually 'day' where it is all commercialized to be expected to buy expensive flowers or chocolates for your loved ones on a specific day -  I love the reminder that we should do loving things for each other each and every day because each day should be Valentine's Day!

 I love the colors and hearts and just the fun that a celebration can mean for games and playing - like December reminds of of importance of engaging in Random Acts of Kindness if we start to slack in January than February comes to remind us again! So because I love Valentines I still share this cultural celebration with my crew even if a 'child led' program where most of our topics are led solely by their interests sometimes it is fun to share some of our own to keep traditions and cultural practices that we value as adults alive in our next generation.

These are some of the invitations the crew and I have been enjoying so far this February! 

A collection of loose parts Valentine erasers with invitations for patterning and math literacy for those who need to a 'jump start' ... the children use these loose parts in a variety of ways from stacking and pattering without the use of aids, pretending they are cookies and role playing with them and an array of other imaginative ways ... this is the great thing about 'invitations' to play as the adult I can set out the invitation and the children are able to accept it as is if that is where they are at or they can move beyond the invitation with their own creativity! I find that when children join the group as infants and are exposed to loose parts from very small they do not really need the 'invitations' they just jump start creating their own games and play with loose parts however sometimes children who join us older feel a little lost with the loose parts so the jump start of an invitation helps them see how this bowl of 'stuff' can be potentially used and than as they watch others thing outside the invitation they grow their own imagination!

We have some fine motor fun with the lacing of the hearts!

Another math literacy game for the older friends at quiet time ... sometimes they use them to count and other times they flip the heart to the blank size and just make patterns to decorate them like cookies in play.

Quiet time games of tic tac toe are fun ... this is such a simple game with preschoolers to help them learn to take turns, follow directions and play a game with combined purpose.

And of course we love the Valentine inspired sensory bin ... the great thing about bins like this is they are fun for all ages - the children have been sorting pom poms, ripping the paper, twisting and making things with the pipe cleaners and role playing with the little Love Monsters hiding within the bin! 

What are some of your favorite Valentine's activities to share with your crew during month of February? 


Have an amazing day! 


Margaret
Live Well, Laugh Much, Love Often
Be Totallyawake4-life

Father's Day T-shit

Father's Day is coming soon - we love creating handmade treasures to show dad our love! Footprint T shirts are always a blast!

What You Need

• Plain Tshirt
• Fabric Paint
• Paint brush
• Fabric Marker
• Warm soap and water bucket

What You Do

• Paint child's feet and let them walk across the tshirt - wash feet with soap and water. *Tip put down either an old sheet or something to protect your surface from excited feet that might not stay ON the shirt!
• Repeat in multiple colors if desired
• Allow to air dry! 
• If child is not yet printing help them by adding a slogan such as "My child walks all over me" shown above or another we've done is "Following in Daddy's Footsteps"

Another idea to step it up a notch

• We took photos of child with dad and printed onto iron on paper and put on the front. You can even edit the photo to add 'words' as well before printing on to the photo paper. (sorry no photos but did not have permission to show the kiddies faces online)

Have an amazing day!

Margaret
Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
Be Totallyawake4-life




 

DIY Essential Oil Mobiles

Wow ~ this is a cute idea from over at the doTERRA Canada blog on Facebook!
DIY Felt Mobile: Get a wooden embroidery hoop from the craft store in the desired size. Cut your favorite animals out of felt and hang them from the embroidery hoop, as desired. Essential oils can then be added to the felt to create a gentle, calming environment for your baby.

So if your wee one is having challenges sleeping a little drop of lavender on these before bed time to help provide a soothing sleep setting! 

Please remember when using oils with wee ones that less is more and that while essential oils are an amazing gift from nature that even nature needs to be respected for its power over the human body! So fact is that some oils their little bodies are not yet ready to metabolize and that you can overdose on 'essential oils' just like you can on many other things from nature turning the gift into a nightmare! It is important to make sure to do your OWN research on which oils you are comfortable using with your little treasure because ther is often conflicting information out there on oil safety and so forth! 

 

This is the recommended ideal amounts from doTERRA and their blog gives background around why they feel THEIR oils are safe for internal use as internal use of oils is one of those areas where you will find conflicting information.

