Thoughtful Thursday: Reflections

I have been training to become a Birthing From Within mentor over the last two years. Along with that, I have also learned about Birth Story Listening – sitting with women who need to tell their story and helping them find new meaning to the One Moment they have a question/want more clarity about.

There are a couple of concepts from that learning that have come into play for me over the last two weeks:

Doing the Next Best Thing

Taking One Small Step

Doing The Next Best Thing

In birth, we want to plan and prepare and imagine that we can control every little aspect of how our story is going to play out. As a Birthing From Within mentor, one of my intentions for our students is to help our students identify what they control, what they can influence, and what their resources and allies are to help them do the Next Best Thing if and when the sh** hits the fan through their pregnancy and/or birth journey.

That is a concept that stretches out way beyond the birth journey. In life we have the same opportunity and ask the honest question: what is really in my control, what are the things I can influence, and when is it time to realize we have reached the moment of choosing the Next Best Thing?

We hit that moment on Christmas Eve. Here I thought Puma and I had everything handled: we had done the majority of our gift shopping in November, all our DIY gifts were done and delivered, we just had to sit back, relax, enjoy the season, and remember to buy the ham for Christmas dinner.

I bought the ham. And also forgot to check our pantry to see if we had everything else. As it turns out, we were out of potatoes, we did not get our CSA bag the week before Christmas because the delivery was cancelled, and our usually endless reserve of butter in the freezer had been depleted. Coming home from the Christmas Eve service at 11:30 pm on 12/24 the full magnitude of this hit me…I needed to go grocery shopping!!

We tried every grocery store in our neighborhood to see if we could sneak in before midnight. Well, those stores had closed early (duh!) in order to allow their employees to spend time with their families – of course the right thing to do and completely inconvenient for me!

I posted a little blurb on social media to see if anyone had an idea of which stores might have limited hours on Christmas day…feeling like a slug because I was going to be the jerk that created a reason for stores to be open on a holiday…and proceeded to call those stores in the morning. No answer. I searched webpage after webpage looking to see if any of them had holiday hours posted. No help.

Here we were with eight people expecting Christmas dinner and nothing to prepare except the ham and the sweet potatoes. I don’t know about your family; mashed sweet potatoes were going to be a hard sell for the Sweet Pea Kids.

So instead of freaking out and crying about what a terrible person I am, and beating myself up for failing to plan appropriately, I took a deep breath and laughed. What a way to finish up this year of huge shift for our family. The opportunity to explore a new experience. We took my mom’s suggestion and decided to go out for Chinese food.

It worked out beautifully. We made the reservations when we called to confirm our favorite Chinese restaurant was open (Smart move, BTW. We are not the only people who enjoy Chinese food on Christmas Day. Unlike The Christmas Story, the restaurant was packed and the line was out the door.) We got to enjoy the morning without watching the clock and trying to time all our preparations throughout the day. We had time to enjoy our children’s gifts with them and play throughout the afternoon. And then, all that was left to do was to get ready, get dressed, and hop in the car to go to dinner.

We did not have to sit around the house and mope around the dinner table as we pondered all the people who were not going to be with us on Christmas Day. The grandparents that we were not going to call. The sweet friend we were not going to visit. The families we know that were going through the day without their beloved mothers/wife.

So we had our Chinese dinner, brought home leftovers that would turn into Monday’s lunch, and then made our fancy dinner the next day, after we went grocery shopping. It was delicious and a nice treat. Such a nice experience that we may try for a repeat next year.

One Small Step

This is a concept that I use in both our birth classes and the birth story listening work that I do. The question is, “What’s one small step you could take?” It refers to the idea that if we sit quietly and reflect, there is probably One Small Step we can take to affect a small change in the direction we want to go next. That small step helps us feel accomplishment because it’s action, as opposed to the continued depression or procrastination because the satisfaction of “doing it all” or “getting it right” is out of reach.

This year of loss has completely altered my perspective and brought into focus what is truly important to me: LIVING. Being in good relationships with people who inspire me to grow and do better daily. Going exploring while we can and enjoying those experiences with our children. Forgetting everything else and just letting it float away without attaching any meaning or giving it any more energy.

I use the One Small Step question to help me evaluate what it is that I really want to do in a day. It helps me remember that I don’t have to do it all…I just need to take One Small Step. It has freed me in ways I wouldn’t have imagined.

