SNOW

Snow!
The children have had lots of fun these past few days playing in the snow. We made snowmen today, threw snowballs, observed animal tracks, made our own tracks, played with moonsand, and put together a long train in the playroom using tree stumps.
Singing and joyful play fill the atmosphere as everyone peacefully explores the new sights, textures, and circle times of winter...
A new year approaches and we will be moving into a full preschool curriculum using a variety of resources. We will start with a book called Before Five in a Row which is a full range of subjects including math, science, art, history, and language arts based on a story that we will read for 2 -3 weeks. Our art projects will be based first on a book titled Young at Art. Conservation Seeds is a program from the Missouri Department of Conservation that we will use for our science and nature discovery.
The three learning philosophies that provide the backbone of all we do here are the indications of Rudolf Steiner, Reggio Emilia, and Charlotte Mason. I will be sending home more information on our weekly lesson plans and also about these different styles of preschool education.
Basically we want our learning with the children to revolve around a sense of beauty and reverence with respect for each child's individual learning styles. Artistic activities will weave through all the different subjects as we integrate everything together in a chronological unifying manner.

celebrating the season

We have had a wonderful few weeks celebrating the start of winter and the Christmas season!
Our art projects have included cotton ball snowmen, Christmas ornaments, crystal making, activities with ice, ice "skating" in the playroom, and Christmas cards.
Books revolved around the current themes of light and dark, winter, hibernation, Christmas, and the tracks of various animals.

Owl Moon
Christmas Cookies
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Winter's Gift
My Little Polar Bear
Here Comes Jack Frost
Rabbit's Winter Walk
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree
A Wish to be a Christmas Tree
The Gingerbread Pirates
Christmas in New York
Dream Snow
Heart of a Snowman
Corduroy's Christmas

Thank you to everyone for all of the wonderful gift certificates, chocolate, books, soaps, and other goodies....these are all so special and meaningful reminders of the amazing families I am so privileged to serve. It is an honor to have you all in our lives and I wish you a very peaceful and special Christmas celebration!

THANKFUL

Today we made a turkey poster and collected pictures of things for which we are thankful. The children really participated well in this activity. We also took a walk and were able to spend some time watching construction going on across from Phelps Grove Park...this was a highlight of course.
Our main meal today was teriyaki stir fry with broccoli, carrots, and tofu over organic brown basmati rice. Another wonderful day spent peacefully outside enjoying the many gifts nature so graciously gives.

Late Autumn Circle time:

The wind is blowing to and fro,
The leaves are falling down,
The winter's snow is on its way,
The light of day is gone

I'm the wind, I breeze and blow, Mm...Mm
Listen, listen, how I whisper,
In the tree, listen to me

Here comes the squirrel on scampering feet
Looking for acorns and nuts to eat.

Little chipmunk scurries away
Through the leaves so red and gay
Where will he go for winter's rest?
In his cozy little nest.

In the autumn garden, whirling winds a blow,
Leaves are dancing, prancing, dancing, sink to rest below
Sleep now till the spring time brings new birth

Green Day

Today was green day.
Thanks to everyone who brought in green fruits and vegetables.
We had a good assortment including kiwis, pears, broccoli, celery, and zucchini!
Other activities included cleaning up trash, playing color I Spy, hanging an Earth poster in the playroom, starting felt balls, and designing with connectors.
These days have been full of lots of outside work times.
Stories include The Story Quilt
The Napping House
Baby Bear's Big Dreams
All the Colors of the Earth
We are focusing on thankfulness these next few weeks and trying to encourage a heart of gratitude and giving. We will be making family trees, a blessing basket, and collecting pictures of things for which we are thankful. Our story times will reflect these themes as well and we'll start off by working with the story The Giving Tree.
Thankful for all of you....

Lantern Walk Highlights

Our Lantern Walk was a very special evening of gathering together with the children that is sure to be remembered for a long time. We started outside in the backyard with singing and eating warm pumpkin bread and quietly watched a mini play on the deck about St. Martin. Lantern songs followed and then each child carefully walked up to put a little candle in their lantern and we were soon off on our walk around the neighborhood. What a joy it was to watch these dear friends riding together in strollers, then take off side by side to run through the leaves along the sidewalk. Our time ended with many big jumps into the leaf pile in the front yard, a huge ring-around-the-rosy, and our goodbye song.
Thankyou to all who joined us and if you were lucky enough to catch any photos, please email them to me so that I can post more here.

