days of our play care

Some days, at the day care, I have more kids than other days.  Then there are the days when I have less.  And sometimes it's easier to do projects with less kids.  And sometimes it's more difficult when you are trying to do the same project with several different ages of kids.  Today, however, the simple project worked great and to my delight the kids I had today took part and went with it. We created simple journals from cereal boxes, paper and yarn.  I had cut up the boxes and paper a few weeks ago when a blog inspired me called growcreative.  The post for her cereal box journals is HERE.  I make it a point to not take credit for something I didn't come up with.  I'm not sure why I waited for the right day to make the journals with the kids but today as I was pasting pictures in my own journal outside when two of my kids got here I knew it was time to share the project.

We put the journals together and all went outside with our heads full of ideas for our pages.  One wanted a leaf taped on to a page, another found a caterpillar and drew a fantastic picture of it and another was busy making "letters" while the other was tracing blades of grass.  It is so much easier to feel an at-ease of control when little minds aren't focusing on being wild... which is ok sometimes too.  I like for the kids to be themselves here while also trying to help them find themselves creatively.   By nap time one of the boys wanted to sleep with his journal... awww... I didn't let him.  

I loved this little project and loved watching their minds wrap around the pages outside.  They are all growing up so fast and I have the pleasure of watching them do so.  

days of our play care

So, when we were out at the dirt pile the other day, I noticed that there wasn't much mud leading up to the water and thought "we could actually get close enough to set some a-sail".  I almost couldn't wait for nap time to drag out my computer to see if I could find an easy origami boat tutorial.  I wound up finding a really good DIY and after nap time it was on.  The kids colored sheets of white copy paper and as they finished I neatly folded each one while I explained the rules of the pond.  

As we were lining up at the gate to head out the thought hit me.... "are you nuts woman?  You are taking these kids to water!  They could wind up wet.... muddy... wait and build something that can hold water in the yard or get a pool."  But if I listened to the sensible angel on my shoulder we wouldn't have had a ton of fun setting our paper boats in the water, with the wind blowing them just right, and having a terrific time.  We had to get our the black pipe we found at the dirt pile to help when one of them started to sink and all boats were retrieved with success except for the toppled one.  It was promptly crushed by it's owner.    

I wish the boats would have sailed all the way across the longer way of the pond but they chose to stay closer to the edge.  I did think ahead to warn the children that we may have to leave them in the water if we weren't able to get to them but luckily this wasn't the case.  When we got back to the DC we pinned them to the clothesline to dry.  I have a feeling this will not be the last boat race we will have!

HERE is the wonderful tutorial that I used to learn how to easily make paper boats that float!  Too cool!