zoo and father's day- DAY HOME

 So in my day home i have several boxes of toys that i store in the basement and rotate through to help keep interest. in these boxes is a BIG box of zoo stuff! Which for some reason i have never planned activities to go with.  So here is what i came up with.

I made a memory/matching card game, with small zoo animal shapes to go with. i was searching on line for pictures of animal tracks that i could use to make a matching track to animal game but had no luck.
I also put out several zoo puzzles that are not pictured and a memory game from madgascar movie, it's actually a cool one, it has close up pictures of the animals fur/skin to match to the animals cartoon version, and real version.

 This was inspired by pinterest, i put a collection of small stuffed animals in and the children could guess what zoo animal they found.  My day home 5 year old loved this game and asked to play quite a few times.

 Animal tracks in play dough, this was not as successful as the tracks in paint. the children used this as an invitation to bring whatever toys they wanted in the play dough.  I do set limits for the children in the day home, there are play dough toys specifically for play dough, and other toys are not to be in the play dough.  Its never been a problem until i did this activity.  For some reason doing tracks in paint never caused issues, but tracks in play dough i don't think i would do again.  Maybe some of you are thinking who cares if they put other toys in play dough, but then it's hard to seperate the play dough toys from not play dough toys and basically you end up with playdough crumbs everywhere or squwished into the carpet.

 pin the tail on the zebra and lion, Nic thought this was lame (it's supposed to be a donkey!), put it was a hit! They even wanted to be blind-folded to play.

 The books!  Every theme i display a collection of books on the theme, to further their learning, encourage interest in the theme and again change things up!  The children would actually be more then happy to read the same books over and over, but i get bored!

 The zoo toys, our display tents went perfect with the zoo theme.

 more toys! There is zoo puppets (so we put on a zoo puppet show), zoo toys to go with toys in above pic, zoo stuffies and those funny heads on sticks that you can close their mouths, we had fun trying to clean up the play room using those.

 animal track painting! this is a huge success! i have done it before with dinosaurs too.

the zoo masks i made!  I also have a small collection of animal dress up stuff that was pulled out.  I decided i need to make a zoo keeper costume for next time.

 i just like this picture!

 This was our father's day craft.  first the boys had to take wrappers off, then line up the pretzels and place a hershey kiss on top. then i raced them into the oven (this project would be easier with 1 or 2 children, or if you used a work space closer to the oven.)

 Then when the hershey kisses were softened they pushed an M & M in them.  Because i only had a small amount of hershey kisses and wanted to send the gift home i told the boys that we would snack after we were done, i counted out the right amount of hershey kisses and pretzels for each boy then had counted a few extra M & M's, i told them that when they were done making all the pretzel's they could eat whatever m & m's were left in their bowl and it worked just fine!

SESAME street, not seAsame street

that is all.

seasame street! day home

before i start let me say my oscar game and cookie monster game are totally inspired from my very creative cousin!

we started the week with rubber duckies in the water table, can't remember if i took a picture or not but i can't seem to find one.

 then the buttons went in! Kayla was in love!

 the boys made there own puppets

 pretty creative!!

 this did not relate to seasame street but something i did with the children.  We borrowed a kit from the city of lethbridge and with Nic's help, went and painted yellow fish on the storm drains! this was actually more successful then i thought it would be, and blake keeps asking when we can go paint fish again!

I forgot to pick up a small garbage can for our oscar game so we just used a big bowl.  There was crumpled up newspaper that they threw in the garbage.  This activity again was created by my cousin, i just copied her wonderful idea!

Then i made beanbag cookies for them to throw in cookies monsters mouth.  Again, copied from my cousin, this one i changed slightly but still Heather's idea!

 marble painting! again not really related to seasame street just something that seemed fun.

there's my seasame street characters again! oscar looks a lot better then my sad cookie monster. and i didn't have a chance to laminate that one before playing so it took a beating. oh also note! if you make beanbags from rice, make sure they don't get wet!

hail storms! i scooped a bunch of hail from the last storm and brought it in. unfortuately the children decided to eat it instead of play with it....gross.

still to come, zoo! if i can ever get the pics off my camera card!

learn from my mistakes...

so if you don't already do this you should. remove pictures from your memory card and FORMAT your card! i am trying to figure out how to recover half a years worth of pictures off my memory card, including a recent day home theme, zoo, and some assignment pictures for my practicum! so in the mean time, we will skip over that theme...

Blake's preschool had a family potluck/graduation ceremony. Blake was PRETTY burnt out by the end of it.  We left for Calgary right from the school and he was asleep before we even left lethbridge.

 How cute is he!? Blake was so proud! and i was impressed that he sat and waited so nicely while the other 30+ kids were called before him!  And note his shirt...he was wearing a 'muscle' shirt and jogging pants before hand and was so relieved that he willingly changed!

 So in the last few months Kayla has just been LOVING the music programs we attend, which sadly none are running right now, and she has taken to trying to teach the boys the songs and singing them on her own, all she needs is a stage (drums) and a microphone!  Her favorite songs are twinkle twinkle and sleeping bunnies.

 tried out our new to us tent trailer last weekend. the good news is it doesn't leak! the bad news is it rained and rained and rained! But that didn't stop blake and kayla from fishing and nic and i from testing out our amazing kayaks from my auntie suzie! we are going to have so much fun with those!
side note-#1 reason it sucks to camp with someone in a trailer when you are in a TENT trailer- they don't consider where the bathroom is when picking a spot!
#1 reason it's awesome to camp with someone in a trailer when your in a tent trailer.  If it rains all weekend there is a bigger space to get away from the rain in!
the rain sucked, but it was nice to spend some time with nic's parents.  Kayla and Blake adore all 4 of their grandparents! and are always happy to see them.

where else would you read a book?

ps- why would you enter your cell phone number on your blog account?! it keeps asking for it when i sign in and i just don't understand why i would want to do that....

mothers day run!