Apples and Chickens and Pumpkins

We have had a full week here with our apple theme which was a huge success.
Friday's events included visiting the chickens in our next door neighbor's yard, bringing banana bread to our neighbors, walking to a nearby pumpkin patch, and starting our lanterns for our upcoming lantern walk on November 7 at 5:30 p.m. Hopefully you will all make it over for an evening of singing, warm snacks, and walking around the neighborhood with lanterns aglow.
Last year's lantern walk was a wonderful time of connecting with all of our children and families and sharing a night of warmth together. We want our home to feel like home to all of you as well and our vision is to create a deep sense of community among everyone.

There are new health procedures in place effective Monday morning as we are striving to keep everyone healthy. Upon entering, we will be having everyone use a natural hand sanitizer from Mama Jean's before walking through the gate. We hope this helps to eliminate bringing any new germs into the house. We will also be using this throughout the day in addition to our normal hand washing routines. It would be a good idea for you to purchase this as well to keep with you when you have your children out in various places.
We will also be taking temperatures throughout the day.
According to the parent handbook, no child will be admitted who has a fever, who is vomiting, or has diarrhea. If one of these develops once the child is already here, we will call and ask you to take your child home. A child must stay at home for 24 hours after the fever has gone away and/or after the last episode of vomiting or diarrhea. This is so important in keeping the other children from getting sick as well. If your child has any of these symptoms please keep them at home. Many of us have been getting ill these past few weeks and it can be very frustrating. We are doing all we can here to prevent future sickness and we appreciate your help and cooperation.
Our recipes starting this next week will be taken from the book SuperImmunity for Kids...what to feed your children to keep them healthy now and prevent disease in their future. I would highly recommend this resource.
One of the most important supplements to be giving your child on a daily basis is cod liver oil.
This has multiple benefits. It provides a barrier of warmth, keeps skin smooth and moist, and helps boost immunity against many illnesses. I have noticed lots of dry, itchy, scaly skin that happens a lot during winter and is also a sign of a lack of essential fatty acids in the diet. It's very simple to add to the daily diet in pasta, smoothies, etc. Nordic Naturals is a brand we use in our family and is available at Mama Jean's also. There are many great children's vitamins there that are invaluable during this season.

We will be exploring pumpkins this next week!
Activities will include a trip to the nearby pumpkin patch, sensory experiences with the insides of the pumpkin, roasting pumpkin seeds, and a variety of art projects. Our new weekly lesson plan will be available on Monday. I will send home a copy for each family and it will also be posted on our bulletin board by the door.
Our books this next week will revolve around the theme of pumpkins, fall, and leaves and some titles I have presently are:

Pumpkin Moonshine by Tasha Tudor
Let's Look at Fall by Sarah L. Schuette
Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jean Titherington
Autumnblings by Douglas Florian a book of poems and paintings
All the Colors of the Earth by Sheila Hamanaka

We will also be earnestly working on our paper lanterns this week, learning our lantern walk songs, and joyfully participating in new harvest and pumpkin circle times.
Thankyou for sharing the children with us.

Apple Days

We are having so much fun with our apple theme this week!
Thankyou to everyone who brought in apples, applesauce, muffins, and more to share with all the children.
Tuesday morning we started out with a hunt for hidden apples that we colored the day before, we made apple prints with colored tempura paints, read Our Apple Tree, by Kristina Naslund (a Swedish author), and made an apple crisp using a recipe from the book sans the sugar.
Today we read more stories about apples including:
Out and About at the Apple Orchard by Diane Mayr

Other books we are reading this week are:
We Gather Together : Celebrating the Harvest, by Wendy Pfeffer
Fairy Houses by Traci Kane
Living Alphabet
One Green Apple
The Apple Pie Tree

Smiles and laughter filled the backyard as the children attempted to take bites from apples hanging on a string from branches......without using their hands.
Hilton was determined and followed the apple around as it swayed.
Addi found the easier way to get that apple and quickly decided to hold onto it and eat it.

This morning we took a walk and toured the art museum. Quietly, the children discovered many wonderful paintings including new fall exhibits made with felt.

Our new class/play/art room is slowly transforming into a magical place for the children who are adding lots of creative touches with their artwork, nature mobiles, and posters.

