Picture This!

It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood, a wonderful day for a neighbor. Oh, would you be mine? Could you be mine?

Holidays are magical times for children. What lasts a mere twenty-four hours for us adults goes on for days and days in a child’s life. There is no Valentine’s Day, but Valentine’s week! I’m actually still not sure it’s over… But, it was fun!

On Monday, in preparation for Valentine’s Day, Miss Amy made some amazing homemade angel food cake with a ton of eggs that we got from our lovely chicken Tilley and I worked on making little heart shaped pizzas with the kids.

They were incredibly tasty little treats and a great way to start off our Valentine’s week. Oh, and before I get too carried away, here’s a picture of our chicken, Tilley. She is very sweet and the children love to feed her leaves and grass and she happily gobbles them up.

On Tuesday, Valentine’s Day, we had fun eating the angel food cake Amy made and picking our handmade valentines out of the box. We also had some brownies and fruit salad and all in all, it was a day of much sugar and much love. I apologize now that I don’t have more pictures of the events I speak of, but it can be difficult to step back and photograph when you are in the moment, enjoying it, helping the kids.

Wednesday and Thursday, we continued making valentines for each other, coloring hearts, and we retained our focus on compassion and love. On Friday, we made adorable heart shaped cookies for snack and everyone ate far too many of them. I may have made more than necessary though, like 30 more than necessary. Oops!

Throughout the week, we also had a “Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf” provocation which encouraged the children to try building with different materials, such as straw, sticks, and “bricks” or Legos in our case. It also gave them the opportunity to play and re-enact the story while simultaneously crafting their own new stories with the same familiar characters.

I so desperately wanted to call them the three little bears and the big bad mouse, because my ability to make spoons look like pigs and a wolf was laughable. Thank goodness for the powerful imagination of a child!

Over the past few weeks, we’ve also has a grand ole’ time with feats of engineering, from building ramps – jumps included- to digging tunnels, to intricate games of “Don’t fall in the lava!”

It was quite a good week! And with that, I bid you adieu. I promised myself I wouldn’t write a crazy long blog post this time and I’m sticking to it! That said, I still want to be able to share photos and stories of some of the fun things happening at Miss Amy’s, so I created a photo album where you can explore more photos from the past weeks and all the weeks to come! Just click here: More Pictures! Happy Sunday y’all!

~ Miss Kt, Clubhouse Kids Teacher & Atelierista (Art Teacher)

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Picture This!

Valentine’s Day is nearby upon us! And, here at Miss Amy’s we like to make Valentine’s Day special by making our  very own special paper for our valentines. It starts with ripping up a ton of normal paper.

Then we let the paper soak overnight and strain the water from the bin.

We blend it all up…

Strain it again and press until we’ve got paper! In order to get all the water out, we had the kids jump on the paper while it was pressed between two towels. By far the best part!

Our paper as it was drying

The now completely dry paper, cut into “squares” for Valentines decorating

Commence decorating!

Painting, Glitter, Glue, Pencils, Markers, Paper, the works!

The glitter was our favorite part!

Now that all of our valentines are finished, they have been put in our Valentine’s Day box. On the 14th, each child will get to reach in and pick out a valentine. Each valentine only has the maker’s name on it and who it goes to is random, but everyone gets a valentine from a classmate.

Of course, after we did our generalized valentines, the children wanted to make valentines for their parents, siblings, and one another, so we set about doing that.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve also had fun with Play-Doh (an old favorite), paints, and pencils/markers!

We made scratch art, little clay figurines, and crowns too!

In case you were wondering, it’s a teddy bear!

Each week, in addition to our normal art activities, we have a sensory table. We had a mixing table two weeks ago and an ice table last week. We tried painting with ice as well. It didn’t turn out so great, but we had fun eating our “paint.”

And, last, but not least, I just wanted to share a picture of what art might look like on any given day.

Children all over the place, cutting, gluing, painting, using punches, and coloring.  It is a wonderful thing to see, children exercising their creative muscles, showing us how they see the world. It is my goal to help them in this expression and to see the world through their eyes. To know as they do, the miraculous nature of everything. They are the future and this is their vision and I love being a part of it. It is my great honor. Until next time, my friends.

~ Miss Kt, Clubhouse Kids Teacher & Atelierista (Art Teacher)