Camp Arrowhead Day Three

Day three of summer camp, Camp Arrowhead, began with one of my pre-kindergarteners coming in so excited that he had practiced his ABCs overnight and finally had the song down.  Shaun just happened to be here when he proudly sang the tune without a hiccup on any letters!  THIS display earned him the ABC star badge for his head band!  We are working on two more boys here possibly earning their badge tomorrow.  So proud of those guys!

 

Our morning craft was a good one.  After seeing the campfire I had made to use for camp all week, the kids were tickled to learn that they would be making their own campfires today and earning a campfire badge to boot!  We painted thick paper plates black and painted four toilet paper and paper towel rolls (p.t. cut in half) a few shades of brown and black to resemble fire wood.  I hot glued the sticks in place and the kids learned how to smush tissue paper just so that it looks like flames.  I hot glued the flames in also.  Tomorrow, since Kroger ran out of the flicker tea lights, the kids will get to take their campfires home with one tea light in the middle to use at home. 

 

 

 

 

Lunch time was had inside today.  The kids asked if we could pretend thunderstorm again so that's what we did.  This time however, we brought out the campfire and I cooked hot dogs in the microwave that afterward we put on forks and pretended to roast them over the fire.  They really liked that... the kids that is.  We also had grapes and chips with mini marshmallows for dessert that one pretty smart kid put on the tines of his fork and pretend roasted them too!  That's a lot of pretendin' going on!

 

 

After nap and a cheese and cracker snack everyone heard the activity whistle blow!  They came running and were advised to put their shoes on cause we were going outside.  I had found online and printed out copies of insect bingo.  I decided to simply use the bingo cards as guides because it had great pictures of lots of insects.  I handed out the sheets and a crayon to each and we headed out to see what we could find.  We hunted and pointed and "Hey look" 'ed until we got pretty hot, this being a very humid afternoon, and decided to head back inside and get ourselves some water while we compared notes on what we found.  Everyone was excited to tell about which insects they had seen and everyone earned an insect badge for participating in a successful hunt!

 

 

 

Day three is at a close and it's been a good one although the campers seem restless to do their own thing.  After one more day of sack lunches I am sure they will be ready for green beans and chicken nuggets next week.  They're just like that.  We only have one more day because everyone will be here that day.  I don't have as many on Friday and most would have missed out on the camp closing badge ceremony!  I am tired but getting a little sad to see the week come to a close.  On to day four!!

 

 



Camp Arrowhead Day One

Camp Arrowhead (aka one week of summer camp here at the day care) got off to a great start with happy and curious faces as each child walked in to a day care transformation.  I am lucky that they notice even slight changes to the décor in here so they REALLY noticed this!  Day one was full of surprises, from Miss Laurie blowing a whistle to signify a camp activity to lunch on the floor and a campfire during naptime. 

 

Our activities began with each child picking out feathers to go on their Camp Arrowhead head bands and also gluing on a "happy camper" badge.  The head band will be used during the week to add badges to as they earn them.  Some badges are easily earned and others they have to work at. 

 

 

Next, our day took us to the great outdoors for bird watching and to earn the bird watching badge!  I stapled toilet paper rolls together and added some yarn to each one.  I have talked about birds to these kids since they walked through my door... it's just one of my "things".  So each child can identify a few and some, more than a few species.  They walked around the day care yard using their binoculars to spy birds and call them out to me... which makes me proud. 

My oldest said "I spotted a cowbird... Hey a robin!"

Another said "I see one with white on his belly!"

One of my four years olds was walking around making bird caws trying to call 'em in.

My girl said "I see a black bird!"

Then the oldest said "Bird watching is kinda hard... but it's kinda easy too."

 

The reference guide to what they were spotting.

Their bird watching badges.

 

After bird watching badges were on I whipped out their brown bag lunches from the fridge.  We pretended there was a storm outside by listening to thunder and rain on my sound machine and all huddled onto a tablecloth with ferns on it spread out on the floor.  Sack lunches are not the norm around here.  They had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, grapes, a small dessert and a juice box... which is definitely not the norm here. 

 

 

After the "storm" we cleaned up and drug out the nap mats/sleeping bags.  I then blocked out as much light in the playroom as I possibly could with blankets, turned the sound machine on "night sounds" that sound like crickets and brought out the tea light filled campfire to a unison of awes.  The nap mats were circled around the fire and when everyone one was settled in staring at the stars taped to the ceiling, and instead of normally watching a television show while I clean lunch dishes, I sat down amongst them a read a scary story which luckily wasn't scary at all besides the voices I added to it. 

 

 

Our snack after nap time was a bit different than normal too.  I tried a different take on S'mores by using Golden Graham cereal, milk chocolate chips and mini marshmallows.  I liked it although it was incredibly sweet and the kids liked it only some liked some of the ingredients more than others and just ate which ones they wanted to.  It was worth a try.