Tomorrow a new magnetic board will be installed for lots of open-ended play opportunities with magnets, storytelling, and design.

Starting next week I will be sending home a weekly plan sheet that will include all the activities for the week so the daily reports will only have basic information on them such as eating and sleeping times.

If you are not already, please make sure your child brings appropriate clothing for outdoor play.
Warmth is very critical for the developing nervous system in young children. Dress in layers with undershirts, tights, etc. Make sure there is something to adequately cover the head with a beanie that will not come off easily. Nova Natural Toys has wonderful wool head coverings that fully cover the sides, ears, and neck. Hanna Anderson also has very good head caps, slippers, rain boots, coats, and pants.
The children need all of these for their time here as we go outside every day.

Happy Birthday to Finn who has just turned one!!

Thankyou also to everyone who brought in tomatoes, peppers, garlic, zucchini, and cucumbers from their gardens to share with us!!

Having a wonderful time.

Leaf crowns and pinecone people

We have been finding and collecting such great treasures this week outside and on our daily walks. Today the children helped to make leaf crowns and pinecone people. Yellow and golden leaves have been gathered in the backyard to make artful designs in between clear contact paper to hang in the windows. Working, shoveling, arranging rocks, watering plants, and riding new tricycles have been favorite activities as well. Several tea parties and picnics on the grass are taking place many times and go along perfectly with our new circle time themes.
Important learning happens all the time as new discoveries and observations are made in the garden, watching the chickens, finding bugs, designing treasure maps, collaborating with friends on the details of fort building, gathering and sorting branches, sticks, and rocks, arranging by categories such as size, color, and shape, and creating original pieces of art. The children get a deep feeling of satisfaction when they are allowed the time and space to carry an idea through to a finished product of their own making. These are the daily celebrations that bring beauty and a sense of wonder to all of our lives. We are reminded again of the gift and honor of having these young ones with us.

Circle time:
Let's go on a picnic - the sun is shining bright
Let's go on a picnic - the weather is just right

And let's call our pony so strong and so true
He'll pull the wagon, that he can do
But look, he comes limping so slowly along
Let's look at his foot and see what is wrong

My little pony needs a pair of shoes, how many nails must I use?
One, two, three, tie him to a tree
Let him have a bag of hay
Then he will not run away

Pitty patty polt
Shoe my little colt
Here a nail, there a nail
Pitty, patty, polt

And what shall we pack in our picnic basket
To take on our picnic today?
How about some apples

Rosy apples grow Rosy apples grow
Pick them, wash them, rub them, shine them
See how red they glow

And we put the apples in our basket."

Regarding the importance of circle times:
"One of the great gifts we receive as teachers is a deepening and enriching of the experience of the course of the year. For busy adults, it is all too easy to become caught up in the pressures of "clock time". Through singing and moving with the children in these seasonal circle plays, we nurture their natural, heartfelt participation in all that lives in the world of nature. At the same time, we rediscover our own connection with that world and the spirit which weaves in and through it. With the children, we enter the realm of the natural cycles of time, as experiences in music and movement. This experience is nourishing to both children and adults, and helps to create the mood of joyful serenity which we seek in the preschool.

There are several festivals we will be having over the course of this new school year and our first one will be happening on Saturday, November 7. Please join us for our second annual Lantern Walk. We will gather for some fall singing, warm cider, homemade baked treats, and a walk around the neighborhood with lanterns aglow. Check out older posts for some words on the importance of festivals. Looking forward to sharing the evening with all of you.

NEW FACES

Greetings.
There are many new faces here and lots of changes going on and I am so thankful for your patience and support during this transition.
Our new teachers are Meghan and Tesa and they add such inspiration to our day
The group is growing and this is so exciting as it makes for many new opportunities in our creative play, friendship possibilities, and circle/story times.
A new play and art space will be ready within 3 weeks and this will allow us extra room for more activities and a special place for age appropriate learning and discovery.
We have been enjoying the weather these past few days and spend most of our time outside. Picnics on the grass, parachute play, hoola hoops, observing creatures with magnifiers, making paper airplanes, collecting walnuts in buckets and then setting up "stores" are just a few of our recent adventures. It is so fun watching and listening to the children negotiate, plan, and carry out their own ideas with each other and involving the younger ones in their scenario.
Having a wonderful week....