My advice with internal use is to keep in mind 'accumulative dosage' so if you are taking oils internally to support health and wellness but are than also using aromatic and dermal applications for aromatherapy in the day is your 'total ideal' amount than surpassing idea.

So for example a YOUNG toddler who is being given our OnGuard capsule orally to help with immunity support could quickly reach 3 DROPS in the course of a 24 hour day specially the more everyday items we replace with essential oils. So keep in mind if they are than washing their hands with the On Guard soap which has essential oils in it, playing in a play area where we are diffusing oils and than applying an essential oil 'treatment' to feet before bedtime and so forth! 

 

Oils are AMAZING gifts but they must be respected and used in moderation and there are definitely some that should NOT be used by young children at all!  Such as the advice from Robert Tisserand around the use of menthol's like peppermint and eucalyptus in small children!

 

Image source

Some tips for oil uses with children can be found on the doTERRA® science blog here and I personally love the resource from the Hippy Homemaker where they give tips such as SLOWLY introducing oils into ones lives because like anything we can have 'sensitivities' to natures gifts so introducing things like food and oils and so forth one at a time and 'waiting' to see how the body reacts is key. I also love how they  break down the oils by age based on their research ~ the article in its entirely can be found here. 

 

 Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

 

Light Up my Life Craft

Everyone loves a little love note ~ having the crew create one by hand for mom and dad is always a hit specially this fun one where they get to make little fingerprints! 

What You Need

• Washable Ink pads in various colors (tempera paint would work)
• Fine Marker
• Cardstock weight paper or construction paper in white and a Christmas color of choice
• Computer and printer or a 'neat writer'

What You Do

•  If you are not a neat writer yourself you can create a 'sentiment' for your project in WORD and print them out for the children on an 8.5x11 paper and than cut to size for your card front. We did 8 x 5 size for our white for our card front and insert and than folded a full size card stock for our base of the card.
• Have children ink up their finger with color and make a collage of finger prints around their paper.
• Wash fingers well when finished ~ great reason to do some water play to help soak off the evidence if it is going to be a surprise card!
• If using tempera paint let the finger prints dry. When dry revist your project to draw lines to connect the fingerprints into sentiments
• Children can write a personal message inside or draw a picture for loved one!

Like hand print crafts fingerprint art is always a fun and appreciated keepsake for loved ones that the children love to make!

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

Handprint Christmas Tree ornaments

 

Ian the Elf brought the crew everything we need to make our annual hand print keepsake ornaments ~ this year we voted for a Tree theme! 

 

What You Need

• Large clear ornaments ~ we get ours at Michael's
• Acrylic paints ~ green and various colors for the 'lights'
• Plastic disposable cups - to hold ornaments while you work
• Metallic Marker
• Hairspray
• Glitter
• Funnel
• Soapy Warm Water and washcloth you do not care about 
• Rubbing Alcohol

What You Do

•  Wipe glass or plastic with rubbing alcohol to remove any oily residue
• Paint childs hand and place firmly on the ornament ~ you can orient it either fingers up and closed or down and spread open for the branches we opted for up so they would fit on the ornament.
• Place paint side up into a plastic cup to dry.
• Once dry you can revisit and decoarte your tree adding lights with toothpicks or fine paint brush dots and tinsel or stars and whatever the child wants. Let dry again.
• If using clear ornaments you can carefully remove the hanging top as they are fairly fragile and glitter them up by spraying the inside of ornament with hairspray make sure to direct spray to cover entire inside and than use the funnel to carefully pour in glitter.
• Cover top with your thumb or return the top and shake to distribute glitter. Repeat as required to get full coverage. 
• Add a ribbon to your hanger hook!
• Wrap and put under the tree for the big day!

Hand print ornaments are always a hit with loved ones ~ something extra special about capturing their little hands for prosperity! If you missed our other post on the 10 keepsake hand print and photo ornament ideas you can view it here

 

 

Have an amazing day!

 

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Elf on the Shelf Marshmallow Fun

I think that Ian is so missing the SNOW while he is here with us in the balmy 10+ degree freaky weather we are experiencing in Ontario right now! 