 

 

After snack and once everyone was dressed in swimming clothes and the whistle blew indicating an event, we were all outside and Miss Laurie brought out the water balloons for a old fashioned balloon toss.  I only filled enough balloons to fit in a large pot that I have but they quickly burst away onto soaked little heads.  So after the toss we played in the sprinkler for a little bit. 

 

 

Everyone was dried off and changed back to normal when moms and dads arrived at the end of our first day of camp.  We made a lot of stories to be told on the way home I am sure.  The kids were pretty excited about all of the activities I had planned for them.  On to Day 2!

 

 

 

 



days of our day care

I truly love, as a hobby of mine, to peruse the internet looking for good books for children and go back and forth from websites to my library site, searching titles and authors and requesting the results to be brought to my library for my usual pick up on Saturdays after yoga.  I then have another slight hobby of going online again to find coloring pages to go along with the books that I read to the kids.  Coloring pages or activities keep us busy a little while longer after story time.  Especially on Mondays when it's time for our wormhole picture for the week.  I think I've explained my form of discipline I reverted to when time out stopped working.

Each week we have a coloring page on Monday, for each child, that gets put in their folder on the wall.  If a child misbehaves or gets time out or acts up when adults and parents arrive or uses bad language then I will ask them to go and get their picture and they get a "wormhole" or a hole punched in their picture which means that they don't get to choose a prize from the treat box at the end of the week.  If they do not have a wormhole in their picture then they get to choose something on the way out on the last day. 

This week we had a fun book called Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash.  A book which was right down my clothesline alley.  I pinned up a clothesline complete with sparkled clothespins over each folder for each child.  I then went online and found a simple picture of a sock and printed enough for each child to have one sock to color.  The kids we so excited to hang up their socks on the clothesline.  So far no one has a hole in their sock.  Hopefully it will stay that way.

Another day this week we read Harold and the Purple Crayon.  I dug out enough purple crayons, skinny ones for the older kids and little shorties for younger ones, and passed out white paper to each child when the story was over.  As they were sitting down they each asked me to flip through the pages to a certain scene they remember and wanted to draw like Harold did.  It was pretty fun and they were proud of their purple crayon drawings.

HERE is a direct to a preschool book search on goodreads.com.  Most of the time I put links on here for you to enjoy.  But a lot of times, especially with all the pc and internet trouble I have had lately, I find myself looking back and feeling safe that I have saved links here to refer back to.  Especially since I lost all of my browsing data and favorites more than once.

I also came across a really cute summer time backyard bingo, free printable that I quickly printed out two copies of and laminated.  Not real laminated... just the plastic overlay stuff.  HERE is the link to that.  You can play it with anyone I reckon!

dc craft room

In the three years of running my child care business in the house trailer at the front of our property there have been subtle changes.  Changes in seasons, changes in ages of kids that I accept, changes in decor, but truly one of the rooms has been transformed a couple of times.  It's the master bedroom of the house which is the biggest room other than the main play room.  At first I designated it as the nursery, obviously, for younger children or babies.  I have since decided that I prefer to have a different age group and realize how difficult daily life here can be when you add a baby to a few preschoolers.  So the room made a change when I took out the changing table and baby bed.

The room then sat in a sort of transition stage where the school age kids spent a little time.  I moved in some books, a bean bag, a table, and the tv/vcr combo for quiet time.  The room felt unused after a time.  Especially after I didn't have school age kids anymore.  So early 2014 I decided to make it our full time craft room.  We had more room and I could store supplies in there.  We used it a couple of times a week but still used the main eating table for projects too.  

This winter I decided to let it go... to give the kids the reign of the room so to speak.  I put in easy craft supplies, scissors, glue sticks, their journals and a gate on the door for privacy from the smaller ones who aren't quite ready to be turned loose.  I have two book shelves in the room.  One set of shelves houses puzzles, seasonal and educational games with numbers and letters, and the other set of shelves are the supplies.  I fill the baskets with cardboard tubes from paper towel and toilet paper rolls, styrofoam cups, cardboard, plastic bowls and even cereal boxes.  They have yarn, stickers and even their own roll of masking tape.  I have a good time coming across items, silently putting them on the shelves in the mornings and seeing what their minds come up with.  And boy do they ever come up with some stuff!  From airplanes to robots to thoughtful drawings, their minds are free to make whatever they can come up with in their craft room.  We still use it too for crafts that I come up with for them but on a daily basis.. it's their room.

BTW Our craft room does take donations!  We are getting low on scrap paper and are always looking for new, recycled supplies!

Talk about sparking creativity!  Check out this robot made with no help whatsoever from me.

I like this action shot of my kitchen helper.