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.