Rockets

For many years there had been rockets in the playroom.  I don’t think I have ever had an actual toy rocket but the children have built rockets to play with.  Their preferred rocket building materials don’t come from the block bin.  They use items from the housekeeping area.

There hasn’t been any ‘rocket’ play for the past year so I looked for an old picture of the children engaged in this activity.  I have nearly 4500 childcare photos on my computer so this proved to be a time consuming task.  The only one I could find before I gave up was this one;

 

Sorry, it is not a very good quality photo – to get it I cropped a small section of a larger photo.  I don’t actually think they are using it as a rocket in this photo, it seems to be a shaker of something that they are adding to a recipe.  However, they do have the cups placed on the bottle that I wanted to show you.  Here is a picture I just took of the ‘supplies’.

I don’t remember which child originally discovered that those cups fit perfectly on those bottles – it was so very long ago.  It has been an ongoing activity passed on through several groups of children over the years.  There has always been one problem and you might be able to guess it if you look at the above photo (hint: how many cups vs how many bottles).

If only one child was playing then all three cups would be put on one bottle – like the shaker in the first photo.  If two (or more) children wanted to play and have ‘rocket races’ then this would happen;

Seriously, they would never agree to only use one cup on each bottle and put the third cup away.   There was always one rocket that was bigger, and more powerful, that the other.  Some days I dreaded the rocket races.

The rocket play has fizzled out over the last year.  The older children have not passed the game on to the young group I currently have.  Yet, earlier this week the baby of the group did something that was very, very interesting.  Take a look;

I didn’t manage to get them all in the photo but there are three of those milk jugs.  Three jugs, three cups, three rockets that have yet to lift off.  Impressive.  The others haven’t noticed yet, but there are four toddlers….

A New Perspective

This post may seem a little off my normal theme but there is a family childcare connection.  First though, a little history:

I went to a family physician regularly for 15 years.  He saw me through several of my pregnancies and delivered two of my children.  His office was nearby and even after I opened my family childcare home I could make late day appointments that didn’t require me to close the daycare or hire a substitute.  It was perfect – until suddenly he closed his practice.

I felt somewhat abandoned.  Apparently there had been a notice in the classified section of the newspaper but I hadn’t seen it.  I didn’t find out until I called to make an appointment and got the automated message.  I was supposed to schedule a follow-up appointment to get test results and instead I was left scrambling to find a new doctor and discovered that few were accepting new patients.

When I did finally find a new physician there were issues with both his office location and his hours.  His last appointment of the day was 4pm which would mean I would have to leave before 3:30 – earlier than any of my potential subs could arrive.  His ‘early’ appointments were 10am and the one time I tried this he ran late and I had to leave before I got to see him – my sub could not stay any longer.

So, for the last seven years I have only seen my physician for annual checkups in July during my vacation.  Every year he reports that I am his favourite type of patient – healthy.  Still, although I was not actively looking, I did often think that it would be nice to have a physician that I could visit more than once a year – just in case…

Recently I heard of a clinic that had extended hours and they were accepting new patients.  Their location was convenient too so I booked an appointment – on a Saturday!  I went for my first visit and was very impressed. Then they called me back for a ‘follow up’.  Hmmm, that’s different.  I went back and sat in the doctor’s office as he matter-of-factly stated “Your cholesterol level is too high.  You need to improve your diet, exercise, lose weight and we’ll check your levels again in a few months.”

What?!?  I left the office feeling somewhat stunned.  I’m all about healthy foods and an active lifestyle.  I read the nutrition information for everything I buy. This doesn’t make sense.  Maybe there was something I was missing?

I went home and did some research.  I read lists of the ‘best foods to lower cholesterol’ – many of my favorite foods were there.  Our entire menu revolves around whole grains, fruits and veggies.  Nuts, they are not allowed on the childcare menu but I eat them.  Fish – OK, this one is a bit of a problem for me.  I manage to choke down fish occasionally but I find it difficult so I take an Omega 3 supplement daily.

I changed my search to look for the ‘worst’ foods.  There were a few of my favourite ‘treats’ there -  things like french fries and cheese. Yes, I love them but I also limit them.  I don’t like red meat.  There was nothing on the bad lists that I eat regularly.

Then I thought…does the season make a difference?  Turns out that season can have an impact on cholesterol levels.  I normally have my blood tests done in the summer when we spend all our time outdoors.  We are indoors more in the winter – this year’s extreme weather has made it even harder to get outside to play.  I’ve done a lot more snow shoveling this winter but it is still far less physical activity than what I normally get in the summer.

Maybe my cholesterol levels have been higher in the winter before and I just didn’t know.  A visit to the doctor in the winter has given me a new perspective.  Seems I’m going to have to make some adjustments.

Maybe I Should Quit...

When it comes to cleaning up the toys in the playroom I encourage the children to put away their toys before they move to another activity instead of waiting until the mess gets out of control.  My only real ‘rule’ is that as you walk across the room you pick up any loose toys in your path regardless of who used them.  This is more a ‘safety’ rule to prevent tripping.

With a mixed age group there are a wide variety of responses to cleaning up.  The infants and toddlers tend to make the biggest mess.  Often their favourite activities involve clearing all the toys off the shelves and dumping the toys out of the bins.  The dozens of loose toys are then left on the floor and the toddlers move off to explore elsewhere.

Asking or telling these little ones to clean up is futile.  However, that doesn’t mean that I consider this ‘trashing the playroom’ behaviour to be acceptable.  Instead, I simply follow along and pick up the stray toys – I set an example that the little ones will copy at least briefly.  It is the first step in learning to clean up but the little ones think is a game.

