days of our day care

I love this job and being able to use my creativity on a daily basis. 

I especially like changing a bit of the scenery at the day care each month.

It amazes me how quickly the kids notice even small changes.

This November we have brought back our Thankful Tree practice for a second year.

I love the way it is going.  Plus we have a new tree this year.

I also got busy cutting up cereal boxes to make new garlands to use from year to year.

Of course they have glitter on them!  What kind of question is that???

I also used some paper feather that we colored months ago as decoration for the fourth time at least.

I think the first time was during Camp Arrowhead or thereabouts.

Here's a bit of what our day care looks like this month.

 

 

Indian corn.

Our Thankful Tree will soon be filled with colored leaves declaring the one thing we are thankful for each day.  Funny, I've gotten everything from friends and Lion King to Hello Kitty and one who was thankful that dinosaurs were real.  I made the tree from just cutting up a box and taping the separate branches to the wall and texturizing it with some markers.

Seriously, I mainly wanted to do these so I could mix different colors of glitter together for the Indian corn.

Meanwhile... we took a walk on a warm November day when two kindergarteners came to play.

I tried so hard to get the camera to focus on the walking stick but I like this picture anyway.

Looks like I caught Curious George looking at our new garland!

The kindergarteners got creative on the chalk board.



dc thankful tree

Every day at the day care, as we all sit down to eat lunch together, we go around the table and name something that each of us is thankful for before we say the blessing.  Some of the kids say the same thing pretty much every day and some of the others say very spur of the moment things.  While looking around the world of blogs, I found a site that used a "thankful tree" for her family and each day during the month of November they list what they are thankful for and place it on their tree.  I thought this would be a wonderful project for my day care kids.  

This morning we traced hands on card stock to get a good template and while they were playing outside, I traced hands on colored paper and cut out just enough for today.  At lunch time I wrote down what each of them were thankful for and after lunch, wrote it on their hand cut outs and taped them to the wall around our thankful tree.  

My plan as of right now is to let each child draw their own tree on poster board and place all of their hands of what they are thankful for to take home with them the day before Thanksgiving.  I think it would be neat for their families to see what all they have named that they are thankful for.  So sweet.

We also read a really nice library book today by P.K. Hallinan called "I'm thankful for so many things."  It gave them a touch of inspiration and me a whole bunch more than a touch.  I nearly teared up reading it to them and wouldn't mind having this one on hand.  Such wonderful illustrations and and truths in thankfulness.

The lovely blog where this idea came is found HERE

And since I can't find a good picture of the book mentioned above... I took pictures of the one that I have.  

Psalm 118:1 "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good".