Back to School

     During the back to school season, I always get a feeling of melancholy. Going back to school after a summer break was a big deal! My favorite part was getting new “tennis” shoes. Some people may call them athletic shoes, or sneakers. I believe it depends on where you are from as to what you call them. It’s kind of like, do you say soda, cola, or pop. Most of us born and raised in Southwest Virginia call our athletic shoe tennis shoes and it doesn’t matter that some of us have never played tennis in our lives.
So, with new white Nikes or Reeboks and my new Levi’s that were so stiff, they could walk to the bus stop by themselves. I would make my way through the halls, stopping to catch up with my friends, finding out your schedule, your teachers, your homeroom, where your friend would be and of course your crush.
My teachers left such impressions on me there are things that I do in my classroom today that is a direct result of my teachers. My wish is to impact children in ways that hopefully stimulate lots of thinking and challenges them to step outside of the box.
We have completely conquered counting aloud in Spanish and are now learning to count in Japanese! It is great fun and the children enjoy it so much. This is an activity we do during transition times throughout the day. Transitions are the toughest part of a toddler and/or preschooler’s day. Adding signals or cues make transitions so much easier for all of us, plus it is a fun thing to do.
Our fairy garden is another huge success for us!

Miss Amy found some nice galvanized trays. We then added some aquarium gravel. Then we put in some potting soil. Next, we spread the grass seed/mulch mixture and watered it. The children found some really great decorations and ornaments to go inside.

 

They chose objects that they felt may attract friendly fairy’s and then they waited….and waited….and waited some more. At last, we saw the first signs of bright green grass. That is when Miss Amy thought a ‘grow light’ may come in handy and how right she was. WOW! What a difference a day made. We now have a beautiful lush grass so thick and long that Miss Stephanie had to give it a ‘hair-cut’.

We have been busy, busy, busy…We even made, and ate, Purple Stew!

If you have been following our blog then you know that this is our most favorite song and dance. You can find it on YouTube GoNoodle Purple Stew. The recipe is rather simple; It contains purple potatoes, purple carrots, purple onions, purple cabbage, a couple of beets, corned beef hash, some V-8 juice, and little bit of blue food coloring. Viola! Purple Stew! We all liked making it and most everyone enjoyed eating it.
Back to school season is a time of renewal and reflection. I’m excited to begin the process and build new relationships. I am very proud to watch a few students graduate to the older classrooms upstairs and spread their wings a little. I fondly remember a teacher that let us go for a walk and brought in exotic fruits and vegetables for us to taste. The teacher that encouraged u to make a big mess and sing a little louder. So maybe this is why I always “need” a new pair of “tennis” shoes every August and why I now like “soft distressed” jeans rather than those 505’s that could stand alone.

Until next time ~ Miss Micha

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Picture This!

Spring is almost here! (I think…)

Is anyone else having trouble figuring out what to wear day to day or is it just me? One second it’s 70 degrees outside and the next it feels like 6 degrees with wind chill! What is happening?! Luckily, despite the crazy weather, we have been plugging along just fine here at Miss Amy’s and we’ve even braved the frigid weather so we don’t lose out on the fun the outdoors has to offer.

We love chalk!

And buckets! We love buckets too, even when they’re stuck to our bottoms.

And lately, we have really enjoyed building ramps and jumping balls all over the porch and yard. We’re getting pretty good at it!

The crazy creatures we build have been getting stranger and stranger by the day, but we love them anyway.

Especially when they remind us of cookie monster!

We know we’re always on the run…

And we know that things can get crazy.

We’ve all made this face before!

But, in all seriousness, we do it in the name of creating the best experience possible for each and every child that steps through the door and into our lives. We know that children are challenging and that it can be hard to listen to every story and have patience with every little potty problem or dinner disaster, but this time in a child’s life is so important. It’s so important to put aside the craziness and that face we’d all like to make at times and get down on their level and really listen, really talk, really be there for them. It’s hard; I know it! But, I will never stop striving to build a caring relationship with every single child. Because relationships shape the way children see the world, how they develop, the types of adults they grow into, and more than that, they make my life so much easier! With a relationship, I can sit down and ask a child questions about their behavior and we can reach a conclusion together by thinking about what we know and what we did and both come out the other side better for it. Without a relationship, I’m as significant as an ant about to be squashed beneath a boot. Relationships just make everything better. I want what is best for each child and this is one way that I can accomplish that goal. It’s important to me, so I wanted to share it with you. Thank you for taking the time to read my spiel and please follow this link to find more pictures of the past few weeks!

