Category Archives: Uncategorized

Some of our Black History Month Activities

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IMG_5780Not all the people in this picture were discussed but it’s here because I love it.

During Black History month the children learn some things about Martin Luther King Jr, Garrett Morgan and of course our beloved Bob Marley.

The children were given information about Martin Luther King Jr., as it pertains to his strong leadership style, and desire to have children of all race equally attend school. He dreamed of children playing together regardless of their race, ethnicity and color. It was easy for them to understand because of our diverse environment.

We did an activity with the traffic light in honor of Garrett Morgan, he invented the T-shaped traffic light. The children colored the traffic light and even played one, two, three red light.

Bob Marley music played a lot during this month. My daughter says, ‘he has the same hair as us!’ – cute but true. And I say, ‘ he is from Jamaica like mommy!’

… red light says – stop / yellow light says – go very ,very slow / green light says -GO! IMG_5324

   and they are off!!

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 traffic light outline for them to color with crayons provided

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    shading within the lines

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….Still shading

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 final product. Notice – the light is now housed in as seen on the traffic signals:)

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Thrifty Meals

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Is it just me our is the cost of food constantly rising? My household eats mainly fish and poultry which, spins off into the items I purchase for the daycare operations. In the summer I love to get produce from local farmers market like; Yorktown, Lombard or Downers Grove but off season I find myself at : Trader Joe’s, Ultra, Jewel, Wholes Food and Aldi’s. I usually spend between $150-$200 for weekly grocery shopping – this included the cost of feeding my family and running the daycare, purchasing household and daycare supplies. Do you think this is too much to spend on a small business operation and for a family of only four?

I am working on ways to cut back cost while providing nutritional meals for all. I recently received a newsletter on the ‘thrifty thirteen’ foods and thought, I would love to share this information and ask your opinion. I got this information from my government agency that holds me accountable for each child nutritional staple.

The list of Thrifty Thirteen Foods are:

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  • Spinach
  • Banana
  • Berries
  • Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Beans
  • Tomatoes
  • Cauliflower
  • Carrots
  • Apples
  • Cabbage
  • Tuna
  • Watermelon

You can substitute the menu depending on your meat preference or dietary habits. Click here for information from the US Dept of Agriculture

Click to access foodplansrecipebook.pdf

Let me hear your thoughts. 🙂

Mittens and Insulation

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Mittens and Insulation

Purpose : To see which mitten is a better insulator? Does layers keep us warm?

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We placed a ziploc bag containing one ice cube in a mitten and set it aside

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In another mitten we tucked the other pair of mitten inside along with the  ziploc containing one ice cube

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We then set the ice mittens aside for a few hours. We wanted to see if the ice dissolved or not.

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We discovered that the mitten that had more layers kept the ice from melting, and the ice in the mitten without layers melt at a faster rate .

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Conclusion: Layers are better insulation during the cold season.

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The lonely balloon

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The lonely balloon

A purple balloon that was left over from a get well party I had for my own kids caused a stir in the daycare. It so happened that the lonely balloon was bouncing all over the room when one kid got it and asked, ‘why is it up there and not down on the table?’

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And so a demonstration ensued.

The children were asked to let go of the balloon and observe what happened.

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Giggles filled the air as they desperately tried to catch the lonesome balloon from way up there.

One child said, ‘I know how to make this stay down here!’ And he sure did – he clipped the balloon onto the clothes pin and it was going no where.

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See…I helped to secure it for them:)

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It was good that the children though preschoolers had fun with science.  I believe it was too abstract for them to understand the use of gas in the helium balloon. Following this activity the children asked for more balloons and because I had no more of the helium balloons they were given the skinny ones to play with.  As you can see they had fun knocking things and hmm each other.

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Balloons can be choking hazards so, if you decide to play with these in your childcare keep an active eye on the children or do not use with children under 2 years old.

Fine Motor Skills

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Our fine motor skills activities were loved by these children.  They find simple things fascinating and I enjoy seeing them try to grasp and maneuver these skills.

I gave them some marshmallows and ask them to place these on skewers….oh boy …it was a joy to see how trying this process was for them.  As you can see it took a lot of thinking, aiming and persistence to get it done.  We then use the marshmallows to color paper using blue and yellow to make green as seen in the other post.

The pear they are cutting up was picked from a neighbors pear tree.  I did not allow them to eat it but they sure had fun dissecting it.

The Lite-Brite Cube they are working on is a sure hit for the rainy days when they are stuck indoors.  I like it but warning it’s not a good tool to work on when you have babies around…(for those who have babies in the mix).

Thanks to Melissa the mom who always help me when I ask her for chopsticks. When the children saw the chopsticks they were expecting food..haha.  No! I gave them the chopsticks to  hold the cotton balls. ….See the intense look at some of the faces.  Can you see the heehah moment on the young lads face.  I love my job!!