Oliver Jeffers- day home

We spent the last week in the day home exploring Oliver Jeffers books, and had lots of fun!

here is what we did!

 I put out stars for a craft, the children made magic wands and colored pictures.

 also to go with how to catch a star, I put stars in the water table to catch

 this is Blake's drawing of his friend trying to catch a star

 

little morning tea party!

 The huey's!  these books are so much fun! I put stuff out for the children to make Huey's

 Blake, he decided to make a space ship.

 stuck!

 I wrapped tape around our laundry hanger to use as a tree. I put the tape stick side out and just let the kids go to town! and that they did...

 there was not a single toy left on the playroom floor!  I should have got a picture from the side, this picture just does not do justice exactly HOW much stuff they stuff in our tree!!

 trying to catch stars with pinchers.

 finished products.

 a paper airplane toss to go with the great paper caper!

yes, they are shooting airplanes towards the baby....I thought the children would make paper airplanes too, or at least attempt. but they did not!  After flying the airplanes they decided to see where they could get them stuck! 

 The one was a bit of a stretch, but this is a yarn maze to go with this moose belongs to me.
they had to get through the maze without touching the yarn!

 This picture is hard to see, but there was a sting of yarn they had to follow for part 2 of the activity. this better part went a little better with the book.  At the end of the string was a little treat for them.

 So from time to time when I get a box I leave it in the playroom to see what the children will do with it, I would say 90% of the time the box is used as a bed, for them or a baby.

 

The children really enjoyed Oliver Jeffers books, I had enough of his books to read 3 each lunch time this week, the children liked to try and guess what we would do that would go with the book.

Valentines day! Day home

 

 

 

A week of red, pink and heart shaped fun!  We made heart finger puppets,

 

 not theme related, just because these guys love granular play! some colored rice, that was very soon taken over by dinosaurs!

 also not theme related, the dinosaurs have been on the move this week!  We have been take turns moving the dinosaurs, Nic set them up for the kids in a few places, so we put them at the door, in his shower, in the fridge and today they are all lined up waiting on his side of the bed!

 Making Valentines!  Kayla loved this activity, the others not quite so much. they have not really been into art this week!

 proud mommy moment, kayla can not figure out her K's and Y's, but she can do H, A, I, L, (she was spelling Hailey, but got stuck on the E)

 sorting hearts, I don't think my mom thought I would use these pinchers for a day home when she bought them years ago but they are such a great thing! awesome practise for fine motor skills.

 a few sample cards, which we forgot to write on the inside and deliver....

 my girls!

 Blake opted to stay in his jammies for Valentines day

 I hide hearts around for the children to find. this is always a great activity because they love finding things and then turn around and hide them over and over again!

 more hidden hearts

 a few more...

 trying to take a picture of the moving target!

 valentines lunch! a couple lunch time reads.  heart shaped pizza (with a hidden red ingredient, pureed red peppers mixed in the sauce! sneaking veggies into my picky son) and strawberries! and a very special treat of strawberry milk.
I have made it my goal to read at least 15 books to the day home children in a week.  Most weeks we do close to 20, 2 at lunch and 2 at snack, though sometimes Alice just does not cooperate and Tuesdays are crazy with swim lessons. So 15 is my goal, but the more the better!

 blowing bubbles in the milk! then popping them.

 we played a very SLOW game of bingo!  But a great way to work on letter recognition!

well, that's our week in a nut shell!
Next week we will be exploring books by Oliver Jeffers!

weekend projects

I bought fabric to make something for Blake and Kayla back when I was pregnant, but hadn't quite figured out what! I finally got around to sewing, here is Blake's car seat pockets!
Kayla's is still needing a bit more sewing

 on sunday I made 184 meatballs! (there was a couple pans in the oven). I really do not like handling raw meat, I love meatballs, but having to actually touch the meat with my hands grosses me out, so I thought why not make a whole bunch all in one day and make the yucky raw meat touching worth my while!
I used a big cook recipe, I made 8 meals (frozen in ziplocks). I made a sweet n sour sauce for sunday nights supper and for 2 other meals, then the others I froze plain so sauce could be added later.

Day Home- Mo Willems

Who doesn't love the pigeon!
Here is what we did this week,

our clothes pins from last week, Blake and our day home friend were making coyotes out of them, seriously, clothes pins and an hour of entertainment!

 We read duckling gets a cookies, then baked cookies!

 Blake wanted to add nuts since the first cookie in the book had nuts.

 

Can I play too?
this idea of course came from pinterest!  I gathered a collection of balls, and things to catch them in, in the book a snake wants to play catch but has no arms! So the children were invited to play catch and see if they could catch without using arms.

 

Blake decided to trying catching with his eyes closed.

kayla found a basket to use

Alice watched!

Let's say hi to friends who fly!
The book shows tracks from the friends flying, so I made rollers out of potatoes and invited the children to make tracks.

kayla rolling her tracks.

We read naked mole rat gets dressed, and Amandas alligator, so dress up seemed to suit both books!

Dress up then turned into playing trick or treat!

 

We read 3 pigeon books, then talked about what we would and wouldn't let the pigeon do.  I made a chart and we wrote down our names under yes or no, we used the ideas from the book (drive the bus, have a hot dog party) and came up with our own.  The children's favorite idea was to let the pigeon have a shrink ray and shrink himself.

 

 

Of course we had to have a hot dog party to go with the week!

Friday afternoon we made some pigeon tracks in the snow, forgot the camera though!

I had a few other ideas and activities that did not get done, sick kids and a busy week!  I had planned on making speech bubbles with the kids and a few more art ideas.

if you like Mo Willems books you should check out his webpage! There was tons of fun stuff on there, including lots of print outs and coloring pages!

 

We started writing Mo Willems a letter, we need to finish the letter and send it off.