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

 

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)

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)

Picture This!

Happy Saturday! I just wanted to take a second to let y’all know about the new art themed picture based blog post series I’m about to start up. Each week, I take oodles of pictures of the art that your wonderful children are producing day in and day out and I wanted a way to share this outside of my normal blog posts. So, every few weeks, I’m going to update “Picture This!” with new pictures of our recent art! Don’t worry, still the same blog, just a running series of posts within and I’ll always call it “Picture This!” Excitement! Now, without further ado…

The kids love this book, so I thought we’d find a way to incorporate it into an art activity!

In case you’ve never read Sneezy the Snowman, he melts over and over again because he’s too cold and keeps trying to warm himself up by drinking hot chocolate, sitting in a hot tub, and standing by a fire.

Here’s a link to a reading of Sneezy the Snowman on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RiHfYElP-M

First we painted snowmen and decorated them and then, using straws, we blew our snowmen into oblivion!

Looks like a melted snowman to me!

Next, we decided to take normal Play-Doh to the next level and draw on it!

Each child got their own hunk of white Play-Doh and then took to it with markers.

And once they’d finished drawing on it, we mixed it up with great success! Beautiful!

Played with our Play-Doh…

And even practiced our letters.

Our end result: Play-Doh as unique as each child’s imagination and a great future toy!

We also tried our hand at replicating snowflakes!

All we had to do was place tape on watercolor paper in the shape of snowflakes…

Paint…

And pull the tape off!

Not one snowflake like any other!

With Pajama Day coming up and yet another book we all love, we started making our very own red pajamas from all manner of materials, including tape, noodles, and glitter.

Here’s a link to a reading of Llama Llama Red Pajama on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD1g3P-nKWo

After we were finished decorating our pajamas, we could move on to the next step of making sure we put heads, hands, and feet on our pajamas.

Because headless pajama would be scary – Eek!

Some of us wanted to use yarn for our hair and others just used pencils and crayons.

But either way, we drew our faces, painted our hands, and stamped our feet and soon had…

Pajama clad versions of ourselves to take home on Pajama Day!

We also painted many a picture over the past few weeks, something we quite love to do.

You just can’t go wrong with paint!

Our creations included this car, which looks like it came straight out of a children’s book…

And the Moaning Lisa!

We circled back around to snowflakes and tried our hand at decorating them too.

Once more, not a snowflake too similar!

We had a few sensory tables thrown into the mix as well!

Here, our biodegradable packing peanuts are dissolving in water…

Being squished by children…

and rolling around in a bucket of shredded paper “snow!”

Can you tell yet how desperately we are hoping it will snow very very soon?

Finally, we built things, drew things, and just played and had fun!

Wiki Sticks!

Spaghetti and Meatballs!

Melty Beads

Loose Parts

Look at that structure!

HAPPINESS!

It’s only a snapshot – I take at least a hundred pictures a week – but hopefully it brings you into our world of art and exploration. Until next time!

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

A Blast From the (Recent) Past

Hey y’all, it’s been a while since we last posted, but – oh buddy, let me tell you – this holiday season has been crazy! From Trick-or-Treating with all the kids at Halloween, to Thanksgiving, to our annual Christmas party, to New Years, it has been a very busy time. Just add fifty odd children, some snow, sand, freezing pipes, and general chaos and that about sums us up! But, in the best way possible. We’re getting ready and raring for a fantastic next year, but first I think we should do one final recap of some of the fun things we did last year. I’ll warn you now, it’s going to be a long one!

Reminiscence #1: Pumpkin Slime!