Welcome to Addi

We have a wonderful new little girl joining our group this week!
Addi is 2 and will be sharing in our daily adventures. Her parents are Anthony and Grace and we want to extend a warm and joyful welcome to them also.
Some new discoveries happening in the past weeks include magnets at the water table, talking about what floats, observing and holding caterpillars, playing with lots of cars, making colorful roads and hopskotch designs with chalk, and eating fresh green and purple beans!

The story lady from the library, Amber, will be reading to us tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.

If you haven't already, be sure to pack sunscreen and large sunhats for the outdoors to keep little heads shaded.

Looking forward to another great week with all of you!

THE TIRED CATERPILLAR

A tired caterpillar went to sleep one day
In a snug little cradle of silken grey
And he said, as he softly curled up in his nest,
"Oh, crawling was pleasant, but rest is best."

He slept through the winter long and cold,
All tightly up in his blanket rolled,
And at last he awoke on a warm spring day
To find that winter had gone away

He awoke to find he had golden wings
And no longer need crawl over sticks and things
"Oh the earth is nice," said the glad butterfly
"But the sky is best, when we learn to fly"

BUTTERFLY

Come, bright butterfly, close to me,
Your beautiful wings I should like to see
You fly like a bird, you sip like a bee,
But you're really a flower the wind set free

OCEANS

Having fun with our ocean theme this week.
Many different types of shells are on display and give us good opportunities to discuss textures, sizes, shapes, patterns, and colors.
Today we created an ocean scene with sandpaper, shells, and blue watercolors, played a deep sea diving game where each "diver" held their breath and went under the blue ocean (as we all held a blue sheet over them and waved it) and collected as many shells and treasures as possible before coming up to breathe, read Ocean Babies, Eyewitness Shell, Octopus Under the Sea, and First Words at the Aquarium, we listened to Meditative Ocean and Handel's Water Music, and went fishing at the water table outside.

Friday we will be eating Salmon for lunch...

Wishing all our traveling friends a safe, peaceful, and memorable journey.
Elias is currently away with Per and Stephanie in Sweden for the next month.
Katie and Collin have now moved to Rolla with parents, Scott and Laura. We will miss your family dearly and hope you will come back sometime for a visit!

OUR BEANS ARE GROWING.....AND SO ARE THE CHILDREN

Bean pods
Pea pods
Poppy pods and
Seed pods
Split when they ripen
And they open with a POP!!!

Lots of growing activity around here as well.
We carefully water our plants each morning and then have our singing and circle time out on the grass.
Big trucks have been a recent big attraction and we walked up the street for a closer look at all the noise and work being done.

Working with the story, Tiki Tiki Tembo, we have created pictures with wooden ladders, acted out the brothers helping each other, and made a salt dough mountain complete with a working well.

After reading Pete's a Pizza, we made our own creative pizza's out of paper, acted out the story by rolling each other out across the floor and added toppings, and then made our own pizza from scratch.

Next week we will be talking about the ocean, all the creatures who live there, playing a special fishing game outside and sampling some seafood.

Thanks to Beth for bringing in some more sign language books and to Finn's dad, Jason, for giving us wonderful logs and stumps! These have added significantly to the children's play opportunities outside.

Appreciating all your encouragement and support.
Have a wonderful weekend.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROMAN!!

ROMAN, WE HOPE YOUR DAY IS FILLED WITH WONDER AND JOY!
IT HAS BEEN SO FUN HAVING YOU HERE.

What we ate this week

Our basic menu stays fairly consistent as we use a specific grain each day and then use a variety of ideas during snack times. This was the menu of the past week.


Monday: Rice with no-wheat tamari sauce
rice cakes with almond butter
grapes

Tuesday: Oatmeal with raisins and maple syrup
strawberries

Wednesday: Millet cakes
banana bread

Thursday: Vegetable and barley soup
yogurt with fruit and granola

Friday: Rye Wasa crackers with cheese
apple cinnamon muffins
kiwis, and broccoli, green beans, and bell peppers with hummus

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIERRA!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIERRA!

We had a morning full of storm adventures in the basement on Friday and then settled into a peaceful bustle of activity during the remainder of the day. Birthday wishes sealed into a special book for Sierra made by all her friends, followed by the making of delicious apple cinnamon muffins, singing, and a story just for her were joyfully shared together.

