Circles!

Our circle theme went wonderfully!  The girls had tons of fun (so did I) and all of them are finding circles all over in their environment!  Here are some of the circle activities we did.  (Many of these ideas I got from Pinterest.)

I'm reposting my tissue paper on contact paper in the window picture.  This was easy and lots of fun and all the girls could participate.  We did this on day one of circles.  We sang a simple song:
A circle's like a ball, a circle's like a ball, round and round it never stops a circle's like a ball.
I also had simple shapes cut out and gave each girl two and had them bring me the circle.

On ball/bubble/sphere day we did Pom Pom patterning with magnets glued onto pom poms.  The girls all did great with color matching.  They also did their own variations just playing with the Pom poms.  :). 

I didn't get a picture of the ball or bubble play, but that was great fun too.  We did bubbles outside and I brought out balls to play with our inside basketball hoop.  At calendar/carpet time I taped a big circle on the floor and we sang:

A circle is a shape (kick feet) that goes around and around(spin around),  a circle is a shape that goes around and a round, it goes round and round and round and round(draw circles in the air), a circle is a shape that goes around and around.  Lets walk in the shape of a circle; lets crawl in the shape of a circle; lets hop in the shape of a circle, etc.  they loved this...we did it the rest of the week along with our "a circles like a ball song."

Day three was hoop day!  The girls did all kinds of fun activities with hula hoops.  We played the Hoopy Pokey, they built an awesome snowman out of hoops, they played jump from hoop to hoop, and jump through the hoop like puppies, one of their favorites was playing horse and buggy.  It was hard getting them to hold still for a pic on that one.  :).

My husband helped me make this sturdy shape memory game.  He cut the wood circles and I took care of the foam shapes.  Te older girls loved shape memory. Mi did a variation for the younger girls that everyone played.  I turned one set of the shapes face side up then held the other.  I turned one shape over at a time then called out a girls' name and they had to find the matching shape before I counted to 5.  They all thought this was great fun!

Day four of circles was tube day.  I introduced the crawl tube house complete with mini ball pit that I amazingly won at a fund raiser.  :).   We also made these very fashionable straw tube necklaces and bracelets.  Then the girls suggested we do our nails to finish their glam looks.  :)

Day 5 of circles was wheel day!  We loved our wheels today.  I made a simple road on top of our corner bench with blue masking tape and created a little town to drive around.  Hubby made a nice little ramp where the cars could drive down and go to the "car wash". The car wash was big fun!  They all had to change into their spare clothes.  They loved the little sponges (i just cut up a regular sponge) and bubbles in the wash.  Who says girls don't like playing with cars!!
For art we used liquid watercolors to paint the black circles that they made yesterday with black tempera paint and a juice cup.  (I've done this with PVC pipe in different sizes). We also went outside and drove up and down on trikes and push cars.

The last is just a bonus pic of our delicious lunch..home made corn dogs...yummy.

Circle week was awesome!  

Ready or Not...

Here they come!  I'm excited for my first day.  I will be starting with a smaller number of children.
Our first theme is shapes...I'm starting easy.  This week we are doing circles.
Here is how it's set up...

We obviously still have some work to do....like painting the rest-time room and getting a new tv (don't you love that monstrosity!), but over-all I like the general arrangement and progress.  This last picture is where we will have calendar and circle time.  :).

I set up a little parent corner which will end up being a parent board.  I used a few cheap picture frames and will write the menu, the week theme, and our daily activities on them.

We did a fun circle collage by putting contact paper in the window.  The girls loved it!

 I'm introducing or highlighting a new toy/activity every day with each theme.  Today was plates, bowls, and cups to go with our circle theme...which of course encouraged playing house in the dramatic play area.  We also traced circles during individual/group time.

Other fun today:  

The girls liked playing puppy-complete with water bowls, playing little people zoo, and especially our baby stroller walk!

Here are the girls at lunch.  We are doing family style dining including passing and serving our own food.  I love my colorful plastic plates!  The girls said they are rainbow plates.  :)

Overall first day impressions:  This is a big change from teaching preschool which I have been happily doing these last 5+ years but  I'm loving it!  I love that I can be with my own daughter and still get to teach.  I love that she is benefitting from my "best hours" instead of getting exhausted mommy at the end of the day.  I love the numbers!  I love having more freedom and less pressure in what I choose to teach.  I'm very blessed and thankful to have this opportunity.  :)

Adventures in Child Care

I'm so excited to be starting this new adventure in my life.  I'm hoping to keep up the blogging as I go to see what I loved and what I want to change.