The people and situations that lead to the emotions I don’t like to feel are being cut loose, or at least I am managing those interactions better than I used to because Life Is Literally Too Short. I have learned a huge lesson in letting go of the physical and metaphorical baggage that weighs me down. We have completed two home sales, and I am wanting to downsize again because we don’t need all the things. Really. Don’t. Need. Stuff. The things that bring us joy get to stay. Everything else is on the way to St. Vincent de Paul or into the homes of our students/friends/family who can put the stuff to good use.

So instead of being overwhelmed by the piles of things that I still must go through before we go exploring, I am taking One Small Step every day. Accepting that I cannot attack the whole pile in one day or one session, and instead I can make an agreement with myself to do one or two boxes/piles a day.

Another Small Step is inviting our children to participate in this mission to minimize and live simply by addressing the messes that accumulate in the shared living areas. Applying the idea that if it doesn’t have a space, and we can’t find a space, then whatever it is needs to find a new home in the garbage, the recycling bin, or the giveaway box.

The hardest area for me in that respect is THE MAIL. Ugh. It’s the other never-ending story in my life…aside from the laundry. That will be my area to address in 2017. I once heard about a person who had a one-touch rule when it came to the mail…I must consider that and see what that means and how it’s possible. In our house, it shifts from one pile to another and then another. We have taken one small step in minimizing it by having our children join in and help with the shredding…beyond that we have some work to do.

So there you have it – some reflections and an intention for 2017. Wishing you all a blessed ending to 2016, and may 2017 be a year for you to grow, explore, and enjoy.

Preschool Playdate: Children’s Day

Playdate: November 17, 2016
Theme: Universal Children’s Day

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: Who are the people in our family?
— Storytime: Two books today!
— Centers | Free play
— Closing

STORY TIME
We used two books this session.
“La familia”
The first one we flipped through and “read” toddler-style…basically that means showing them the pictures, summarizing the text, and asking them what they see in the page.

“World Babies”
This one was perfect for toddlers – simple text, lots of great pictures of babies around the world. We could look at their hats (refer back to Hat Day), see how they were dressed compared to how we dress in the desert, and then we also looked at the ones we saw being worn in carriers.

LITERACY CENTER
Some of the families took this home because the sticker station attracted most of the todders’ attention! This is a great “All About Me” pamphlet that I picked up to use with our children – we have so many that it was time to share!

However you find this format, it’s such a great way to capture a snapshot of your child’s interests at the time. Ideally, I would remember to do this every year; at around the same time would be even better 🙂

MATH CENTER
I got this idea from Preschool Plan-It. It was actually quite opening to go through our ads and put this activity together. The size and age bias is really clear when you look at print advertisements. We did our best to represent people of all colors and size in our activity, age was much harder.

The tag sheet by itself served as our introductory tool…we asked all the guests what names they had for the people in their family…what did they call their aunt? uncle? grandparents? Everyone had different “titles” for those people based on their heritage.

For the center, we put out the other pieces and the children had to match the picture to the correct category on the tag board.

DISCOVERY TABLE
This happened after playdate at the park!! We took out sand toys and bubbles for the children to enjoy at the park.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This was a bigger hit than I ever could have imagined. Leave it to the sweet peas to make it amazing!! The kiddos had such a great time creating “faces” out of the plates, stickers, yarn, and googley eyes that I set out on the floor.

Here are their creations…and the “heart” ears…all the credit goes to a very clever three-year-old!

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning. We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs. It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.

This concludes our playdate series for 2016. Thank you for joining us to see our weekly preschool themes!! You can click back through the archives to see other play ideas we have shared since September, and there are more many themes on the blog if you click under “Toddlers”. As I was typing this, I realized that we are in our third year of hosting playdates for our students! Fun times. I started keeping track in the Spring of 2014, so I hope that you will find some fun ideas on the blog to share with your Sweet Peas.

We have a fun idea in the works for the blog in 2017…I hope you will check back with us to see our new series that we are preparing for you!!

Blessings,
Krystyna

Finding a voice

Like many people, I am stunned that the United States elected an outspoken candidate who disparaged various groups of people who he deemed offensive or fair game for ridicule: Mexicans, Muslims, women in general, women of size specifically, veterans, people of non-typical abilities…the list goes on.

I sat in silence, trying to process. I asked myself, “What happened? What did people find attractive about a candidate like this?” Trying to find the silver lining. Trying to be positive, because we teach our children that whether we agree or disagree with elected officials, we owe them a measure of respect because they are choosing to do a job that we do not want to do.