Between Halloween and Thanksgiving, at the height of fall wonder, we decided it would be fun to make some pumpkin slime. All we needed was some hot water, glue, borax, and orange food coloring and we were in business. Our end result was gooey and slimy, slick, but sticky. Sometimes it stretched out and sometimes it snapped right in half. We could mold it into different shapes and watch as it melted back into a gelatinous mess. It was a great opportunity to explore a new material and tons of fun too!

Making the “Great Wall of Slime-uh” (Hehe, get it? Great Wall of China, Slime-uh?)

We also really enjoyed writing our names in slime before it became one giant puddle!

And, last but not least, where would we be without a slime highway to get us from place to place!

Reminiscence #2: Preserving Fall Leaves

If you’ve never tried to preserve some fall flora between two sheets of wax paper, I’d highly recommend it! All you have to do is find some leaves, grass, or flowers, and gently iron them between wax paper. Depending on what you choose to preserve and what you want it to look like, you could create a great little picture like the one below. Alistair was very careful in his placement of his leaves and grass so that he could create a wonderful scene of two leaf people. I personally think they are Mom and Dad leaves and are walking hand in hand with their leaf baby. He even gave them smiling faces! Too cute!

Reminiscence #3: Magnifying Glass Fun

Remember when you were a kid and you first discovered the strange and mystifying magnifying glass? Of course you spent the next hour running around your house or school, magnifying everything humanly possible. But, no matter what you found and made big, nothing ever compared to making your own face strange and distorted. Gigantic eyes – all the better to see you with, and a huge mouth – all the better to eat… er, smile at you with!

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Reminiscence #4: Construction Zone Ahead

Here at Miss Amy’s, we really really like to build things. In the above picture, Astrid decided to craft Santa’s sleigh and if she’d had the time to build eight reindeer and hook them up to the sleigh, she’d have done that too. And, by golly, if she could have put in an “electronic chip,” she’d have been well on her way to making it fly “like a drone.” Isn’t imagination wonderful?!

A few other things that have been built lately include Astrid’s skyscraper (above), two lovely “tornado” proof shelters for when Hurricane Kt hit, and sand castles, just for the joy of experiencing what packed wet sand can be sculpted into.

Speaking of packed wet sand, some of the children decided to test their engineering skills and wanted to build sand bridges. They started out trying to use the wet stand to build bridges above ground, above a river they’d dug out, but it wasn’t working. The sand kept falling off and breaking. It just wasn’t sturdy enough. That’s when they got the idea to try building bridges by digging tunnels. When the sand is dry, tunneling never works, but this time, they were able to make a complex system of tunnels or bridges. They even tried digging a tunnel so big that they could crawl through it!

Reminiscence #5: Wearable Creations

When I was a kid, I remember spending endless hours pretending to be different animals. Sometimes I was a bird sitting on a nest of pine needles I’d scraped together around myself and sometimes I was a big cat, stalking through grass and hunting my prey. But, no matter what I was doing, I imagined myself transformed into that creature. At the time, it was the best I had. I didn’t have access to tons of paper and glue, scissors, tape, and string. I only had my own imagination. The children here though, have far more. Instead of just imagining they are a shark swimming through the water, they can make it real.

I don’t know about you, but that’s one terrifying shark to me!

Some of the older kids like to make other things they can wear too. The other day Astrid made a wonderful paper and string headband that I wore almost the entire day, as well as a funny mesh hat. And not long after that, Raleigh decided he’d lost on eye in battle and needed to make a spectacle so he could see.

Reminiscence #6: “Shadows”

Oh my goodness, since the kids discovered this, it has been one of the most exciting and fun things to do on a bright sunny morning. When the sunlight shines in through the windows, the children with grab anything that reflects light and cast “shadows,” as they call them, around the room. Then the other children will chase the shadows and try to catch them as the shadow-throwers move them erratically. Sometimes I feel like a disco ball has just dropped from the ceiling with the number of little light balls that are flying around the room!

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Reminiscence #7: Miscellaneous Moments

We also decorated gingerbread cookies. Tasty!

And saw the creation of this amazing little frog!

We were the best of friends…

And we were thankful for every minute!

Thank you all for such a great year! I had a blast and I’m looking forward to making this coming year even better. There is truly, never a dull moment here, even when all we are doing is playing in the sandbox. We are always learning and growing, learning about physics, chemistry, biology, language, love, the works! And always growing into our best selves. This is the place to be. We love it here and we hope you do to. Happy New Year everyone!

