Green Olives & Ham

Pretend play: Restaurant

We're doing more and more pretend play.  Whether it be camping under blankets or laying on the beach with our beach towels INSIDE while looking out the window at 10 feet of snow.  We're actually traveling right now, as you will see from the picture below, we're away from the snow.

The great thing about pretend play is that you really don't need to buy any supplies.  We work with what we have and that sometimes means thinking outside the box, which I believe we have done with these laundry basket tables. 

We also used real food (bread, cheese, and water), a bread basket, spoons, paper plates, and napkins.  The server station had a pitcher of water for refills, a computer to enter orders, paper and crayons.

We also had a host (ess) desk with a "Host (ess) will seat you" sign, menus, and a map of the restaurant so the host (ess) knew which tables were available.

You could add so much to this dramatic play theme such as a chalk board to write the specials, table cloths, uniforms for the staff, and of course play money.  It's all about being creative and using your (their) imaginations.

- Michelle
 

February 2010 is ...

I haven't been blogging much because I'm traveling.  But here are the some of the exciting happenings in February 2010.

All Month Long:

- American Heart Month
- American History Month
- Black History Month
- Children's Dental Health Month
- International Friendship Month
- National Cherry Month
- National Grapefruit Month
- National Snack Food Month

February 3: 

- Elmo's Birthday

February 4:

- Create a vacuum day

February 5:

- National Weatherperson's Day

February 9:

- Hershey's Chocolate Founded in 1894
- Toothache Day

February 10:

- Umbrella Day

February 11:

- Don't cry over spilled milk day
- White T-shirt day

February 14:

- St. Valentine's Day
- Ferris wheel day

February 15:

- Family Day
- National gumdrop day
- President's day

February 17:

- Random acts of kindness day
- Ash Wednesday

February 19:

- Mr. Roger's Neighborhood debuted in 1968

February 26:

- Carnival Day

February 27:

- Polar Bear day

February 29:

- Leap Day (Occurs once every 4 years, known as the leap year)

For the full list, see About.com.

The egg dance

I have days where I'm walking around with such a creative block.  Yesterday was one of those days.  The whole not getting even 5 minutes of sleep and feeling really headachy all day didn't help.  And of course the Patriots lost so ....

But the days where I'm lying around all day amounting to nothing are long gone.  My daughter does play well by herself (even though it seems lately, she wants me to play with her 24/7), which I end up doing (it's the whole guilty feeling about her being an only child).  And of course I love to play with her, but sometimes I need to clean and do laundry and just take a break.

So we did take a break and as we were sitting on my daughter's bed just resting and trying to figure out what to do next, I saw a basket and a toy egg and thought -- sure there's an activity right there.

We put the basket on its side and tried to roll the egg into the basket.  It was actually easier than I thought and because I was rolling the egg too hard, it hit the bottom and did sort of an "egg dance" in the basket.  So my daughter called this activity "the egg dance".

 And oh what fun we had ... doing the egg dance.

- Michelle

Pretend play: Bowling alley

I've just realized that pretend play or dramatic play (as it was called in my college days) is not something that we touch upon too often.  I'm not sure why because it's actually one of my favorite children's activities. 

So with every new year comes a whole bunch of change (or just a little change, or none ... not sure, yet).  Basically, I feel like I need to make some slight changes with this little blog in the sea of blogs, but I'm just not sure what changes those are, yet.  And of course, sometimes when you (or I) try and make changes, they just don't stick. 

Anyway, here we have our bowling alley:

This is just the lane.  What you don't see is ...

- the register that we also made using a cardboard box and all of our play money
- the box for the balls (which is only one ball)
- the table to get your bowling shoes
- another table for refreshments.  It is filled up with lots of great healthy "snacks"
- and our score cards

Of course when you create these activities, you never know where they are going to go.  Children's imaginations can take them in so many different directions, and it appears that this direction may be to the roller skating rink. 

My daughter's favorite Christmas gift this year was a pair of Dora the Explorer Jr. Skate Combo in Vinyl Bag (Size 6 - 12), and she has just discovered how much faster she can skate on cardboard than on carpet.

- Michelle

January 2010 themes

As some of you may know, I love the idea of themes, it just doesn't always happen.  We tend to start strongly and finish with "What were our themes again"?  But if you do themes each month, here are some ideas for themes from across the world ... wide web.

Disclaimer:  I'm going to be adding some links to sites, where you can purchase curriculums.  I'm doing this only to let you know where I got the idea for the theme.  I do not purchase curriculums, as I find them incredibly expensive.  I also feel that it can be quite overwhelming to have all these activities and lessons in front of you at one time.  So I don't have any experience with these curriculums and am certainly not recommending them.

The first is from Mother Goose Time.  Their January 2010 theme is "Dinosaur Dig".  Also in January, they do the letters T, Q, and E; the numbers 5 & 15; the square shape, and the colors yellow & orange.  How they determine all this?  I have no idea, but it all sounds great.

