Thursday, August 27, 2015

Making Room

Sadly summer is nearly over and school will be starting soon.  The littles and I have enjoyed having the school-age children here for full days but I’ll admit there was a brief period in the Spring when I was a little apprehensive about having enough space to accommodate the older children.  The dining/art area was originally set up like this;


This arrangement worked OK when the school-age children were only here for a brief period after school.    The school-age table was folded down out of the way most of the day leaving me and the preschoolers access to the toddler table and also plenty of open floor space for group projects, sensory bins etc.

However, when everyone was here it was difficult to have them all in this room.  The toddler table had to be pushed tight in to the corner  when the school-age table was up. It was impossible to have both groups seated comfortably at the same time. School-age children often had difficulty accessing art supplies without assistance.

So, I rebuilt my desk in the corner where the toddler table had been and moved the toddler table to the former desk location.   This switch enabled more space around all the tables AND it gave me more desk space to pile papers on too!

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It looks a little crowded in this picture but the highchairs and school-age table can easily be moved out of the way to open up a large section of floor space when needed.  The old school-age table is still folded against the wall – I brought out the larger table for the summer so the children had room for larger art projects.

The new box window that we built during my vacation now houses all the art supplies, lets in plenty of light and no longer has only a view of my neighbour’s dining room.

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The toddler table now only has one side against a wall so all six chairs are usable all the time.   This means that the smallest children can join the group at the table when they are ready instead of remaining in the highchairs because there is limited space.

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This flexible arrangement has worked well all summer and I’m certain it will continue to once we (sadly) return to the school-year schedule too.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

By Design

Many, many years ago I had a large plastic kitchen in the housekeeping area;

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My biggest issues with this kitchen were that it was bulky, a horrid colour and it was unstable. It was so easily pushed/pulled over by small children leaning on it or trying to open the doors that I always had to have it strapped to a nearby wall or heavy object.  The thing that amused me was that the children often used the microwave as a washer – stuffing dress-up clothes inside the teeny tiny space to clean them.

In 2009 I replaced the plastic kitchen unit with wooden appliances built into the housekeeping area.

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Along with the fridge and stove I also included a stacking washer/dryer and the dress-up clothes were conveniently located nearby;

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I had designed this washer/dryer unit because the children had previously shown interest in doing laundry during their dramatic play activities.  They did use the new washer occasionally to wash clothes but the dryer was rarely used to dry clothing unless I suggested it.  Maybe it was because the children were not familiar with seeing a dryer stacked on top of a washer but from the day it was first introduced the children used this ‘dryer’ as a microwave oven.

When the playroom was rearranged a couple years later I created a separate dress-up area and moved the washer/dryer away from the kitchen area and placed it in the new space.  The children diligently continued to bring their food from the kitchen all the way to the ‘microwave’ in the far corner of the play room.

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During my most recent playroom renovation I was unable to find a good location to put the washer/dryer unit.  I wasn’t concerned about eliminating it since the children rarely used it.  However, I did disassemble it and reuse some of its pieces.  The ‘dryer’ door was added to a shelf in the housekeeping area to create a new ‘microwave’.

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The children were thrilled.  For weeks now they have been using this new ‘microwave’.  Occasionally they cook food in it but mostly they think it makes a great garage for parking the cars which they bring here from way over from the far side of the room.

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Maybe I should design a garage – I’m curious to see what that could become :-)

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Bibs

In the past I have only occasionally put bibs on infants/toddlers during meals.  Usually just if they were eating something particularly messy.  However, my current group of toddlers has developed a bit of a bib obsession.

In the beginning, one of the two-year-olds insisted that they must always have a green bib.  That was fine – I had two green bibs and two orange bibs.  The other ones and twos did not express a color preference so of course that meant I could arrange the remaining bibs to create patterns around the toddler table – I might be a little obsessed by patterns.

The green-bib toddler also insisted on wearing a bib for EVERY meal and soon all the toddlers would begin a bib chant as soon as they were seated at the table. Fine, wearing a bib for every meal is not a bad habit to get in to. Then one day, the oldest in my preschool group – almost four-years-old and never wore a bib – joined in on the bib chant.

I hesitated briefly then asked “You want to wear a bib too?” She answered ‘Yes’ with a somewhat mischievous grin.  Someone can count – four bibs and five children.  I asked her what colour she would like and then proceeded towards her with the orange bib she requested.  She quickly changed her choice of colour and when I then picked up a green bib she admitted she didn’t really want a bib at all.  Problem adverted – now I again only had four children who wanted bibs and I had four bibs.

Then, Mr green-bib decided he wanted to shake things up and wear an orange bib instead.  The ‘we don’t care what colour our bibs are’ toddlers suddenly DID care and the bib chant began to include their colour choice.  I anticipated another problem and made a quick weekend trip to Ikea to get more bibs.  I now have four green bibs and four orange bibs and four toddlers that want bibs and they can pick whichever colour they prefer.

Except now I can’t always make bib patterns around the table – but I can still create colour patterns when I hang the bibs up ;-)

Friday, August 7, 2015

Water Day

Every summer I schedule at least one ‘Water Day’.  Of course water play is not limited to just Water Day.  Water is one of the ‘loose parts’ that is seasonally available through spring thaw, rain, and water collected in the rain barrel.   Some of the children choose to incorporate water into all their daily outdoor play activities whenever possible.

However, Water Day is never a spontaneous activity – it requires planning, plenty of set-up time, and the right weather conditions – hot enough so soaked children do not get a chill.  On Water Day there is water everywhere in the yard which actually makes it a little difficult for me to take pictures but I still try.  Here are a some that I took on our most recent Water Day.

The water table;


The rivers/water ways;

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The bins;




And above us the mister hose covers the yard ensuring no one can avoid getting at least a little wet;

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Water fun day :-)