I watched as passions flared, seeing posts on social media from people who voted Republican, Democrat, or even {gasp!} third party. So many words, so many emotions, and no solutions aside from commands to get over it or to get ready to put up a fight.

There are still so many things roiling around inside of me. My shoulders have been in knots since the election results started rolling in on November 8th. Despite assurances that there was no way the president-elect was going to win, win he did. We have a new reality to contend with, and I am trying to figure out what it means for our bi-racial, Spanish-speaking family. Where half of us look Latino and the other half could pass as status-quo white. What to do? What to say?

Then, one of our students was harassed on her way home from the zoo. One car pulled alongside of them, and the other pulled in front of them and slowed down, two men in each vehicle. They proceeded to drape out the confederate flag and a tattered Trump-Pence campaign sign from their windows. Her daughter was in the car with her. Her toddler child was confused, asking why these men were yelling at her mom and her.

That was the line in the sand. I found a voice. Not all of it. Not even close. Nonetheless, here is a start, in part inspired by wanting to take a stand for this little girl, so that she knows that there are people who see her, and that it is unacceptable that she was frightened by angry men deliberately singling them out because her mother’s car has a Clinton-Kaine bumper sticker.

Here is what I posted on my personal social media page in response to that incident:

One of the comments I saw on social media is that people need to pull themselves up from their bootstraps and just get over the results of the election already. And that the safety pin campaign is pointless, real heroes wear pins from the armed services.

Three thoughts on those particular comments:

ONE ~ People in the armed services are heroes – and so are their families – EVERY DAY. Recognizing other people that are willing to stand up for all of us to have our inalienable rights intact doesn’t diminish their service…to me it means that civilians can be heroes, too.

TWO ~ The sun still rose on Wednesday, Nov 9th, and now one of our contemporaries or one of our daughters has the opportunity to become the first female President – I can deal with that. I don’t know anyone from any side of the issues that didn’t get up the next day and go to work. We pulled up our bootstraps and went to work, albeit some with a little more apprehension than other people.

THREE ~ From the time that we woke up on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, there are some of us in this country who will never truly be “free” again. Unless a person with true personal strength and character who has the power and the law behind them decides to speak up and to call off the bigotry and prejudice that was given voice by Trump’s election, and lead from a place of love and understanding. There is a lot to overcome.

Trump rallied ***some*** (I understand that not **all**) of his supporters with rhetoric that set up the “us” against “them”. He called out Mexicans and Muslims, and he also made disparaging remarks about women, people of size, and people of non-typical mental ability. He chose a running mate that has taken Christian conservative stances on women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights: essentially, that they have no rights if they choose to live outside of God’s laws.

As the votes were counted, it became clear that Trump won the electoral college. Those people who voted for him to make “America Great Again” by removing the “them” he campaigned against feel like they have a champion. And some of his supporters are acting on it. Saying “Stop it” one time, looking at the camera – that clearly means nothing other than a wink and a smile to those continuing to try to spark a new reign of terror.

If you can deny the rhetoric or the harassment, then you are as complicit to the hatred that has been unleashed as the people who are carrying out the harassment and painting hateful graffiti in public spaces. If you are willing to excuse it because “I believe in pro-life” or “I believe he can save the economy” or “I want my guns,” or however else you chose to rationalize voting for a person who only cares about himself and his personal power, then I still don’t have kind enough words to write for all the feelings I have swirling around inside me right now.

So instead of telling ME to pull myself up by my bootstraps and just get over it already, tell me what you are doing to make sure that you and your neighbors that voted for Trump are going to stand up to the bullies who feel justified harassing people in a parking lot who have Clinton-Kaine stickers on their car. Tell me what you are doing to stand up to the people who are impeding traffic by boxing people in who have Clinton-Kaine stickers on their car. Tell me that you are going to defend my LGBTQ+ friends because they are human and deserve to live without fear, even if you disagree with their choice to live their truth without shame or apology. Tell me that you will stand next to my friends who wear a hijab so that they don’t have to face ugly words alone. Tell me that you would stand by my children and I if someone starts yelling at us to get back to Mexico because they assume that we are here illegally because we happen to speak Spanish in public.

My friends who supported Hillary with bumper stickers shouldn’t have to remove their freedom of speech stickers to avoid harassment. My LGBTQ+ friends shouldn’t have to conform to an accepted hetero- “norm”. My Muslim friends shouldn’t have to choose between personal safety and their interpretation of their religious book. I shouldn’t have to stop speaking Spanish to my children out of fear. Anyone who is ridiculed because they are not the right size, shape, color, or look non-typical. Tell me that person has an ally in you, and that you will call out their bully and walk them to wherever they are going so that they don’t have to be alone if they don’t want to be.

