Friday, June 26, 2015

Llamas

It was about 10 years ago when ‘The Llama Thing’ started.  On my ‘old website’ I had written a bit about the children’s interest in llamas, this is an excerpt;

At one time the school age children I had in care became obsessed with llamas.   Originally I think they just liked the way the word “llama” sounded and they liked to say it over and over.  We started collecting pictures of llamas to display around the house.  The children searched the internet and books for information on llamas – where they came from, what they eat, and how to care for them.  They found sites where you could purchase llamas and decided they wanted a llama for a pet.  When I pointed out that we couldn’t keep a llama in the city they wanted to know “why” and set out to find the answer. 

They used their new found knowledge and imaginations to write stories about and build models of “Llamaland”.  They played indoor & outdoor llama games like “Llamas From Space” and “Spy Llama”.

The preschool children never really caught on to the llama thing but because one of our llama poems included other animals too, the younger children developed an interest in rabbits.  We read rabbit books and made rabbit crafts. I set out pop-up houses and tunnels and they spent hours every day hopping about building burrows and dens.   They all became carrot lovers — kids may hate vegetables but rabbits love them!

The llama obsession lasted about two months – I call it an obsession because during that time my school-age children had ZERO other interests.  Some of the parents lamented “When will this llama thing end?”  Listening to the never-ending Llama Song may not or may not have helped depending on which side of the llama fence you were on.

The llama obsession did eventually end but this particular group of children (and I) continued to love llamas.  Years later there was a brief llama resurgence when a new group of children discovered the llama books by Anna Dewdney.  However, this group of children didn’t have much interest in llamas beyond the books.  I still find llamas fascinating and continue to seek out llama stuff.

I was thrilled to discover that Folkmanis had alpaca puppets – they may consider them to be alpacas but for us they are llamas because alpaca is not nearly as fun to say.  :-) I have bought both the stage puppet (this one does look more like an alpaca) and the hand puppet (definitely a llama).

The children have named the hand puppet ‘Mortimer’ but rarely use his name because ‘llama’ is so much more fun to say.  The stage puppet is larger so therefore always just gets called ‘Mama llama’.  Once, just once, I played the Llama Song video while the children were waiting for lunch to get dished up.  Yes, I can see that becoming an addiction very quickly with this group too.  I think we’ll stick to the puppets and books instead.

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Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Quiet Time

Possibly one of the biggest problems with having a mixed age group of children in a small space is nap/quiet time. Every day after lunch the younger children have a nap.  School-age children and older preschoolers who do not nap have quiet time.  The emphasis during this time is on ‘quiet‘ – being respectful of those who are trying to sleep in the adjacent room.  When the older children are off school I arrange the dining room like this;

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There is space for all the school-age children to do crafts, sit and read books, or play with quiet toys from one of the bins. There are blankets on the dividers to offer a little sound insulation but the children are still encouraged to whisper as they talk amongst themselves.  These dividers are the only solid barrier between the nappers and the non-nappers.

Older preschoolers are usually first introduced to quiet time by shortening their nap time.  They have a brief quiet reading time while I get the little ones to sleep and then they also have a short nap so (hopefully) everyone wakes up at about the same time. When there are no school-age children present I use the dividers to create a smaller quiet time area with just enough room for one or two older preschoolers;


 At first reading books is the only activity choice available.  Gradually their quiet time is lengthened and other activity choices such as the felt board may be added.  Eventually their nap is completely eliminated and they are capable of independently engaging in quiet time activities for the entire time the little ones sleep.

Occasionally I have one or two toddlers who wake early.  Now ‘quiet’ is not something the toddlers do well, at least not often.  So, for this reason there are two activities that I allow only for those times when a toddler wakes early but the others still need to sleep longer.  One toddler quiet time activity is puzzles;


I know some of you are now wondering why I would limit such a fantastic activity like puzzles to such a short, occasional period of time.  Honestly, there are so many other activities that we like to do when everyone is awake that we don’t miss doing puzzles.  In fact, even with only a few short opportunities to work on puzzle skills some of my two-year-olds have  already mastered the easy puzzles and now need more challenging ones;

Some of the toddlers much prefer the other quiet time activity choice – stickers!

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Although some toddlers find stickers to be a tedious, often frustrating activity there are others that will peel and stick stickers for hours on end.  So, even though there are always some miscellaneous stickers in amongst the craft supplies I have a large secret stash of ‘just for quiet time’ stickers too.  You never know when I might need a toddler to be quiet for just a little bit longer before nap time is over.

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Friday, June 5, 2015

Planting

Our gardening adventures are not always very successful if you value production – most of our crops tend to fail.  Sometimes it is weather, sometimes it is insects, often we don’t know the cause.  Our beans and grains have been our most plentiful crops but even they have failed a few times. Other crops like our sunflowers and zucchini were fabulous the first time we tried them but we’ve never been able to repeat that. Luckily we prefer the process over the product and every year we are stubbornly optimistic that this year we will have the best garden ever.

As usual, this year we started some seeds early – tomatoes, peppers, purple tomatillo, spaghetti squash, sweet dumpling squash, and zucchini – to give them a head start indoors before transplanting outdoors.  We usually plant dozens of each of the seed types we would like to grow in hopes that at least one of each plant will survive to maturity.



We always have beans, peas, grains and various herbs in our garden. Some of the bulkier plants we plant in my daughter’s yard – it is about a five minute walk away but there is more room there for the plants to spread.  We make many trips over to weed and prepare the garden bed.

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There is also time to engage in another one of the toddlers favorite activities – running circles around the fire pit;


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Last week we took the somewhat sad looking seedlings over to plant in the garden;

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It always feels like a parade when my little troupe crosses the busy intersection carrying all our tools and supplies.  The drivers and passengers in all the cars seem very amused.  This week we headed back to water the seedlings again…..I could only find four out of the dozens we planted?!?!

The children were happy to water the four teeny, tiny seedlings and the empty patches of soil and of course they also ran circles. I was quite perplexed about the plants.  Back home I told my husband about our ‘missing’ crop.  There were no wilted remnants of dead plants – I couldn’t explain what happened to the seedlings.  My husband replied “Probably rabbits ate them”…..

Great, yet another threat to our crops.  Least they could have done was stay to play with us.  Good thing we’re persistent.