Thankyou Sierra for the sunflower, watermelon, and pumpkin seed cups you gave to everyone...this will be greatly enjoyed.

Thanks also to Elias, Stephanie, and Per for the colorful scarves and big shapes puzzle!!

Play Under Siege

From the book, Free to Learn by Lynne Oldfield:

"Play Under Siege

Childhood without play seems inconceivable....or does it?
Adults work..children play...or do they?

Inappropriate early childhood practice in the form of a downward thrust of literacy and numeracy performance and assessment continues relentlessly to erode the boundaries of early childhood. Five year olds are expected to perform as six year olds had previously performed, and four year olds are met with the challenges previously presented to five year olds.

Parents frequently describe their four and five year olds as 'coping' rather than 'flourishing' in the early years of school experience. One significant sacrifice to this trend is the child's access to the world of creative play. The willingness of educational policy makers to dismantle and undermine this activity is due, in part, to a rapidly disappearing understanding of the nature of play and its contribution to later achievements and developments.

Once upon a time...Let's pretend...You be....and I'll be....With these words children take a step into a world without boundaries, rich with potential learning opportunities, and an essential stage in their development. Observe children play. Watch and listen. Be prepared to be astounded by what you will see and hear.

The child's need to play must first be acknowledged. The adult's work presents itself from "outside"; the child's play arises from 'within' as an impulse to integrate her experiences. The child needs his will-reaction, his play, in order to assimilate his experiences and make them fully his own.

Here is an example. The older brother of a four year old girl had died. The day after the funeral she began to make a mound of blankets and pillows into which she burrowed. These were the 'clouds' and she was going in 'to bring her Jacob back'. Teachers working in areas of deprivation - war torn environments - will observe children literally 'playing out' their anxieties, with a corresponding easing up of tension as they come to terms with their situation through the activity of play. Play therapy is a standard practice for professionals working with abused children. When a child is unwell, play activity will cease; its return will signal that the child is well again.

A child at play is a child at peace.

Children are also dreamers. There is something almost spiritual in the imagination of a child, who picks up bits and pieces of its surroundings and its memory and finds out how they fit together in a slow, dreamlike process of discovery. They don't do this playing a computer game. They do this when they are allowed to sink down into themselves...they do it when they have time. Time is what we have taken away from our children.

Misunderstanding the Nature of Play

The inner source of play decisively undermines a growing contemporary trend toward 'structured play' in early childhood settings. This concept of directing play from 'outside', with an imposed intention - for example, to develop a concept of the number 5 through the use of five teddy-bears having a picnic - fails in any way to meet the true definition of play, which must by its very nature, arise from within the child and have no purpose other than to satisfy the original impulse. This impulse might arise from the need to 're-play' the image of men laying water pipes, or to come to terms with abuse. It might arise from the need to 're-live' a fairy tale told by the teacher - or simply, once again, to experience the joy and intensity of 'the love of action'. For play is also a will activity and a further revelation of the extent to which young children are impressed by their environment; for it is also an act of imitation."


This chapter will be be included in its entirety within the next week.

Everyone is healthy and we need raingear!

We have seen a great improvement in everyone's health lately and I just want to encourage you to use this time to be even more vigilant in your efforts to boost immunity. THIS is the time to take it a notch higher so that your little ones will be more prepared the next time a little bug comes our way. Be consistent with cod liver oil on a daily basis. It is very simple to add this to cereals, yogurt, smoothies, etc. and make sure there is one tablespoon in the first few bites of a meal. Nordic Naturals is a very dependable company and can be found at Mama Jeans market. Keep all sugar out of the children's diets if you are not already doing this and eat lots of GREEN foods every day. Again, this is easy to mix into smoothies. Another fun thing is to make your own popsicles using vegetable and fruit juices mixed together in a juicer or processor. These steps will really help form a protective barrier that will be quite strong by the time next fall and winter roll around and your efforts will reap great benefits. Remember, when just one child comes here with an illness, even if it's just a cold, it impacts everyone.....parents included. It is important that we all work together on this.