When I see actions from more Trump supporters that show that they are decent humans, then I will start to get over it. When I see that more Trump supporters are joining in the call for reasonable discourse instead of handing over the power to the alt-right and the Christian conservatives, then I will stop worrying every time I see Trump propaganda.

There is no place for “Christians” to tell the government how to do the business of governing. While there are decent Christians who hold public office, their personal morals can inform their behavior towards their colleagues. However, their morals have no place dictating public law. The founding fathers made a very clear delineation between Church and State for a reason.

The Church can dictate morals for the home and what you should do if you are faced with breaking one of the commandments. The State has to ensure the peace and uphold the law, and that does not mean that some people get to tell other people how to love each other and what the acceptable moral code is or isn’t. The way I see it, we all agree to keep the peace, behave with civility and acknowledge that EVERY person that lives within our borders has the right of liberty and happiness. As constituents, we can lobby our representatives to make a clear path to citizenship so that all humans who want the promise of a better life can have it without breaking the law, and also without the fear that they are unwelcome because they are not the right color, orientation, or religion. Being human qualifies us to those inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. End of story.

If you see a person being harassed in public, please be an ally. Stand next to them, talk to them, let them know you see them, and stay by their side until they are ready to walk off alone. If you witness or on the receiving end of hate speech or actions, speak up!! PLEASE report any harassment you receive or you witness to the police. And then fill out the form on this page. United we STAND.

Report any incidents here:
https://www.splcenter.org/reporthate

Preschool Playdate: Native American Day

Play date: November 10, 2016
Theme inspired by the USA recognition of Native American Month

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)

— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: homes of different tribes http://www.native-languages.org/houses.htm
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers
— Centers | Free play
— Closing

STORY TIME
My favorite thing about these two books is that they point out to the reader that there was no “discovery” of “America”. There was already a vibrant, rich and long-standing cultural traditions alive and well when Europeans landed on these shores. One of the books has a great map that shows the regions in the United States and how the cultural traditions developed to suit their climate.

The other book has images that are better suited for adaptation for toddlers. By that I mean that it is easier for me to make up an abbreviated version of the page to suit their attention span!

LITERACY CENTER
I adapted THIS idea from the Heidi Songs blog .

Since we were not focusing on Thanksgiving this year, I decided to use an image of a buffalo since that animal played such an integral part of Plains Indian culture. The letters on the plate are the first letters of names of the children who attended playdate this day. I have found that associating the letter with a person they know really helps them to remember the letter name other times, so I wanted to use letters that were familiar to them from our weekly circle time.

Get your own “Bison Clip Art” to adapt it any way you like for your group.

MATH CENTER
As it turns out, we had a blue box from Costco that was just the right size for the sweet peas to sit in and play “going fishing”. The fish are numbered, so there are lots of ways to play as they “caught” fish:

Level 1: Count how many fish they caught – there were up to 20 that could be snagged with the magnetic fishing poles.
Level 2: Separate the fish into groups – they are numbered 1-5, so potentially five different groups to make
Level 3: Add up the numbers on the back of the fish. This makes the game challenging for the older children since the total sum could reach 50.

DISCOVERY TABLE
Weaving was a skill used across the country to create everything from baskets to blankets. I thought that the sweet peas would enjoy trying it. To make it easier for little hands, I used shoelaces. They have a nice tip for chubby fingers to grab on to, and they are a little slicker than yarn. The slickness makes it easier to pass the string up and over since it’s not snagging on itself like yarn does.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
One of the art forms that our toddlers could attempt is drawing their own totem pole. These were illustrated in the book I shared with the group. HERE is the pattern that we shared on the craft table. I also printed out THIS inspiration picture. I asked the sweet peas to think about which animal they liked or related to, and they came up with their own totem pole creations.

This craft can be taken a step further by cutting out the finished drawing and pasting it to an empty paper towel tube so that it can be free-standing. Since we are out of the habit of using paper towels, I could only share this idea with the parents for them to do at home.

IMAGINATIVE PLAY
Very organically, our children transformed our schoolroom into their own Indian Village. They created a longhouse out of some pillows we have in our bedroom. They also used blankets to create other home structures. They had their fishing area set up complete with boat storage. Other things they incorporated into their playtime: left-over buffalo plates without letters on them, and “eggs” from our kitchen play area.

