February may be a short month, but it does not lack for holidays, and we celebrated! Groundhog Day: We started our day reviewing what we learned about hibernating animals in January. We came to realize that groundhogs hibernate, too, and if they come out early, it's likely that the cause is warmer weather (among other factors), and warmer weather means an early spring. The next thing we did was make a graphic organizer to show how many of us thought that the famous groundhog

Today we were all overjoyed to welcome a new child into the daycare! We've been talking about how we could welcome the new child into the daycare. We thought the most important things we could do to make him feel welcome was to invite him to play with us, be respectful of his choices, share toys, and teach him how we do things together. As the day unfolded, we did the very things we discussed, and the new child's first day was stellar! We began with our morning routine of

Today was another chilly day and the children and I decided it was a perfect day to make our favorite vegetable soup and bread meal (usually reserved for fall and winter). After our circle time, we quickly paid our garden a visit and came back with two zucchini to add to the soup. The children helped chop and add carrots, celery, onion, and the zucchini to the pot... ... then they added vegetable boullion cubes, water, and tomatoes. I put in on the stove to simmer while we

This morning we began our day with several rounds of homemade memory games. The games featured animals, colors, and one set had favorite cartoon characters. The children did a fantastic job matching and saying the name of their matches! This is a great game for strengthening recall and focus as well as honing fine motor skills. A bit later, we worked on learning about the parts of flowers as we "built" a flower from its parts. By the time we finished, each child was able

This morning the children were full of imagination, so after our morning routine, we played out several pretend restaurant scenarios. I'm usually the diner who orders, but I don't mind playing this role becuase the big kids are so eager to whip up things like "orange-mango-watermelon-cucumber tea" and "tomato and tuna fish" sandwiches. Even the littles delight in bringing empty plates to me and pretending to feed me. It's simply amazing how much the littles' imaginations h

Today we decided to do a fresh take on our block play. After our morning routine, I had the big kids play an imitation game. I had them follow a series of steps as I built a structure to create structures that looked the same as mine. I was astounded by how easily they were able to do this! Adding new rows that are in the middle of two blocks below to create pyramidal structures is a tough spatial challenge for the kids, but they were up to it! Once the big kids and I wer

We were all thrilled to have a gorgeous and golden spring day to romp outside, so we did our morning routine quickly and efficiently. We all dressed in our light jackets and shoes and out the door we went! The children first enjoyed playing in the sandbox. There's so much digging to do and so many interesting sensory things about sand for the littles to explore- it can be cool or warm, grainy or powdery, wet or dry all depending on the weather and the temperature. It's also

At last! Today I was able to capture a few moments of our music time without too much of a fanfare! It's always a challenge to video the children without them becoming more interested in the recording device than in singing along, and you'll see from the angle of the video that I had to do a sneaky rush job... but hopefully you'll see how happy and engaged the children are as well! We sang lots of classic children's songs, but focused most on "I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowe

With another cold and rainy day on our hands, we knew that the best way to beat the blahs was to get creative with an art project, move our bodies to some music, and try to work in some fun learning, too. We began our day with our regular calendar and weather time. We had lots of fun doing our circle time rhyme about rainy days that goes like this: Pitter patter raindrops Falling from the sky, Here's my umbrella, Hold it up high! When the rain is over, The sun begins to glow

Today was a great day to do our favorite creative activities inside. The grey clouds and misty weather kept us in, but we had fun anyway! We began our day with our usual calendar, weather, and circle time routine, then moved on to some block play. The littles and I worked on making and breaking down block towers while the older children were free to construct whatever they wanted. One child made a restaurant, another made a "sheep's wool and milk machine," and another made

The kids and I bade a fond adieu to March today as we sang our March songs for the last time, finished our lion and lamb masks, and had lots of adventures at the park. The children were happy to find out that the temperatures would be mild just as promised by the "in like a lion, out like a lamb" saying, and we were excited to visit the park. We talked about what we should wear and decided that we could take a cue from Tim the Weather Kid and wear our lighter jackets if we w

Spring is so close we can feel it in the air! We had a bit of a sleepy morning because of changing the clocks this past Saturday, so we kept things simple and did our regular calendar, weather, and circle time routines, then following up with some music to help us get more energized. We enjoyed singing along and dancing to several of our favorites including our March Wind song, the A-B-C's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Big Rock Candy Mountain, Skip to My Lou, and Yankee Doo

This morning during our calendar and weather routine, the children noticed two mourning doves pecking at seeds under the birdfeeder. We were surprised because the usual sparrows, juncos, doves, and chickadees haven't been around lately. We talked about why that might be and came up with a few ideas- we have found a few places where it looks like birds have been attacked, so perhaps a predator has been scaring the birds off. I also changed the formulation of birdseed I've be