Like Mama ~ Like Daughter: An Enchanted Childhood~ Daycare: January 24th-28th

We have been asked many times to write up our "lesson plans" so others could use them. Honestly, we just spend a little time thinking about how we want the "school year" to look and go from there. We wing-it a lot, doing impromptu things that add to our plans. I am always amazed that anyone would think what we do is worthy of writing down for others to read, but here it goes!

This year, we are doing "Childhood Classics"--reading great children's books--you know, the kind every child should get to know, and then doing little activities to go with it.

A fun activity we did this week was bubble painting! You mix dish liquid, water, and paint and blow bubbles into the mixture letting it overflow the cup and spill onto the paper. Then you allow the bubbles to pop on their own, creating cool designs.

We read a great book, The Long Night Moon, about the names the Native Americans gave the various full moons. January's moon was called the Stormy Moon. The children made their own "stormy moon" using blue and white glitter paint.

Tuesday--we were not feeling too creative due to colds and such, so we decided to use the solar system stickers I had bought a while back.. on black paper. Looked good and led to a long discussion. First we talked about the planets and looked at a map of the solar system. That led to a discussion of Neil Armstrong and his famous moon walk in 1969. We watched the video of him stepping out onto the moon and planting the American flag. That led to putting a flag sticker on our paper. While playing with playdoh the children made "moons" and used the golf tees to be the flag. Next thing we knew the farm animals were astronauts and the "cow jumped over the moon". So a totally noncreative day led to a lot of education going on!!