Charger set up a hunt for buffalo by setting up buffalo plates around the house. He had the kiddos throw a bean bag at the plates to knock them over (clever little man also had them count their yield!). Someone else was tasked with fishing. And then they grabbed the eggs from the “prairie chicken nests” and brought everything back to our craft table to make a feast.

It also let us talk about sustainability. The Native American tradition is one of living in harmony with the environment, taking only what was needed and leaving the rest alone. We could have the conversation about how many buffalo a group of six would need, and how practically every single piece of meat, bone and tissue was put to use. We took out one of the “First Americans” books again and read that page in detail.

It was really neat to see the sweet peas enjoy the elements of the different activities in their own way. Watching them assimilate the lessons through play once again validated why this kind of time to be creative and play is so important for children.

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning. Playtime was definitely the crowd favorite today, as was the fishing game.

To close out our time together we sing a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs. It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.

Thank you for checking out our Native American Playdate. We have one more to share with you this season. Today we are doing Children’s Day in honor of the Universal Children’s Day on November 20th….all the details will be up in next week’s post.

One more thing in case you are interested…Here are some Thanksgiving ideas to share with your Sweet Pea at home. Check out this link:
http://www.pre-kpages.com/thanksgiving/

Preschool Playdate: King Tut Day

Play date: November 3, 3016
Theme: King Tut Day – celebrated on November 4th, the anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt

FYI: All links are informational only. I do not make any revenue from any content in this post…simply sharing for you to enjoy and recreate this play date at home for your sweet peas!

Most of the materials for this playdate are from the “Geography Jumper: Egypt” packet created by Wise Little Owls
Get your packet here: https://goo.gl/uPIOI7

The packet costs $6.00 – well worth it for 53 printable pages. There are lots of activities to print and enjoy with your Sweet Peas!

I printed out the full-color Cover Page (pictured above), the “Fact Sheet”, the “Country Poster” and the “Flag Poster” to laminate and display in our classroom. They were all bright, welcoming our guests to the day’s theme and hanging in the background to set the scene for our play date.

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: Showed pictures from a “Step into Reading” book called “Tut’s Mummy: Lost…and Found“, plus used the Ancient Egypt TOOB figures to introduce the day’s topic
— Storytime
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: Alice the Camel
— Centers | Free play
— Closing

STORY TIME
The Geography Jumper included a handy little informational book about Egypt which included a map of the country, where it was located in Africa and the world, a picture of the flag, topography (desert and the Nile River), and some of Egypt’s ancient history (Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, mummy, sarcophagus, hieroglyphs). To tie in with education, it also talked about how long the required schooling was for Egyptian children (8 years).

POEM/SONG
Alice the Camel
https://youtu.be/9sN_RqxXGMw

LITERACY CENTER
There were two activities in this center, both from the Geography Jumper packet. One was vocabulary cards and the second was an emergent reader book.

Vocabulary Cards
Level 1: review cards for vocabulary retention
Level 2: Sort the cards into “geography” and “history” sets
Level 3: alphabetize the cards

Emergent Reader
This book reinforced all the vocabulary introduced in the “All About Egypt” book and the vocabulary cards. It is in black and white so the student could color it as well as read it. Every page starts with “Do you see” and then includes the vocabulary word that corresponds to the picture on the page.

MATH CENTER
This center was one of my own creation, using clip art from Classroom Clipart, a free on-line resource. I printed 6 camel images and mounted them onto card-stock paper. The center also included foam numbers and counting sticks.

Level 1: Count the camels out loud
Level 2: Count the camels and match the correct foam number
Level 3: Place out a foam number and have the child place the correct number of camel cards on the table
Level 4: Add in the counting sticks to Level 1-2-3 activities
Level 5: Introduce the concept of odd and even

Using the counting sticks to introduce the concept of 5 tally counting

Odd numbers have a middle

Even numbers have equal sets

Another way to visually demonstrate odd and even numbers: odd numbers have one left over, even numbers are always matched.

DISCOVERY TABLE
We hid the TOOB figures in sand and had the Sweet Peas play archeologist to unearth the treasure.

The pyramids and the sphinx we left out of the sand to give a clue on where to dig. Again, these figures could be sorted into the items discovered in King Tut’s tomb and other Egyptian figures.

IMAGINATIVE PLAY
I had our children bring out their Lego building blocks. They actually had a couple of Egyptian-ish mini-figures, and then we picked out the 2x building blocks for the Sweet Peas to play around with and build their own pyramids and palm trees. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of this activity!! I will see if they can get the parts out again soon and I will add some pictures.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This idea was also from the Geography Jumper packet by Wise Little Owls. The packet included a pattern to trace plus the instructions to create this cute little mummies.