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

It’s A Small World After All

Our kids love sand and water, so we are always trying to come up with new and inventive ways to present it. Outside we have a huge sandbox and access to water but on these frigid days it’s nice to have an indoor alternative. Small world play is my favorite way to present  this.

If you’re not familiar with Small World Play its very easy to set up. First, pick a theme, arctic animals, desert, Christmas, whatever you can think of. Then pick some elements as your base, usually mine is sand or water. Then add different trinkets to add to the experience, focus on what you want the children to learn  and go from there. Small worlds can be as simple or complex as you like. However, don’t get too hung up on keeping it looking perfect. This is a sensory experience and children will treat it as such!

Today I set up an ice rink and ice skaters. The rink was made on a cookie sheet, and the skaters were made by putting figurines in an ice tray with water. Simple! We read Pearl’s New Skates by Holly Keller to go  with this activity.

The kids loved playing with the ice ! They were alarmed when it started to melt, but that was a teachable moment. They also enjoyed freeing the figurines from the ice.

Here’s an example of a complex world I made for Thanksgiving.

Many of the kids enjoyed Thanksgiving world. They recreated different stories we told them about the pilgrims and the Native Americans. Then there were other children who had other plans. They buried the marbles and went on “treasure hunts”. That was OK too!

Here’s an example of a water based world used in the summer. It was Swamp themed! We were trying to steer a Ninja Turtles obsession into a learning experience!

Initially we used plain gelatin for rocks. The children quickly realized they could crush those. That ended up being a great idea because it gave the water a sludgy texture that the children loved!

You really can’t always foresee what will happen during small world play. Supervision is key, but let the children make their own decisions  .

-Miss Amber

Robots: Phase 2

Today we have gone 3-dimensional with our robot building and exploration.

It is fascinating to listen to the children describe what they are building and what each part is on their robot. Some children focus on the outside of the robot…structure. Others, are more concerned with the inside…function. Robots open up to reveal batteries, gears, or other elements. Some have propellers and other special features.

And all of these rockin’ robots are made with our recyclables and other rather random items from the tinker bins– caps, lids, old tubes, bottles, twist-offs, ties, and stray bits, plus tin cans and painted water bottles and play dough cups.  A little duct tape and some hot glue seals the deal.

 

Robots: Phase 1

Robot exploration has begun these last two weeks in the fours/fives classroom and our atelier speaks to the ways children can build skills while building ‘bots. They began today with simple robot images copied on paper which they combined with shapes they cut from recycled construction paper and their own robot-part drawings. Although the three elements were separate activities, they quickly evolved into a sort of robot factory on the table, with imaginative combinations of drawn, cut, colored and collaged robots.

The ability to choose helped some children begin with a skill they were already comfortable with (such as coloring) and then challenge themselves to try  one they might be less adept at (cutting), and to combine them. As we progress with our robot building, it will be exciting to see the robots that take form from working in 3-D with various materials. And I can only imagine the number of C3POs and R2D2s we are going to end up with. Stay tuned….

–Miss Lori,  Atelierista

 

 

 

 

Arrival of the Autumn Fairy

For two weeks the atelier has been a hub of leaves and sticks, a host to hues of gold, russet and brown, and the center of what may be a new ritual: the creation of the Autumn Fairy.  With chicken wire, an iron stand, a styrofoam head, and lots of found materials, recycled paintings, and fall nature treasures we worked until we felt she was ready. Meet the ironically named April,  our Autumn Fairy:

The children were nearly obsessed with her having a head. We began with her skirt, but they continually asked for her to have a head. They proposed using everything from a smoothie bottle from someone’s lunch to an osage orange from the Fall findings basket. The first head attempt comically failed, but the new realistic one was greeted with relief. The children said she needed pink lips. “She must have them!” Her final embellishment was a stream of thankfulness ribbons woven into her skirt- streaming down with each child’s statement of what they are most thankful for in this season of gratitude.

A happy, grateful Thanksgiving to all. –Miss Lori, Atelierista