Mother/ Daughter Day

So it's just one of the months where everything seems to be happening all at the same time! I was gone for two three-day weekends in a ROW! So by the end of all that my daughter was REALLY needing some mommy time! Which wasn't that hard to oblige her with! Since we are both off on Fridays I told her at the beginning of the week that Friday was girls day! I built it up all week, reminding her and telling her I had a surprise for what we would do that day. I came up with a Photo Scavenger Hunt!

The idea was this: Everywhere we went that day and everything we did - she had a checklist that she had to complete of items to take a picture of!

So for example - our first stop was Hobby Lobby. I needed a couple things and she actually enjoys shopping with me so on her checklist for Hobby Lobby were the following things:

1. Something made of glass
2. Something made of wood
3. A decorative basket
4. A mirror

I think that store was definitely the easiest because I mean holy cow the options are endless!!
We continued on with where we went for lunch included things such as a napkin, a ketchup packet (she wanted Chic-Fil-A) and someone else's shoe! A stop at the frozen yogurt store had items such as sprinkles, a plastic spoon and her finished frozen yogurt creation!
It went on a on because we had QUITE the full schedule for our day but I successfully wore her out (and me too in the process) and she was SO thankful for our day together! It was so fun and it's so important to take those moments to set aside time, yes even whole days, to just devote to your son or daughter. Would you like to see a couple of her pictures?? hehe...okay.

(picture taken in Hobby Lobby)

(picture taken in Tutti Frutti)

Don't you just love how I modeled her plastic spoon for her??! The day was so fun - try it with your baby girl (or boy)!

Valentine's Day Bulletin Board Idea

Here is a simple and cute bulletin board idea for the toddler classroom. The way it is shown here is by taking a coloring page of I think it's Tenderheart bear?? and having each child color their bear (pink for the girls and blue for the boys) Then I took ink stamp pads and put the kids thumbprints in the heart on the tummy and the pads on the paws and ears.

I used pink for the girls and purple for the boys.

Other alterations could include:

1. Printing out the kids faces and gluing them onto the Care Bear's face so it's literally YOUR students on the board!

2. If kids are older you can have them paint or decorate with something fuzzy like yarn or cornmeal or sugar (just dye the cornmeal or sugar to desired color).

3. If you have a small enough group print out all the different Care Bears (tenderheart, hugs and tugs, braveheart, grumpy, etc...) and each child can be THAT Care Bear!

How to entertain a little boy...

In my class this week we were learning about Abraham and Sarah and their trip to Ur. I had planned on bringing suitcases and bags with common items you would pack for a trip. The kids were going to have to pack the bags! However one day it was dumping rain and we had tornado warnings and I got distracted by the bad weather and headed out the door without the suitcases. So when I got to school I had to think fast! My idea for the kids was to make a road out of masking tape and have car and trucks out for them to TRAVEL on the road with!

It was a HUGE hit! The boys especially loved taking the cars and zooming them down the road! It was an accident but I'm glad it happened. Now I only had about five minutes to make this one little road (as you can see in the photos) but you can get as creative as possible! Just tape a road onto a kids table or maybe make a whole map out of a cheap rug! The sky is the limit!

Here was my small version - and since it was such a hit I actually did it on most of the table the next day, excluding my little railroad track thing.

A good rest and a good read

Oh my sweet blog! How I've missed you so! However, as crazy as my fall and winter had gotten I really needed a true rest. I spent Christmas in Kansas with my entire family, then laid around and read as much as I possibly could on my Kindle and just finished spending three weeks with my parents visiting here! And I don't know what "parents visiting" means to you but to me it means that between my mom and I's cooking we eat GOOD food and a LOT of it, we get to go do something fun and magical cleaning fairies always appear while I'm away at work! Haha, it really was fun and I hated to see them go but it's time to get back to a regular schedule and hopefully some more regular blog posts! Wouldn't you say?!

I am working on a couple of posts for the future and one very good guest blog post which I think you will be highly interested in, however until then since I have been avidly reading during my break I decided to share with you what I've gotten myself into.

The Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan

I was leery of reading the series because yes it has all the Greek gods and goddesses and demigods etc. in it. However a friend in the faith whom I trust told me she read it to her older son and that she, and her boy, really enjoyed them and as long as it's to an older audience that knows this is FICTION then it does have some educational value along with a great storyline. With every god or creature it introduces it tells the history of it as per Greek Mythology. I have never known a lot about the subject so this easy reading series has been very intriguing to me. It has adoring characters and is written with humor and cliff-hanging suspense!

So I don't know what your thoughts are on the series but it has been some great reading and awesome entertainment to me for a few weeks now. I only have one book left!