It has been very rainy lately and clothes, socks, shoes, etc. are getting very wet and muddy.
We go out in the morning and again in the afternoon and when there is only one change of clothes available this is not enough if we get wet and muddy both times.
If it is possible, your child needs a full rain suit here at all times. That includes rainboots, rain pants, raincoat and a hat or hood made of same rainproof material. This will help us avoid a huge wet and muddy mess with wet and muddy clothes piling up by the back door.
I will post possible resources for these items in a future post. I know that Hanna Anderson has good raincoats and boots. A place like Target may also have these things. Let others know if you have found a great place to find the raingear as well. Post a comment here anytime to suggest ideas that have worked for you. I want this to be a place where we can "gather" and communicate.

We are hard at work digging out a sand area in the backyard and the children are really enjoying the new discoveries of shoveling, finding worms, rolly poly bugs, and other little creatures.

The books we have been reading are centering around gardening, seeds, and vegetables.
A few of the titles we have enjoyed are:

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
Carrot Soup by John Segal
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming
One Watermelon Seed by Celia Barker Lottridge
Dahlia by Barbara McClintock
To Be Like the Sun by Susan Marie Swanson
Zen Ties by Jon J Muth
The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
It's Spring by Linda Glaser
Spring Song by Barbara Seuling
And the Good Brown Earth by Kathy Henderson
A Gardener's Alphabet by Mary Azarian
Mrs. Rose's Garden by Elaine Greenstein

Thankyou to Sierra and Amy for bringing in several new puzzles to share with everyone. The children are really enjoying these!

Thankyou also to Finn, Jason, and Jennifer for giving us many clay pots to use in our upcoming planting projects!

Donations are always gladly accepted and greatly appreciated. Old small tools, buckets, shovels, cut up "tree blocks" from thick branches, baskets of every kind, scarves, hats, necklaces, sandpaper, etc. are some of the ideas I have at the moment. The children love carrying things in baskets, loading them up, and doing various types of activities with them.
I will post items weekly for new ideas.

MayPole Festival

The date for the MayPole Festival is Saturday, May 30th from 3 - 5.
I wrote it wrong on the previous post.
It's the Saturday after Memorial Day.
Hope to see everyone!

Welcome to Sophie

We welcome our newest playmate, Sophie.
She is 4 1/2 and joined us this week. Staying for the remainder of the spring semester, Sophie has already started helping us prepare for our garden and sand area....a very earnest worker with the shovel and a delight to have with the children.
It is always a joy to see how the older ones, such as Aubrey, Katie, and now Sophie, will naturally extend a willing hand of help to the younger children. What a gift to have a mixed aged group where each child enriches the lives of the others.
Everyone is enjoying the warmer temperatures and there is this wonderful, calm, settled sense among us. There is a lot of purposeful work going on in the yard with quiet focus and excited discoveries.....worms, mud, sprouting plants, and roly poly bugs

If you haven't already, please make sure to include good sun hats and sunscreen every day. It might even be a good idea to apply the sunscreen before you head over here because there are many mornings that we are starting our day outside.

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey and Yellow is the Sun have been two of our current stories among many others about spring, gardens, and bugs and we have been painting and working with the color yellow.

Keep the family photos coming in! We are using them for a variety of projects.
Photos of your house, extended family members, pets, and anything else that your child would recognize are all great ideas.

Do you have any way to obtain tree stumps, large branches, big boulder type rocks, etc?
We are looking for a border for our sand area and help in putting this together.
Also, if you can donate any time or resources for our vegetable garden we ultimately would like this to be a group experience for the children where they can see the adults in their life working together to make their play space a beautiful, healthy, and living area.

Our May Day festival will be Saturday, May 30 from 3 until 5.
Join us for a traditional MayPole dance, singing, games, and food.
Bring your favorite food to share.

Love and peace to all of you!

Rain, Chili, Bubbles, and Playdough

We played outside this morning from 9 until noon and even felt some fresh rain sprinkles on our faces! Experimented with wet chalk, rolled little cars down wooden ramps, and walked along a stone path that the children made. They have been interested in balancing, rolling hoops across the grass, watching the birds at the feeders and having tea parties in the cozy corner of the yard.
Today is usually soup day, however, we made vegetarian chili...organic kidney, garbanzo, and black beans, celery, tomatoes, and corn seasoned with oregano and basil. Eaten with our leftover homemade rye bread from yesterday. A good day for a warm lunch...

Strawberry Shortcake Day

Strawberry Shortcake day was a success and a fun way to wrap up our study of all things RED.
We colored strawberry shapes, had a strawberry hunt to find hidden paper strawberries around the room, played with red play dough, read stories about this delicious fruit, and made our own strawberry shortcake....it was delicious and enthusiastically eaten by all.