Next, is the Learning Box Preschool.  Their January 2010 themes are Penguins & Polar Bears (which I love by the way) and "Soups On".  Also in January are the letters P, I, and Y; the number 6, the shape oval, and the colors white, yellow, and black.

At the Preschool Corner, their January 2010 theme is Weather & Seasons, New Year's and Martin Luther King's Birthday.

At apreschool.com, their January themes (I have no idea if this is old information, there is no year indicated) are New year's week, hibernation week, color week, and Teddy Bear week. 

And finally, at Green Olives & Ham (Oh, wait that's us), we haven't really decided on themes, but our activities will certainly revolve around new years and Winter.  I know the first day of Winter is in December, but with all the holidays in December, we didn't touch on Winter.  So we will in January.

We'll continue our letters of the week, but honestly they are not planned in advance.  We decide on this stuff at the very last moment.  And I'm more of a spur of the moment type.  Having a set schedule is, well I know that it's helpful for children, but at the same time, I enjoy the less regimented life that we currently have (I don't know how much sense that makes, but I think you know what I'm getting at). 

Seriously though, we won't have this too long.  With preschool (besides the Green Olives Preschool, of course) and kindergarten around the corner, it's all a matter of organized chaos soon.

Boy, this post took an interesting turn.  Happy New Year!!

- Michelle

January 2010 is ...

All month long:

- Hot tea month
- National Braille literacy month
- National soup month
- National staying healthy month
- National thank you month
- Oatmeal month

January 1: 

- New Year's Day

January 2:

- Boo Boo Bear's Birthday

January 3:

- Festival of sleep day

January 4:

- Louise Braille's birthday

January 5:

- National bird day

January 6:

- Bean day

January 7:

- Old Rock Day

January 9:

- National Apricot Day

January 11:

- Milk Day
- Secret Pal Day

January 13:

- Poetry Break Day
- Rubber Duckie's Birthday (From Sesame Street)

January 15:

- Hat Day

January 18:

- Winnie the Pooh Day

January 19:

- Popcorn Day

January 20:

- Cheese Day
- Penguin Awareness Day

January 21:

- National Hugging Day
- Squirrel Appreciation Day

January 22:

- National Blonde Brownie Day

January 25:

- Opposite Day

January 27:

- Chocolate Cake Day
- Lewis Carroll's Birthday

January 28:

- Ernie's Birthday (From Sesame Street)
- National Kazoo Day

January 29:

- National Puzzle Day

January 31:

- Backwards Day

For the complete list, see about.com.

- Michelle

New Years Eve party noisemakers

Here's a fun craft for your preschoolers to make for a new years eve party.  Of course, my daughter certainly won't be up until midnight on new years eve (and neither will I), but I'm thinking that we could count down to noon rather than count down to midnight.

Well, this noisemaker will sure come in handy.  I actually got the idea for this craft at About.com.

We used a paper plate that my daughter painted with her new Melissa & Doug paint.  We folded it in half and taped tissue paper to the bottom.  We added brown rice inside and really taped and stapled the thing closed.  Seriously, every nook and cranny is stapled and taped for fear of rice all over everywhere.

Such a simple and festive craft.  And my daughter is having a great time shaking this noisemaker, while singing "Happy new year, happy new year, happy new year ......".

Of course she doesn't quite understand the whole new year thing, so here are some books that we're reading:

And for more new years crafts, please see the article:  New Year's arts and crafts for preschoolers.

- Michelle

Letter of the week: T is for time

With New Year's coming up, I thought it would be a perfect time to do T is for ... time.  Not to mention, my daughter's curiousity about time.  She's been going through a "What time is it" stage for awhile, and she loved this project.

As you can see, it can be somewhat confusing because my daughter kept saying T is for clock, but we went with the project anyway because it just seems appropriate this week to talk about T for time.

We used a paper plate as the clock and had a picture of an actual clock in front of us so that my daughter could see that the numbers on a clock are somewhat different than counting.  She helped me add the number stickers, which we got from Melissa & Doug Sticker Collection - Alphabet & Numbers.  We added the capital T and the small T, which we printed on the computer.  The minute and hour hands I copied from the Big Book of Patterns, Grades K-6 (from The MAILBOX Magazine people).

For more letter T activities, please see my article:  Letter of the week:  Letter T activities.

- Michelle

We're your "dressed up" backyard friends: the Backyardigans

The Backyardigans (who are all dressed up for their holiday party) from left to right:  Pablo, Uniqua, Tyrone, Austin, and Tasha

Wishing you a happy healthy creatively fun 2010!

- Michelle

I was featured ...

I'm a little late at posting this, but I was featured at the Examiner.com.  Check out the article, as well as, all the other great articles that Starr has posted at her Examiner site.  She has lots of creative stuff and it's definitely worth the read!

Thanks for the article, Starr!

- Michelle