With several infants and toddlers enrolled sometimes it feels like my entire day is spent picking up toys off the floor.  It is also a teaching/learning opportunity since as I pick up toys I also talk – labeling objects and attributes – and sort/arrange/organize the items.  When I clean up it often looks like this;

I don’t expect anyone else to put the toys away like this, it is just something I do for ‘fun’ when I have enough time.  Many of the preschoolers also enjoy sorting and organizing so much that ‘cleaning up’ is one of their favorite activities.  The 3-5 year olds are the very best cleaners – and ‘teachers’ because the toddlers love to copy them.

My current group of 1-2 year olds now often pick up loose toys without much assistance – we’ve had a lot of practice with so much indoor time this winter.  They are even starting to put away toys when they are done with them instead of just dropping them on the floor.  However, there is one exception – this box full of miscellaneous soap containers;

These little bottles are somewhat difficult to balance on the shelf under the sink. They tip over so easily that standing them up on the shelf is very frustrating so we put them in the box first and then put the box on the shelf.  Problem solved – except that for some reason the babies insist that the box must be emptied every time they come in the room.  Consequently the area in front of the sink always looks like this;

They never play with these bottles but every time I put them back in the box on the shelf it immediately gets dumped on the floor again.  Guess who is getting frustrated now.  Sometimes, usually closer to the end of the day, I just take the whole box out of the playroom so I don’t have to pick it up any more.  Then one day, when I was in a hurry to clean up before lunch, I just tossed the bottles in the box instead of lining them up;

When the children returned to the playroom no one dumped the containers on the floor.  In fact, the box was not moved off that shelf for two whole weeks!!!

WHY??

Did all four of the toddlers suddenly lose interest in dumping those containers on the floor?  Did they get tired of playing that game?  Did they just not like that I organized the containers in the box?  How is tossing the containers in the box any better, or less enticing, than lining them up?

Are there are other things I should just quit doing?

My Problem With Winter

I have a problem with winter and it may surprise you that my problem is related to the weather.  I know, that statement makes me sound like a hypocrite since I so often promote outdoor play in all types of weather.

Yes, we do play outside every day and we love it – climbing, digging and building with snow and ice.  However, we spend considerably less time outdoors in winter than we do in other seasons like summer when we spend the majority of our day outdoors.  There are parts of our program that I’d prefer to do outside but in winter we need to keep them inside.

So, my problem with winter isn’t really our time outdoors, it is the increased time indoors.  Day after day with extended periods of time playing indoors and I begin to remember all the things I wanted to ‘fix’.  All those parts of our indoor environment that were bothersome last winter but I put off tackling.  Once spring arrived we again spent more time outdoors and all those thoughts faded away.  Now it is winter again and I remember.  With prolonged time indoors the space issues are becoming apparent again.

For example, the sunroom;

The sunroom is where we do art activities and other types of messy play.  I can easily move the small toddler table and then there is a 8′ x 8′ open space where I can put down a tarp for messy play activities.  During quiet time when the little ones are napping in the playroom the older children play and do art in the sunroom.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is the wall opposite the windows.  The wall that is home to the dog bed and the green house.  The problem is that I have four infants and toddlers who love painting, and playdough and sensory bins – and the dog bed.  The toddlers love every activity that I set out on the table or in a bin for them but after a few minutes one of them decides that it would be even more fun if they moved it to the dog bed and soon everyone wants to join in.  Playdough and dog hair, paint and dog hair, bird seeds and dog hair – everything is better with dog hair! Hey, what if we add it to the dog’s water…
Here’s another ‘before’ view that includes the green house;

The green house is where we are supposed to put the things we plant but mostly it just collects ‘stuff’.  In the above picture I’ve already started the ‘reno’ so the miscellaneous stuff is all over the room – just like the way the toddlers prefer it.  The green house is actually pretty easy to assemble and disassemble so I’ve decided to put it away until we actually have plants to put in it and that way the empty shelves won’t be tempting me to fill them.

So now the sunroom looks like this;

There is still enough open floor space for a tarp and messy play but there is no dog bed – I love how the sunlight shines on the toddler’s art table here;

The dog bed is now on the other side of the filing cabinet by the back entrance – the back entrance area now has more space too – bonus!

So now we have a better space for art and messy play until the weather improves and we can move all our activities outdoors again – and I can paint that filing cabinet.  The green doesn’t match anything else in the room but I can’t paint it inside and it is too cold to paint outside….

Back At It

It has been a busy week.  I have several posts I’d like to write but no time to do so.  Today I’ll just post a few pictures of some of the things I’ve observed as the children are settling back in after the holidays.

There was this interesting use for a ‘drill’;

Look familiar?

I have no idea why but this has been the favorite ‘accessory’ for several days;

This was an ‘orphanage’;

This child arranged the bells to play some music and did some colour matching too;

I loved watching the infants/toddlers solve this problem;

Actually, you can’t see it from here – and they couldn’t either which was what the problem was.  The picture above was taken from the open side of the block bin.  The back side has a clear plastic panel which allows the children to see through to the music area but prevents the blocks from falling on the floor where others may be dancing.

There was one little carpet square that had slipped into the space between the bin frame and the plastic panel.  The toddlers could only see it when they were in the music area;

It wasn’t stuck but when they noticed it from the music area they would go around to the block area to ‘fix’ it but from the open side of the bin then they couldn’t see the stray piece of carpet.  On and off for two days they contemplated how to get this piece of carpet.

They’ve fixed it now.  I could have done it for them or shown them how but letting them work it out on their own was better – developing problem solving skills and learning to cooperate with others.