Turkey time

 I hope everybody had a great thanksgiving. I am still full. 

Before break, we were busy making a turkey time table topper.

I had the kids do everything on this themselves, so some had more streamers/color.  I drew the face on.

For music and movement we played Autumn Tree.

We matched the leaves on he tree. 

After a few times of showing the movement, we sang a cute song while matching.

 Tune to row, row, row your boat:

on,on,on the tree.

The leaves go on the tree.

Red, orange, and yellow, too.

The leaves go on the trees.

Off, off, off the tree.

The leaves fall off the tree.

It's getting colder everyday

The leaves fall off the tree.

The kids were soon singing their own 

version of it!

This week we start our My senses theme. 

I can smell the fun! 

Bushy squirrels.

  I hope everybody had a great thanksgiving. I am full and ready to take a nap! 

The friends had a great time making squirrel tales.

They were so cute dancing around wearing the tails.

         Paper bags 

         Sentence strips

         Combs

       (Not pictured)

        Brown paint  and newspaper 

I played the song grey squirrel, grey squirrel for them and they shook Their bushy tail

 

 

 

Cute bushy tails. 

They had so much dancing around and shaking their tails! 

Bears sleep

I We finished our the week by pretending boxes were caves and having bears hibernate. 

I even found one if my friends hibernating. She said she was sleeping until it was warm! 

Did you know Funshine express has many other things than just curriculum? They have extra curriculum add ons. For example, they have these alphabet letters  that can be made into a book or just left alone. These are for ages 3-5, however my toddlers love decorating the letters and it is a good way for them to lean the letters. When a parent was checking out, get child pointed to the letter B and said "B". How cool is that?

It makes my heart burst when I see imagination explode. My friends pretended that they were in a cave and they were listening to a book. 

We will continue our it's getting colder theme next week. My Inhome  is only open Monday and Tuesday, but we will do a bunch of activities so I can post. 

Hope everybody had a great weekend! 

Brrrr.. its cold outside

This week we started our It's getting colder theme. It sure has gotten colder. No more shorts and flip flops. Pants and boots. The temperature has dropped a lot since last week so it is perfect that we talk about the season change and what happens when it gets cold.

 

At playtime I showed all the kids a picture of a bear from our picture card and told them I had some fun things to tell them about bears. At circle time we talked about how when it is cold out, we stay inside more and cuddle in a favorite blanket and that keeps us warm.

Just like us ,certain  animals like to sleep in a warm place during the winter. I asked the children where do they think bears sleep when it gets cold to stay warm?

 The most common answer was a bed. Well that makes sense!

I showed them a picture of a cave and I had one friend say "A rock?" Well, I guess it is a big rock.

 

 



One of the games this month that came in the Buttercups curriculum was a in and out opposite game. It had "in" and "out" on it and the idea was to put the animals in the forest or off the trail. I have a few older part time friends that come and Austin was lining them up by size all the trail.
We talked about each animal and which ones might sleep during the winter.



Leaves falling are one of the first signs that fall is here and it will start getting colder.
In each fun shine express kit, comes a music cd that has specific songs for the themes and activities . Last year the cd had a song called Autumn leaves are falling down. I played that while the kids threw the  leaves in the air  and then pretended to rake them up and jump in the pile. It was a lot of fun.
 

 

One of the creative arts activities was to glue a bear on blue paper,
rip tissue up for the cave
and then tear a doily in pieces to represent snow.

 

I love reading this book because it is just like normal life. The bear sleeps and some animals find the cave and make noise, but the bear never wakes up.

A pepper kernel got in the bears nose and made him sneeze. {I love that part because I will pretend to sneeze and the kids giggle and giggle.}

He wakes up and eats and has fun, but then cannot fall asleep. Everybody else did though. Sounds like parents trying to get their kids asleep. Right?

Here is a super cute video that I made. We were pretending to be bears that sleep.

 

Dragon shakers

As the end of the year approaches, I always observe the children getting the routine down pat and just blooming from the first day of school. They are sitting longer for circle time and getting into creative arts more. 

I just get giddy seeing the littles grow out of the toddler stage and into little people.

Soooo... We have had a  super fun time learning about castles and kings. 

We made these really cute dragon shakers. We used markers in a wet coffee filter and observed the difference between wet and dry markers.

After they were completed, we danced to to a dragon song that was on  the Funshine curriuculm cd. We danced over and over to it. 

I made finger paint and glitter sensory bags.

Of course the idea came from Funshine express. 

The kids really enjoyed manipulating these.