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning. Making the mummy and digging in the sand were the two popular activities today. We also sang one more round of “Alice the Camel” since every one had so much fun singing the song the first time around!

We close with a good-bye poem and then a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs. It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.

Today, each guest took home an enrichment packet of four print outs from the Geography Jumper. We gave everyone the following worksheets to take home and enjoy later.

“Glue the Pictures” – outline of the country of Egypt plus four pictures. Three of them are from the images used in the “All about Egypt” book. The activity is for the child to cut and paste the three “Egypt” images into the Egypt outline.
“Let’s Travel” – shows a world map with a highlighted Egypt. The child finds where they live in the world and draws a line from their area on the map to the country of Egypt.
“Egyptian Flag” – coloring page in black+white for the child to complete
“Puppets” – coloring and cut-out page in black+white

Finished puppets glued to oversize popsicle sticks

Thanks for checking out our King Tut play date!! Check back with us next week when we share all our activities and centers for our “Native American” theme that we are going to do today.

Preschool Playdate: Cookies 2.0

Play date: October 20, 2016
Theme inspired by National Cookie Month (October)

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: we took the time to talk about the ingredients that go into making dough. — Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers
— Centers | Free play
— Closing

STORY TIME
This was a fun book to tie-in – lots of “C” words in Spanish to reinforce the hard “c” phonetic sound in the word, “cookie”. This is our second week using a Stella Blackstone book.

LITERACY CENTER
The letters are from Kidzpark.com ~ the activity is from our first cookies playdate last year (link HERE). Since we have a younger crew this season, I only put out the five letters for the children to match on the correct card.

MATH CENTER
This is a favorite game in our home, whether or not it is Cookie Day! The sweet peas will take any opportunity to play with cookies. This is played by choosing a color plate (also programed with a shape to continue the learning…). The dice are rolled, that number cookie is added to the plate, and the turns pass until one player reaches the number 10.

DISCOVERY TABLE
We had two different activities…tasting of course!!! And we also brought back the cookie baking station from last year. This year we added some cinnamon to the play dough to add an extra sensory aspect to the imaginary play.

The imaginative play lets the sweet peas use the kitchen tools, their motor skills to roll and cut out the cookies, use their creativity and fine motor skills to decorate, and lots of opportunity to acquire and/or use vocabulary words that pertain to baking and the kitchen.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This was a printing activity today – keeping it simple since our guests are younger this season. Puma used markers to embellish hers. After I took this picture, Otter took a paint brush to her project and painted inside the lines.

PLAY TIME
Here are some more images from our cookie play time…it provides so much opportunity to do sensory exploration, vocabulary acquisition and also some safety rules for the kitchen.

Preschool Playdate: Teddy Bears

Play date: October 13, 2016
Theme inspired by Take Your Teddy Bear to Work Day

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: This week we did a Teddy Bear “Show and Tell”
— Storytime: Bear on a Bike by Stella Blackstone
— Unsquiggle activity “Teddy Bear” Rhyme
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers “Teddy Bear” Counting
— Centers | Free play
— Closing

STORY TIME
I fell in love with Stella Blackstone’s books the very first time we ever checked them out from the library. As you can see this copy is well-loved…and it was great to share her wonderful rhymes and bright illustrations with our Sweet Pea friends.

Image source: “Come and Share Our” on Blogspot

Image found on Totally Tots on Blogspot – click on image for their source and a clear printable page.

LITERACY CENTER
Here is our “T” sound box ~ I chose to use all hard “t” sounds and avoid the confusion of the “th” combination. The sweet peas had a turtle, truck, triceratops, twig, train, train track, tomato, trooper, turmeric, and tuna fish.

MATH CENTER
I combined two ideas – the cute bear image came from the Nuttin But Preschool blog and a color match set from Lakeshore Learning. I tossed all the items into a basket, put the plates on the table, and had the sweet peas match by color. For more advanced sweet peas, you could also sort all these into categories: crayons, foods, animals, and balls.

DISCOVERY TABLE
This idea came from Preschool Plan-It – berry tasting!! We chose different berries from the grocery store that bears would forage for in the wild. It allowed for lots of opportunity for discussion: where do the berries grow? How do the bears reach the berries? How does their fur protect them from the berries that grow on spiny branches? Which berries grow on spiny branches?
With more time, we totally could have printed up pictures of all the plants/vines/bushes that these berries grown on and do a little biology lesson as well as a sensory lesson – my favorite ways to teach!!