I have been running in the mother's day run for years, i decided it was something that i wanted to do as a family, so Nic has been running with me.  This is only the second time i have taken our kids though!  because of rain and snow in previous years.  This year my niece adora came with us.  for some reason people kept thinking adora and kayla were twins...

 after the run we walked home from the train station, i think this walk took longer then the race itself.  This is adora trying to pick up a lady bug or ant. 

 One big happy family!

 chowing down on dessert.  My auntie brought a big bowl of berries for dessert, i am pretty sure kayla ate her weight in fruit!

 butterfly shirts!

 ok i guess i could see why people would assume the blonde haired girls are twins with their matching shirts, jeans, shoes and they had matching jackets too! this was actually not planned.

 Kayla and daddy!

This picture isn't great, but this is why kayla should not wear white.  Adora had the exact same milk container, same amount and everything, she did not get a single drop of milk on her!  Kayla, had milk ALL over her white shirt and jeans.
Kayla and Adora had such a fun weekend together.  My sister and i are trying to force a friendship on them, since most likely neither one will actually have a sister, we trying to make them like sisters.  But really we don't have to force it at all! These two adore each other! and are SOOO crazy together!!

the benefits of an indoor fire place

what a good looking cat!

 So grandma bought kayla and blake sleeping bags, which they LOVE! they both insist on sleeping in them and they like to bring them down for cozy movie nights.

 have you ever seen those mini tents at stores on displays and thought i want one! Well,  canadian tire had a couple on their clearance rack so now kayla and blake have their own mini tent for their toys!

 another cozy movie night!

 a picture of me, blake, kayla and my niece adora was posted in the calgary sun after the mothers day run.  When i showed kayla she grabbed the paper then ran over to her chair to sit and read! she was slightly disappointed that there was actually only 1 picture of her and 'dora' in the paper!

 miss. bling. kayla loves her necklaces and bracelets and can often be found sporting 10+ pieces of jewelry.  This little giraffe outfit is going on summer 3 of wear!

 kayla and blake are becoming very good friends, here they are sharing a chair!

 I made these aprons one christmas for my day home girls and blake.  Nic thought they were too girly for blake but when kayla discovered his in a drawer he wanted to wear his too!

 So we bought a tent trailer recently, and blake can NOT wait to go camping!  So we decided to have a little marshmallow roast in the basement.  What a great rainy night activity!  I actually once tried to roast marshmallows in the oven when i was a bored student...it doesn't really work.  But an indoor fire place! now that is awesome! we will definately do this again!

fun day with my kids!

first off, i seem to get more free coffees from starbucks then i pay for!  I recieved a survey for a free drink from a free drink, so took my kids to redeem it.  They love those kids drinks!  Kayla gets steamed vanilla milk though, she does not do well with chocolate...it stains, and she is the messiest eatter/drinker i have ever come across.  I was sad that i would not have another girl to wear all Kayla's cute hand me downs, but really, there isn't that many because she is SOO hard on her clothes!

 ANYWHO!! After our starbucks date we headed to safety city!  For a great family day activity.  It was threatening to rain all morning so there wasn't a huge turn out, which was perfect for us!

Kayla was very hesitatant about trying the bouncers but once she did i couldn't get her out! and she pretty much had this one to herself for a good 20 mins!

 Blake watering the target...and some people...opps!

 They had a few games, and no line ups!

And of course fire hats, cotton candy and pop! Sugar my kids up for nap time!
After this we headed over to the farmers market for some honey.  I gave blake a $5, and stood by the honey stand while he went to pay for a honey bear.  Blake handed the guy his money and said 'honey bear please!' the guy got a little frantic and asked 'where did this come from!?! where did you get this?!' apparently people don't like it when 4 year olds try to pay for something...anyway! it was a nice morning with my kids!! but we won't talk about the afternoon.....

gardening/flowers-day home

If you are new to my blog, i use this space mostly to display things i have done in my day home.  Themes and activities and such, however i only post pictures with my children.
for a theme in the month of May we did flowers/gardening. here are some of the activities i did with the children!

 after over a year of using a rubbermaid on top of a box, i purchased a water table for inside my house! I've had one outside that i used to bring in but it's spent a little too much time out now... anyway, i'm thrilled with it! i love to put themed items in it for play.  This is filled with flower petals, flowers, shovels, and there was pails too. 

 Of course the obvious activity, paint pots, and plant something!

 I poured the left over soil from the pots into our outdoor water table.  i was surprised at how long ALL the children stayed interested in this, normally just the younger too are busy in the water table.  I purchased the dirt from the dollar store, it is amazing the stuff you can find there!

 Our plants. we will see if they survive! they have been left in the rain a few times, and last year when i planted with the children our cat knocked over every last pot and broke them. so far we have something growing in 3 out of 5!

I also had flower petal colleges, and leis in the dress up.  |A trip to a flower shop would have been a great add on to this theme, however did not get to it this time around.

This was not for the flower theme, just a science experiment i did with the children.  I came accross a book at the library that had some awesome water science experiments that were very simple and easy to do with young children.  I loved the book so much i ordered it and another one from the same line off amazon, and am going to try and do every experiment in the book.