The weather outside was frightful, but we dressed up to make sure we stayed warm and dry all through January. The rainy weather wasn't as much fun as being able to build snowmen, make snow angels, and throw snowballs, but we made the best of it. We looked for signs of animal activity and wondered what animals could be hiding under soggy leaves and rocks. On the days that were too cold to go outside, we had plenty of activities to keep everyone busy inside. One of the childr

January's focus was on all things chilly-snow, ice, icicles, snowflakes, and more. The children and I had lots of fun learning about winter weather, states of matter, and how to dress properly for cold weather. We learned a little about how some animals handle the cold weather by hibernating or migrating, and we made a wonderful bear cave to practice hibernating in ourselves! With the winter weather keeping us indoors so much, we stayed active through a variety of games. O

Part of why I love being a daycare provider is watching children learn naturally with just the tiniest hint of guidance from me. Today there were several situations in which just a wee bit bit of setting the stage from me resulted in hours of engaged play and learning. To kick off our day, we set up our last state of matter experiment. I put out a set of underwater creatures and we observed them. I asked the children to compare some of the creatures. We observed which on

The cold really sets in by this time in January, so to explore one aspect of winter, we had a super-fun day filled with ice-related activities today. We began in our usual way with calendar, weather, circle, and sharing. We sang our song about snowflakes and talked about how snow is just really tiny bits of ice. After music time, we moved onto our first ice experiment. I blew up a balloon and we talked about what was inside... we weren't quite sure. Whatever it was, we co

one of the most profound things I witness as a daycare provider is the natural urge in every child to care for other human beings, especially infants. Every child who I've worked with so far has enjoyed cuddling and pretending with baby dolls. This sort of instinct spills over into interactions between children. I often witness the children comforting each other or spontaneously showing affection toward each other with a gentle pat or such. You can look up the physiologica

Fridays are a day of give and take with the 0-4 age set. On the one hand, the children have have existed in the safety and structure of routine all week and so they are hungry for the break in routine that the weekend brings, but on the other hand they are tired from the week's activities and need to fit some restful play and extra reading into their day. With this thought in mind, today we did our morning routine and incorportated some gentle pretend play and some sensory f