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This project was inspired by Cutting Tiny Bites.

Shaving cream paint is always a big hit with our crowd!! We make our “paint” by mixing the shaving cream with school glue (half cream, half glue, enough paint or food coloring to make the desired color for the project). The finished craft has a puffy, smooth texture that the Sweet Peas like to run their fingers over when it’s dry.

I used my Creative Memories Circle Punch for the ears and eyes, and we free-cut the snout and nose. Because there is school glue in the paint, the sweet peas just had to push the pieces into place – nothing extra required. In order to do the snout, we dipped the back of the nose into the paint and had the sweet peas place them where they wanted them. Then they drew the mouth, and lastly they put them on the plate.

Preschool Playdate: Kindness

Play date: October 6, 2016
Theme: Kindness (in honor of World Smile Day on October 7, 2016)

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: what are actions that show kindness?
— Storytime: Knuffle Bunny
— Unsquiggle activity: Kindness Spider Web
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: The More We Get Together
— Centers | Free play
— Closing

Kindness Spider Web Game from BrightHubEducation.com:

“Have your group sit in a circle on the floor. Take a large ball of yarn and give the end of the yarn to the first child. Have this child roll the ball to another child and say one nice thing to that child. Then, this child rolls the ball of yarn to the next child and gives praise.

Now, make sure all children hold onto the yarn when it comes to them. After the game is finished, show the children how they are entwined in a spider web of yarn – everyone is connected to one another and has shown kindness.”

STORY TIME
Mo Willems is one of our favorite authors. This series is set in Brooklyn, NY, one of the Burroughs in one of our favorite cities.
This is the story of a preschool-age Trixie learning and her favorite bunny toy. It lends itself well to the theme of kindness and what kind actions are, as opposed to unkind. Both are evident through the course of the story.

LITERACY CENTER
“K” sound box – the “K” sounds in our box were kangaroo, key, killer whale, kitty, and koala. The other items were thrown is as decoys so the children could say yes or no to the beginning sounds and decide whether or not they went in the sound box.
I really debated using the “killer” whale since our theme was “kindness” last week. Thankfully the kiddos (and parents!) gave me a pass and none of them voiced an objection.

This was an activity for the older children from Enchanted Learning. The older siblings of the preschoolers enjoyed this reading/match activity, and the preschoolers just like writing with the dry-erase markers even if they can’t read.

MATH CENTER
There were lots of different ways to play at this center last week…
Level 1: Identify the numbers and put them in order using the cards, foam numbers or magnet numbers.
Level 2: Match the cards ~ numbered cards to picture cards or cards to number manipulatives
Level 3: Memory game ~ turn the cards over and have the children find the matching cards.

These are cards that I printed with pictures from the Internet. I specifically chose images that represented children of different ages and skin tones. I feel as if normalizing variety in shape, size and color is part of teaching kindness.

DISCOVERY TABLE
This was another activity that leant itself to the idea, “we are all the same and we are all different”. Some of the children put their thumbprints on our card, so they could see everyone has finger prints. Then we could point out how although each print is different, every human can benefit from kindness.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
We took paper chain dolls to the next level with markers and stickers. Although each doll was the same shape, the children had the opportunity to personalize each cut-out. The lesson here was, “we are all the same and we are all different”.

Come back next week to see the “Teddy Bear” Playdate we are having today in honor of Take Your Teddy Bear to Work Day. We are modifying it to “Take Your Teddy Bear to Playdate Day”.

See you next Thursday! Thanks for stopping by. 🙂

Preschool Playdate: Johnny Appleseed

Playdate: September 29, 2016
Theme: inspired by Johnny Appleseed’s birthday on September 26th

This is actually the second time we have done this theme – what’s not to love about apples?! We brought back some of the activities that the children loved last time and added new ones that better fit the age of the children attending last Thursday. Click HERE to see last year’s event.

STORY TIME
This is actually a narrative biography of Johnny Appleseed’s life that is WAY to long for a preschooler to listen to all in one sitting. We broke it up over five days for our big kids!! However, the book boasts one-page and two-page illustration spreads, so I searched the internet to come up with the high points of his life, made up two sentences to summarize those points, and showed 7 pictures to go along with the summaries. It all worked out!

Johnny Appleseed: The Story of a Legend; Written and Illustrated by Will Moses

LITERACY CENTER
Fun with magnet letters!

