Cathcing up once again....

We have been making lots of memories lately, Keeping super busy. This is a sensory bin we played with.










Kids played for over an hour with this and enjoyed eating the snow!











This is another sensory bin which is still in use. Cornstarch and water. its so awesome!













This is Mopsy and Flopsy they are two rabbits we got from friends but they are getting beat up outside so we brought them in. they may be a little spoiled now.














We played musical instruments the ones on the left are from our trip to Guatemala they are drums and flutes. The ones on the right are the sets the kids got for Christmas a few pieces are missing from this picture.



The boys love there robots and transformers they played with these for a full day and wanted to bring them to the table for lunch and nap time.


I have a theory that says boys are rowdy and girls are pack rats. This is an example of the girls being pack rats. They love bags and filling them with stuff. This bag has all the dishes for a tea party. Its amazing the things i find in bags.

Leap pad these are a big hit with my two year old girl i watch. She played with these off and on two days straight.


we got a hamster and this is the one animal we have that i think Sophie our dog would actually try to eat. She heards the rabbits and thinks they are her babies.


This is our Guinea pig Hank. We will soon be changing his cage from this Tupperware to a diff cage Sophie loves to crawl in here when we are gone. I couldn't believe she got in! She let Hank out once and had him cornered in the other room guarding him when we got home. Saying look at me he got out and I got him cornered. As if I didn't know!



The kids got these adorable chairs for Christmas, Here they are playing house. Sitting in chair with tea party and reading books.


AK got these for his birthday, we play these constantly they love the match game and go fish. I had to put them up for awhile so we could play other games.


Dino's They lined all of them up in a row then we counted them and sorted them. We had 43 Dino's! AR can count to 100 and is very proud.

Ak is now in wrestling and AR likes to jump in once in a while. They are doing a half nelson here in these pictures. Its pretty cute seeing them wrestle.



AR is a girl scout who of course gets to sell cookies and she is very proud of it. these are just a few of the ways they play with the boxes:

Towers


Brick wall










Fort









Robot

Ice cream birthday party/ sleep over and Sensory exploration

This weekend we had an ice cream party and sleepover for my daughters 6th bday party! We made cupcakes in ice cream cones and had an ice cream game we set up for the girls to play.



I had other activities to do but they decided they wanted to play shop with toys and cash register.



we played in the bouncer/ ball pit then had movies and pop corn!




Today we had the pleasure of exploring shaving cream and silly string in our sensory bin today. This kept the kids busy for about an hour each. What a fun day.



We then played education games on the computer at www.ABCmouse.com. We played outside for a short while but due to the kids getting cold and must not have felt like playing outside for too long.

Always hug your children...Everyday

Calvin Steeke 4 years old.

This is a sweet little boy who has touched the hearts of so many people in his 4 years of his life. He (as well as the many kids I have do or will take care of) has become one of my children and part of the family. His life ended a week ago, last Sunday due to a farm accident. God has taken a special boy to be a special angel who will be strong for his family and the hundreds of people he has left behind. God allowed me to be a support their family on their tragic day. My favorite memories of Calvin are of his smile, fighting with him to come in for lunch, he always seemed to have dirt or food on his face and watching him line up the cars and tractors in his special order. He will truly be missed. God took a wonderful little boy to help him be a wonderful little angel to help watch over the loved ones he left behind. We may not understand the why of this but he does have a plan.
Through the sad time this family is going through they do want to spread words to help others out in any way they can. They want people who have kids on the farm to be more aware of the dangers. Also they are telling everyone with who has kids to "Hug your kids .....every day"
We have been wearing blue in honor of Calvin and lighting candles and leaving our porch lights on at night.

Organizing the toy room

Due to a very upsetting weekend we didn't have much for group activities we have been doing individual activities chosen by the kids. We have also rearranged the toy room. Everything is now more organized and at a level for the kids. I didn't think about doing before pictures but i did get after shots!
This is what you see when you first walk in the toy room. in the left bottom corner is our sensory table and under it is our light table, spinner, and a tub of blocks.



the green table we will have a bin of books, coloring books etc. the pink doll house is on a table we also use the tables for stations. (update in the near future)


Behind the green table we have a book shelve with two barns and a bin with tools. (kids use the tools when playing doctor....Maybe this should be my clue to get a doctor kit! :D)



The wire racks on the top left are paper organizers i have all our craft paper, stencils, coloring books, stickers and the busy books i have made. (I will fill you in later) underneath we have homemade chalkboards, and extra lids for our small bins, to the side we have giant book and giant search and finds.





The big table in the middle is what we use for arts and crafts the big white board is actually a cardboard box i turned into a word board. (will explain at the bottom of post)




Above the word board we have these shelves the bottom shelf is home for the puzzles, knex, place and trace, lace ems, and our pattern shape pieces. The top shelf is out Math shelf we have play money/ cash register, car trouble game, dice, fake money i printed of and laminated so we could use for our circle time. ( we talk about who/ what is on each one etc...) we have cooties, don't spill the beans, math mats, counting/adding/subtracting puzzles, and the blue bin holds magnetic pieces which should be on the literacy shelf oops!



This shelf is our literacy shelf we have our tag/ tag jr bin, leap pads and binder, an ABC game, bingo game i printed off, pick up stick version with words on them, container with words for word-board, literacy eggs, I spy game along with puzzles with words and matching picture, ABC puzzle with matching animal for each letter, Zingo game etc...



Next to literacy we have science bins ( we are still growing) we have a talking microscope with slides, pine cone, wasp hive, think it through game. We also have practical life bins. ( I made a clothes line with foam clothes etc. We are still growing this as well.



Next to these we have our paint along with paint supplies ( brushes, shape sponges, sm containers of paint )




More pictures of the room from different angles.


we have five of these three drawer bins they hold items like babies, barbies, blankets, diaper bags, mr potato head, waffle blocks, cars etc.... on top i have yet more bins i divided the animals up for our different themes, we have little pet shop animals, people etc... in the sm bins. This has decrease the mess making.



Above these we have three shelves full of our sensory and craft supplies everything from glue, staples, crayons and markers to water beads, wooden beads, pipe cleaners, felt, and tissue paper.
To the left of the closet where the other two three drawer carts are we have a heater and on the shelf above the heater we have our library I have divided them up and put paper in between the different categories until i can get baskets for the categories!

this is our small but wonderful toy room we play in here and in my living room as well were we have a marker board/ look and find board and our circle time/ calendar these will soon be added to the toy room....


Now for the word board......

I took a large cardboard box and folded it down flat.
put white contact paper on one side
added long strips of velcro to the board
made words and letters to put on the board
added Velcro to the back of the word
let the kids play
super easy and kids have so much fun making funny sentences!