I do not think he is alone ~ lots of winter sports fans on social media who are missing the fluffy white stuff but shamefully I admit I am one of those Canadians who could do without the white stuff this time of year ~ I love FALL but our cold snowy winters are so not my favorite especially getting 5 children bundled up in winter gear ~ a light jacket and shoes is so much EASIER! 

So since he is missing the snow and building snowman ~ he brought the crew an invitation  to make some Marshmallow Snowman and forts and so forth!

Elf on the Shelf ~ Marshmallow Fun

Ian's Marshmallow invitation poem

I do not know about you, but I love to play out in the snow

Elves make fortes and snowman as the winter wind does blow!

But sometimes in the North Pole it gets so for every cold

That we cannot play outside “stay in the workshop” we’re told!

So when this happens to avoid getting ourselves in trouble

To the marshmallows and toothpicks we head on the double

We build our fortes and snowman inside the workshop

Having fun of our own and playing until Santa says STOP

So today I brought you some good old fashion elf fun

You can build with some marshmallows till the real snow does come!

The crew love this invitation ~ it was a lot of fun and when they were done I let them 'eat' one marshmallow from their structures for a treat cause the weather is gorgeous and we can run off the bit of sugar high that a marshmallow treat! 

I did not get too many photos of this years fun cause this crew, love them as I do, they can sense when my attention is divided and were using that as an excuse to try to do more 'eating than exploring' with their marshmallows. They had some nice 'toothpick' free towers being built although no one in this group but Ian and myself were inclined to actually want to build a snowman ~ they were more about building structures and trains and things!

 

A marshmallow TRAIN!

Raising a Roof up in here!

Making  a marshmallow circle while counting the 10 marshmallows!

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

Elf on the Shelf - Stringing Popcorn

Elf on the Shelf ~ Playing with Popcorn 
So we caught Ian the Elf having a wee bit of fun with the Popcorn invitation that Santa sent for him to share with the children ~ thankfully he is a helper elf so he helped to tidy up all his mess before we moved on to our making stringed popcorn invitation! 

 Today's Ian the Elf poem read
On the third day of December Santa heard you like to eat

So he sent me with this recipe that is really kind of neat
Place all the ingredients in the pot

Let them simmer and get really hot
Then they will shake and rattle and pop

Until they start to get so big they come out the top

Some yummy sweet and tasty kettle corn

They taste the best when they  are still fresh and warm!

If you have any leftover, as if that could ever be,

String them together and hand them on your Tree!

The kids were very excited to listen to the POP of the popcorn as we made it on the stove ... makes me miss my air popper when I could make popcorn on the table so they could also see it but sadly we do not pop enough popcorn anymore to warrant the storage real estate that the air popper took up so 'old school stove top' method it is! 

When working with popcorn and young children it is really important to KNOW YOUR CREW and their abilities with small things! 

 

Popcorn can quickly be a choking hazard in young children ~ it is important that you are able to devote close attention to their supervision while popcorn is being consumed or explored as well as be able to trust that your crew is able to follow safety rules of sitting properly in their chair so that they do not slip and startle themselves with a mouth full of food or that know it is not time for horsing around with food in their mouth that might cause it to go down the wrong pipe. 

As I work with 'mixed age grouping' I typically always have someone whose not quite skilled enough for popcorn so for my crew who was not quite old enough to be trusted with either eating or stringing popcorn I opt to serve some cheerios instead which are also lovely for stringing this time of year! So quick and easy ~ you can use pipe cleaners to string onto and shape them into circles and twist tie them closed!

So we typically hang these decorations outside in the tree for the animals to enjoy this winter ~ kind of a Random Act of Kindness for the wild life in the community. So you can do straight popcorn or mix it up with some cranberries too!  As an animal lover please make sure to double check that whatever you are hanging out for the animals is actually a 'safe and approved' option ~ I double checked the unsalted popcorn and cranberries as well as the cheerios with the Humane Society website to make double sure it was still safe to do this cause I know they frown on the 'bread' for the ducks.

 

We have a few really cheeky squirrels that LOVE getting treats in the backyard as well as a nice selection of birds including some lovely cardinals! 

 

Have an amazing day!

 

Margaret

Life Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life