Level 1: Match the letters to the corresponding letter in the word “apple”
Level 2: Sort the letters into Uppercase/Lowercase or sort by specific letter
Level 3: Turn over the “apple” word card and have the child spell out the word; then check for accuracy.

MATH CENTERS
Number recognition/spatial recall
The apple cards are programmed with numbers and the Spanish words for the numbers. We had two levels of play:
1) jumble one set of cards and put them in order/
2) use two sets and place them apple-side up to play a memory match game.

Counting
Modifying the “Cookies on a Plate” game from Lakeshore Learning to fit our theme…

Here is “Apples in the Bowl”. Roll the die, count out that number and place the apples in the bowl. The first player to reach the number ten wins.

This game is great for teaching one-to-one correspondence as well as addition; and for older children you could introduce the idea of “greater than” and “less than”.

There is also a sensory interaction with the apple shape and noticing the differences in color. Another level of play would be to sort by color into the separate bowls.

DISCOVERY TABLE
Tasting apples and apple products!

We showed the different colors of the outer skin, as well as the different tastes of each apple (sweet, sour, tart)

We also did a texture and flavor comparisons between fruit, sauce, and juice.

We always enjoy a good tasting center!!

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Fun fact about apples: there is a star hidden in the core!!

My intention was to use the core to stamp….

The sweet peas decided to use them as painting implements instead!!

I love how they adapted to materials at hand to suit themselves and create their own art.

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning. We close with a good-bye poem where children are welcome to give hugs; then we sing our closing song and say a final good-bye. It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards. The rest of us stay and visit for a few more minutes and watch our Bradley babies enjoy their extended playtime 🙂

Preschool Playdate: Fall Fun

THEME: First day of Fall
Play date: September 22, 2016

STORY TIME
This is a treasure from a Scholastic book box I purchased early in our homeschool days. I like this book because each page has a bold call out that can be read as an easy reader, and in regular font there is more detail for the child that is ready to read/learn more about the topic.

LITERACY CENTER
Letters: F-A-L-L and A-U-T-U-M-N

Lots of opportunity for play and learning today:
Level 1: Talk about uppercase and lowercase letters. Have the child find the letter cards that match the words.

Level 2: Scramble the letters for one word and have the child line them up with the corresponding card.

Level 3: Scramble the letters for 2-3 of the words and have the child line them up with the corresponding cards.

MATH CENTER
Magnet Leaves – Fishing for pairs 1-6

I was inspired to create this center by the magnet lessons I have been doing with Otter and Charger. They love “fishing” with their magnet fishing poles. So I took some of our fabric leaves that could withstand the wear and tear of continual use and paired them with a number. I try to incorporate print as much as I can when we do centers, so aside from the number I also wrote the name of the number on the circle. One set is in English, the other is in Spanish.

With more time and/or if you have the storage space, you could make more pieces and some game boards that have a leaf outline on them and numbered leaves. Instead of lining them up in a row, they could be matched to the corresponding spot on a game board.

The other activity we did was half discovery, half math. We hid ten “acorns” in the leaves. Then we gave the children rakes to dig through and find as many acorns as they could find. They got to count the acorns and then hide them again for the next sweet pea.

DISCOVERY TABLE
Leaf rubbing

We used the age-old and oft enjoyed crayon rubbing art idea to explore leaves. First you get the sensory experience of rubbing: it has a feel and a sound to it. Then there is the magical aspect of creating art that “magically” appears.

What I noticed yesterday and pointed out to the older children was the difference between our desert plant leaves and those that are pictured in most books about leaves. Our water-deprived desert leaves and small and/or long and thin, and many are spiky. Looking at the picture books that feature trees of the more temperate forest climates, we can see that those leaves are bigger and come in many more varieties. They could make the connection that the more water is available, the larger the leaf size.

Another reason I like this as a discovery table for toddlers is that once the papers are finished, we can look and talk about similarities and differences using their art instead of the more fragile leaves.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Leaf necklace idea is from Kiwi Crate

One of the things I love about doing crafts with young children is that it provides an opportunity for organic learning. “How many leaves do you want in your necklace?” ” Can you count out “x” number of leaves?” “What color bead is going to be first?” “Which color would you like next?”

All this on top of the fact that you are working to improve their motor skills and hand-eye coordination, as well as inviting them to use their imagination. The different textures of the materials also help stimulate their senses…no wonder this is one of my favorite stations to pull together each week.

Sweet Pea Families

Life beyond the Birth-Day

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