eric carle! day home

for some reason i saved this one instead of posting it...
we did an eric carle week in february, most of my pictures have day home kids in them so i can't post them but here is a few.

 the books! blake loved the one about the click beetle, and of course brown bear is a favorite of kayla's!  the book from head to toe is a great action book that i read with the kids. we also made pancakes to go along with that book. most of these are from the library.

 we made turtles to go with this book.

this was a shape/color matcher game. i had these 3 pairs of jeans that had holes but for some reason i could not bring myself to throwing them out, finally i cut of the pockets and threw out the jeans. after having a stack of jean pockets in my bed side table for many many months i came up with this. i hung this on the wall and placed a basket of misc toys and random pieces around, the kids also went on searches looking for things to put in the pockets. not the most exciting game ever but it kept them entertained for a little while!

Kayla LOVED these! i just color copied pictures from brown bear and a couple other books and laminated them. the kids could match up the animals or make new ones. brown bear is one of kayla's favorite books so she definately got the most enjoyment out of these cards.

another activity which was a success but i only have pictures with day home kids is bubble wrap painting. eric carle is all about colors and shapes and textures, i gave the children some squares of bubble wrap, they could then paint them and make prints on their paper. the older children really enjoyed this!

this has nothing to do with eric carle, but i bought this little carpet from costco because i miss having carpets. only 1 room in our house has carpet and it's the guest room which is rarely used. anyway, the first 2 weeks after a bought it blake was constantly on it, bring toys there, laying on it and reading, just enjoying it! it's a nice cozy little book/movie corner which is getting lots of love. i don't think that little carpet is going to last long! the kids are going to wear it down to nothing in no time!

easter! day home

We spent the week leading up to easter with an easter theme in the day home.  of course we hid and hunted for eggs, we had easter grass, eggs, egg holders and baskets in the granular play, easter crafts and easter baking! here is some of the easter egg collages...

 granular play, they actually were not nearly as interested in the easter grass as last time i put it out.  the boys did discover the they could shot eggs across the room using the egg holders.

 art time!

 kayla loves to use glue!

 we made nests with eggs in them. 

 the finished product. not sure why my photos don't appear in order....

 blake taste testing the nests, there was alot of that happening, the boys had to make sure the eggs tasted ok so they could go in the nests!

 bunny masks!

 another picture of the easter grass.

the end! this week is bunnies, we will be spending alot of time outside! and a few field trips since there is no school pick ups and only 1 in the day home this week (plus my 2 of course).

monsters! day home

Monsters!!! i found some awesome ( and not scary) books at the library about monsters.

 here is our monster cooking project, the made haystack cookies then added monster eyes, ears, arms, legs.

 blake!

 Kayla even participated! there was definately a LOT  of taste testing going on.

 look at all our monsters!!

 monster masks

 this is the monster mess! wax paper, shaving cream and a little bit of paint. i even got my hands right in there too, it was fun!

 blake loved it!

 our mess

 monster hands

this is our purple people eaters. we also danced to some monster music.

dinosaurs! Day home

of course with my son we have to have a dinosaur theme!

here are some of the dino activities we did, i have not been very good with my blogging so the dino theme was almost a month ago now!

 i have new day home kids since i last did a dino theme so the crafts are the same. stand up tricaratops -i can't spell the names, but blake knows alot of them!

 these are finger puppets

 the flying teradoktyls (not even close i know...) these made for VERY loud play afterwards.

 the dino feet i made! a hit yet again!

we also read all kinds of dino books, played dinos, had dinos in the water table, did dino footprint paintings....and i'm sure there were more...

book club!

I was going to post about this a while ago and forgot.  I am now part of a book club!  For our first book we read the Peach Keeper, by Sarah Addison Allen.  I was the host, I made peach shaped cake pops and oatmeal cookies with coffee icing (this was a recipe that went along with the book).  The cookies were good, but I was not a fan of the icing, but maybe it was because I made the coffee and my coffee skills have been seriously lacking lately.  I usually have a headache after drinking coffee I've made.  Anyway, I am very excited to be part of a book club!

st. patrick's day- day home

I'm really not very good at this blogging thing...This picture has nothing to do with St. Patrick's day, but how funny is she~ Kayla loves to dress up!

 Digging for gold coins in the green mess!

A little leprechuan came to the day home and left a trail of clues to lead the kids to the end of the rainbow! My 5 year old was not very tricked but still had fun!

Almost every theme we do I am able to find matching foam shapes that go with it.  First I hid the shapes around the playroom a couple times for the kids to find, then I tape the shapes to the floor and they can jump accross them.  Last we decorate the shapes. 

 We made a rainbow cake! The boys mixed the colors up then we layed the colors in a bundt cake pan.  Normally we make cake from scratch (there's more things to pour and measure that way and they taste better!) but this time we just used a mix and some food dye.

 Before it went in the oven.....

 Our bowls. I just liked the picture.

 I taped wax paper to the table, gave each of the boys a straw and a spoon full of green water.  They then raced their water across their paper squares by blowing it with a straw.  This activity was more successful then I thought it would be and I will do it again for the younger kids.  I just used a washable marker to dye the water so I wouldn't end up with a green table.

 Blake!

This is the pathetic rainbow the boys were led to.  I didn't want to do it too early uncase they wanted to play outside and it was windy out so it twisted up alot. 

 Our special party snack!  We were supposed to have green grapes too but I forgot and bought purples ones instead so they are not in the picture.  We had lime sherbet with a little bit of sprite. 

Another St. Patrick's day activity, green shaving cream painting!  The kids definately liked it, but they are not really pictures you can keep, the shaving cream is pretty messy when it dries.