SPRING IS COMING

Spring is coming
Spring is coming
Birdies build your nests
Sticks and feathers
All together
Each one do your best

Spring is coming
Spring is coming
Flowers are coming too
Roses, Lillies, Daffodilly's
All come shining through

Mornings are filled with the excitement and anticipation of the coming Spring
Our circle times are joyous with new songs about flowers, gardens, sprouting seeds, warmer weather, and baby animals.

We will gather the families together again soon when weather and health have stabilized a bit.
This past week I have included important information in your child's bag regarding Community Supported Agriculture, a good foods list, and a refreshing article about television and the young child. I hope you will find these inspiring and helpful. It is crucial that we all work together to make sure our little ones are getting the right immunity building nutrients to keep us all as healthy as possible. This is a group effort and I am here to work with you to provide the best possible environment for your children. Please let me know if there is anything else I can be doing to help in any way.
With joy and love I wish you all a peaceful weekend.

Painting the deck with water, having backyard picnics, drawing with chalk, and watching more birds in the trees have been some of the activities filling our days lately. We have enjoyed spending most of our time outside...eating and even sleeping for some of us. Today Asher and Collin fell asleep in the hammock with Audrey....a very blissful sight.
Please send in any recent photos you may have of your children with you in the picture, as we are working on our photo books about families.

LOVE

LOVE.

One of our themes this month along with the color red, bears, and family.

We are painting/coloring/creating with red, making red play-dough, eating red things, searching for red toys and objects around the house and in the yard.

We are learning each others' names, working on an Apple Blossom photo album, and making pictures with various shapes on the flannel board.

Amanda, with Stories-To-Go, shared books, songs, and activities about frogs.

Karen Day from Educare came today and brought us a bag of transportation themed toys and activities. This inspired enthusiastic play with boxes that became trains, cars, and boats for the children to climb in, push, and pull.

The books we are reading:

Guess How Much I Love You?
Hug
Mama Do You Love Me?
Ask Mr. Bear
Counting Kisses
Honey Baby Sugar Child
I Love You All Day Long
I Love You As Much
I Love You Like Crazy Cakes
Kiss Kiss
Papa Do You Love Me?

We are singing:
Skinna Marinky
I Have a Little Heart

Winter Tea-Time:
Wash the dishes
Wipe the dishes
Ring the Bell for Tea
Three good wishes
Three good kisses
Thank you for my tea!

Polly put the kettle on
Sleep, you little willow

Having fun as always!!

Winter Days

Welcome to Finn who has recently joined our growing group. He is a lovely and sweet baby that has caught the hearts of us all.
He will be here on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and has enjoyed swinging in the hammock, listening to our live guitar music, and watching the other children play.
Hannah who has traveled from New York and is 4 years old will also be here for a few hours twice a week with her nanny. She is staying in Branson with her mother, Debra Granik, during the winter.
We have had busy and fun days together reading many new books, learning new signs, singing and moving to our winter themed circle times, cooking and inventing, and creating beautiful works of art. We are exploring the subjects of winter, snow, fairies, knitting, bears, owls and other animals and nature concepts relevant to the season.
Books we have read this week include:
Knitty Kitty by David Elliot
Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
Annie and the Wild Animals by Jan Brett
Animal Signs, First Signs, and Signs for Pets and Animals
Snow by Uri Shuilevitz
The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Secret World by Cicely Mary Barker
The Book of Fairy Poetry by Michael Hague
Where Fairies Dance by Michael Hague
The Secret Life of Fairies by Penelope Larkspur

These last few titles have inspired an interest in building our own fairy houses among the stumps and branches outside.

We have had visits with Karen Day from Educare and Amanda from Stories to Go.
Karen brought us a family themed bag full of new baby dolls, houses and play dishes.
Amanda spent time reading stories about snowmen with the children outside followed by the putting together of our own snowmen.

Thursday soup days have been a success with the children expressing more of an interest in helping to prepare our lunch. If you are able to bring in a favorite vegetable on Thursdays, we will joyfully add this to our soup. This helps the children feel a sense of contributing something from their own home for their friends.

As always, it is a joy having the children in our life and we wish everyone health, peace, and adventure with your little ones.