JANUARY!!

Preschool is kicking back off around here next week and I am SOOOOO excited to the things I have planned.  Mostly it is just going to be my boys still, but we have a full-time friend with us now and we have invited a neighbor one day a week to join us, so it is going to be exciting!  My January Preschool board on Pinterest is about to explode and I can't wait to get started!  Even though Texas doesn't get much snow, we are going to be talking about ALL THINGS WINTER!  Snow, snowmen, polar animals, eskimos, etc.  SO MUCH FUN! :)  Got any ideas of your own?  Leave a comment or a link- I'm always up for inspiration from you!!

And We're Back

Hi there friends-

I know you have all been missing me.  I have been missing you.  I have been going through a rough moment or two and have neglected you desperately in the process, but as a part of my New Year's Resolutions I am rejoining the blogging world and the world of craftiness at the expense of my children!  I have not been neglecting my children, just taking pictures and getting outside of the box in creativity.  But that is a thing of the past and starting today we are going to party together!  My oldest turns 6 this week, so we have lots of work to do!:)

Staci

Week Six: Transportation

Having boys, I couldn't resist doing a transportation unit for our summer camp!  We cleared out the front room and the boys helped me set up a city with masking tape on the carpet (used two rolls of masking tape and a roll of painters tape, which was actually lots easier to clean up and the blue was extra fun, so next time...)  We added the map from IKEA and our own HotWheels race track for some serious fun!

I made the following two pages using Scrapbook Factory Deluxe.  The kids cut out the vehicles from page one and sorted them, then glued them onto page two...

 

I don't have pictures, but we watched a few clips of vehicles on the computer sporadically throughout the morning, when I needed a minute or two to set up for the next activity.  You can find them here, here, and here.

 Snack was not ornate this time.  Apple juice and animal crackers I believe.:)

I cut out {what felt like} a million shapes out of different colors of felt and each of them got to build their own train, car, or other vehicle...  They loved it!

I found a kit to make foam airplanes (that actually flew quite decently) at Hobby Lobby and so they each got to make their own...

I made these clothespin airplanes (inspiration here) to clip all of their pages together when I sent them home!  What a fun day we had!!

Week Five: Water Fun!

So apparently I didn't take any pictures of week five.  Probably because we spent most of the time in the water and I didn't want to destroy my camera.  So this isn't really a "fun" post but I wanted to at least note for myself that we did talk about the water cycle, played in the pool and with the slip n slide, and had a grand old time together.  That seems to be the general trend.:)

Week Four: America the Beautiful!!

What better way to ring in Independence Day than by celebrating all things Red, White & Blue?  My thoughts exactly!  So on July 2, we talked about all things America...  Well, not ALL things, but a lot!:)

Let's be honest, I don't remember everything that we did.  That is one of the disadvantages of being crazy and procrastinating for over a month (but I was out of town for three of the weeks, so give me a little slack, all right?;).  But here is what I do remember!  We had fun!

One of the highlights were the cookies!  I let them help cut out the stars, then used the leftover dough to make cookie swirls (inspiration found here).  I let them frost and sprinkle to their hearts desire!:)

I used the recipe here to color noodles, which turned out much better in color than I anticipated!  They each got to string a necklace with red and blue pasta!:)

Saw an idea to make these centerpieces here and then we used construction paper and dollar store stickers to decorate them!:)

Found this printable here and we talked about the fifty states and which ones we had all lived in!  They got to color them however they chose.

They each got a blank white page and a red page to cut out strips.  I cut out the blue square, then each glued their own together and used a white crayon to make 50 stars...  Some flags had a couple less than that...;)

I found this cute pinwheel pattern here and decided to just make them myself and send one home with each of them rather than have them make their own...

We watched a video of two little kiddos saying the Pledge of Allegiance and attempted memorizing it.  Apparently a couple of them had already mastered that feat.  Also watched another video of the Star Spangled Banner with some typical Americana photos (bald eagle, etc) flashing by.  Can't find it now of course...  Loved celebrating our country and freedoms with these kiddos!

Week Three: Our Bodies

For Week Three of our Summer Camps, we learned all about our bodies!  We practiced flexing our muscles and looked at some pictures of the different layers of our bodies.  After that we put together a puzzle of our bones!!  They were just the right size!  (Found here).

Then we focused on what we do to keep our bodies healthy.  We had races in the back yard and played basketball inside, discussing the benefits of exercise.  Then we watched a video of the Magic School Bus on YouTube that has since been removed.  It talked about the digestive system and turning food into energy...

Then we talked about how everyone is different and how each body is great!  And I had previously cut out a bajillion faces from magazines and they each cut parts of the faces out to make their own collage..

We had a great time and I think that everyone learned something new about their bodies!:)

Week Two: Dinosaur Camp!!

I am going to try really hard and reference where I got all my ideas, because I want to give credit where credit is due.  If I miss something, we'll just have to chalk it up to human error and my brain being dead today!:)  And these activities are not in the correct order at all.  Not even sure what order I did them in to be honest. :)

I made Dinosaur fossils from a basic salt dough (she did the microwave version, I doubled the recipe and baked it since I did it the day before and had plenty of time...).  Then we rolled it out and squashed dinosaurs and tracks and plants into it...

One of our activities was matching the dinosaurs to their tracks and shapes on the baked dough.  They had a great time and it was a great activity to entertain all in the age span (2 to 7.5 this week).

As one of our snacks, I saw this cute idea to make dinosaur biscuits and I thought that was a great idea, but changed it a bit for me.  I made snickerdoodles (I'll post my mom's recipe sometime) and instead of squashing them with a fork like I normally do, I made this potato stamp and let the kids stamp a T-Rex footprint onto their cookie!!  They loved it!:)

I typically have an independent activity for them to do while we're either waiting for the rest of our friends to arrive or in between activities while I set up, etc.  I really love 3dinosaurs.com and think that they create some wonderful activities for kids, especially pre-k.  So this is the gang doing some dinosaur puzzles that I had found there...

 Another activity was painting some dinosaurs that I had made from plaster.  I did them the day before also because I wasn't sure about setting time...and I wasn't sure I could handle extra helpers...:) 

While half of the kids painted, the other half made dinosaurs and fossils with play dough, then we switched...

 We also did a dinosaur maze and then we drew around that dinosaur what we thought their home would have looked like around them...:)

 Our other snack for the day were Dino Chips!  (Tortilla shells cut into dinosaur shapes with a dino sandwich cutter and then baked for a few minutes.)  I let the kids put cheese on top if they wanted.

We also watched the Dinosaur Train song about dinosaurs A to Z, this video explaining what fossils are and how they form, and a fun Dinosaur Song video as well.

We all had so much fun at Dinosaur Camp this week and can't wait for more adventures next week as we learn more about our bodies and how we can keep them healthy!!:)