One of the books that came with the curriculum was Big box for Ben. 

It is about a boy who received a big box and used his imagination to pretend it was different things.

The kids really enjoyed this book. The more I read it,the more they remembered what things he made from it.

We built with different size boxes and they pretended each one was one of the items in the book. How cool is that?

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Next week we will be exploring colder weather with its getting colder, however its not real cold here yet,but it will prepare us for when it does.

Castles and kings cont...

Castles and kings has been such a fun theme. The kids have really had a lot of fun. 

When introducing something new, I take out every item and explain how it works.

Water colors were something we have not explored this year so I was curious on how it would go. 

I showed them how to dip paint brush in water and then rub the color and rub on paper.

Success ! The mess was limited and the smiles were endless. The kids really enjoyed using water colors .

Block building is the all time favorite play area in the room. These 2 were building really tall castles on water ( or the Moat.)

So in the Funshine curriculum, it always has facts about certain topics we are talking about. Now, maybe I was the only one who did not know this, but castles sometimes sit in a small trail of water call the moat. Huh.... I never knew that. I always learn something as well using Funshine express curriculum. 

These beauty's are water colored castles we were working so hard on.

I am excited to finish the week up with more castle and King fun. 

 

Jewels and tea parties

Happy Friday friends!

We do not have much going on this weekend, which is rare. Any plans for you all?

This week we continued with kings and castles. 

Sometimes when I first introduce a theme at circle time, I am not quite sure if they understand what we are talking about,  but out of the blue, I will hear a child say, "I am a king" or "I wear a crown." 

This morning I had a parent at arrival time say that when she mentioned they were driving to Coles house, her son said "Cole lives in a castle" I enjoy hearing things like that. It confirms that I am teaching and they are learning.

To continue on with our theme. We had a tea party and took turns pouring the tea and passing the muffins around.

One of the games that came with buttercups curriculum was a crown and the children had to decorate the crown with jewels. With some games, I like to put them on the table and just observe what the kids do when they see it. Some will play exactly how it is suppose to be played, others will figure out another way. 

These 2 figured out right away to place the jewels in the crown. 

The shape of the month is a star. I like the star because it's everywhere. You look up at night and hopefully see an abundance of stars. 

At the beginning of each theme , there is a book list. 

Looks like this

I may not get all of them, but I pick a few that I think would be fun to read and  those I read all month.

The more repetitive with a book, the more the kids will get involved and will know what will happen next. 

For the star shape I choose this book

It's the song twinkle twinkle little star, but with some fun extensions. We look for the stars on each page.

Next week we will still be learning about kings and castles.

Ps: if you are wanting more info about Funshine express, just click here. 

Kings and castles

We certainly enjoyed the fun farm theme, but are ready to move in to Kings  and castles.

The first activity we enjoyed was making a royal crown. 

I have to say, this was a perfect activity because I live in Kansas City and we all know that the Royals took the Crown👑

Funshine express rocked with this one 😉

Yay!!! Anyway, it came at the perfect time.

 We finished them today.

One of the early math activities was a Old King Cole mother goose story/rhyme.

I put magnets on the back of all the story/games so that the children know it stays in the tray and it is easier to manipulate.

We counted the fiddlers, wondered why he wanted a bowl, what a bowl is used for, what colors were each fiddlers.

Because it is fall and there are leaf piles everywhere, Carter enjoyed sorting the leaves into different leaf piles.

Remember to follow me on Instagram @coleykidscreations and like my Facebook page. Coleykidscrestions

Buttercups

Happy Friday! Since we finished our curriculum, I thought I would do a post on what comes in the buttercups curriculum. If you followed along last year , I did a video on what came in the fireflies.

Buttercups is for ages 0-36 months.  

  With the buttercups, theme last 2 weeks instead of a month.

All of this came in the box. A finger play, games, sign language chart, attendance  circles and much more. 

These are the creative art activities. The have all he materials needed. The extras are glue, scissors .

With Buttercups, there is not a designated day to do these, where in he fireflies there are certain days.

Buttercups give 2 days to complete. We all know toddlers cannot sit for a long time , so breaking it up makes it easier to complete.

Funshine always provides 2 books that go with the themes.

Also 2 manipulatives come with curriculum. 

These rings are used to make a crown , 

but also they provide entertainment

 for the one infant I have. 

Somethings are the same in both curriculums, but Buttercups curriculum just had simpler things.

A fun fact that I learned from Funshine.

Buttercups is named after the flower buttercup which symbolizes "childishness"