Summer 2023

 Wow! So much to write, so little time. Sad that I haven’t been writing any posts about our activities or any of our new ‘stuff’. Yes, the grant funding we’ve received through the Federal funding for childcare has been wonderful but also very time consuming. Spending money is easy but trying to balance ‘wants’ vs ‘needs’ and make the best decisions so I won’t be faced with ‘I wish we had bought that instead’ after all the money is spent – that is hard.

In the Spring when the grant funding was first announced I was already in the midst of making my summer ‘vacation’ plans for revamping the outdoor play space so those plans got a little more upscaled. I knew we had to remove the old rotted wooden pergola but we used that pergola to attach the sun shades for the summer. My south facing outdoor play space can be unbearable without shade – so my first purchase was two retractable awnings.

The old sunshades provided wonderful shade over most of the back yard but it took a whole weekend to get them up using clamps and ropes attached to the house, carport, and pergola. Once they were up, we had no view of the sky until fall when we took them down. On many cloudy or cool days we would have preferred to not have the sunshades but it was far too difficult to take them down temporarily.

This is a view of the yard after all the work we did on my ‘vacation’. You can see the framework for the new awnings but the awnings are not in use as this pic was taken in the early morning when there was little sun. I still struggle with deciding if I should say the awnings are ‘open’ when they are folded and we can see the sky and closed when they are unfolded and covering the yard or vice versa. Either way, all summer we loved to have the option of having sun or shade depending on the weather when we were playing in the yard.

I also purchased more turf tiles – we used to only have a small ‘grass’ area inside the old pergola but now it is twice the size and more open without the pergola dividing the space. We also have a new ground level deck area along the fence side that we use for the easels and other art activities (the deck tiles are easy to clean and have no spaces big enough to lose crayons and paint brushes etc.

The turf tiles are thick rubber and placed on the mulch – both help cushion minor falls which is nice for the climbing structures and the new Ninja Slackline pictured below (also notice the awning is providing shade in this pic).

This summer we finally installed the large laundry sink (on the to do list last year). It is not a new sink, just a new location, and we have always had access to both hot and cold water here but now it is much more convenient to use.

Moving along to the other side of the yard, we have a new, slightly sloped bridge across the ‘river’ in the water area and two new blue tunnels. The children like to pretend they are swimming under water when they crawl through these tunnels – I want to paint some fish inside the tunnels but haven’t done that yet.

The bilge pump and water supply has a new location now too though I actually have plans to modify this area more before next summer so this is only temporary. The water from the pump flows under the bridge and down the ‘river’. The sprinkler hangs from the awning frame above the water area so we can make it ‘rain’ when we want the water area really wet (there are holes in the tarps so water does not pool).

At the far end of the bridge is the gravel digging area – we needed the bridge higher here because the gravel area is more than a foot higher than the ground at this point. Plus, having a sloped bridge is extra fun  I chose to move all the gravel into the little covered ‘house’ we built last summer. The ‘house’ is in the corner of the yard which helps to keep the gravel contained in the area where it belongs and the roof above provides shade at all times of the day – particularly nice because some children like to sit and dig in the gravel for hours every day and I don’t want them to bake in the sun.

The picture below is the view from inside the gravel area.

I moved the talking tube (central vac pipe) from the building area where it used to be. Now it runs along the fence from the gravel area to the water area. I also added some elbows to the pipe so the children don’t look straight through the pipe when they are talking. Not that I minded them using it like a telescope, but some of them couldn’t grasp the concept of ‘talking’ into the tube when they could see through it and would get very frustrated that it didn’t work.

In the space where the gravel used to be is our new ‘music’ area. It is still not complete. In this picture there is nothing ‘new’, we have had the chimes, drums, and other noisy things for many years but now they are all together in a defined space. There are more turf tiles and our old stumps here for seating options. There are multiple different surfaces and items that can be used for experimenting with sound. Since this photo was taken I have purchased some Boomwackers and am collecting some additional ‘music’ making items to add in the future. (Donations are welcome if you have anything that may be useful here).

View of the entrance to the music area – the Virginia Creeper has grown a lot and now covers most of the back and left side of the area – naturally containing the sounds in an acoustic chamber.

The building/construction area of the yard has not been moved or rearranged but I did purchase a large resin storage shed to store the massive amount of loose parts we have accumulated. We have far too much to have all of it out at once and our little toy shed only holds small bins and could not possibly contain all our building supplies.

A tiny peek inside the shed – this is less than a quarter of what is being stored here. Kept out of the elements but still handy when we want additional options beyond what is available in the loose parts bins.

Summer Recap part 2

 In my last post I covered some of the changes I had made to our outdoor play area. I mentioned that I had built a new roof over the little house in the corner of the yard and that moving the bus benches here made this a favourite sit spot all summer. However, I did not have a picture to include in my last post – but I do now;

I also promised to write more about some of our summer activities so that is what this post is for. Although International Mud Day occurs before my summer vacation, I never write about it until after. I didn’t write a dedicated ‘Mud Day 2022’ post but I can’t have a summer activities post without at least a couple mud day photos. This particular group was highly motivated to wash muddy toys so much of the activity was ‘mud on, mud off, repeat’.

The building area of the yard was popular all summer – surprisingly more popular than the water area or the climbing wall. Often, we had all eight of the children wanting to play here at the same time though they still preferred to create separate small ‘homes’ in a ‘town’ rather than work together on a single, large structure like other groups have in the past.

The gravel/digging area, of course, was always popular though usually only for smaller groups at one time. It was interesting to note that, no matter what the activity was, these two were always choosing to play together. The oldest and the youngest in the group – nine years difference in age – but they played so well together all summer. Observing friendships like this is one of the things I like best about having a mixed age group.

We also started a collection of ‘nature stuff’ to use to make mandalas. Some of the children only liked the ‘collecting’ part, others preferred simply sorting the items that were collected on our walks. Only a few actually seemed to enjoy creating the mandalas though.

As usual, we went to parks almost every day to play tag or other group activities that require a big open space that we can’t do in my yard. I almost never take the children to playstructures but we do love the climbers they have at St John’s Park.

Whenever the basketball court was empty, the children always wanted to play line tag.

Some of the children tried cutting tree cookies. Even though we only used small branches this was a surprisingly difficult/time consuming activity. The children who were persistent enough to cut all the way through were very proud of their achievement – so was I 

Fantastic Summer!

A Variation

 

I didn’t manage to write any posts about our activities this summer. Additional screen time from virtual meetings may have been a factor that deterred me from computer related activities like paper work and post writing. My preference for spending time outdoors over indoors was definitely a factor too, but that is nothing new. Probably the main reason I didn’t find time to write was due to our schedule and some of the changes I made to it.

This summer was different than usual because I had a much older group of children. All my part time ‘inservice day only’ school-age children needed summer care and with some juggling of family vacation times I was able to accommodate everyone. I also chose to wait until fall to fill a vacant infant spot so, for the summer, that space could be used for a school-age child.

This unusual grouping meant that only one of my children was under four years old. It also meant I was busier than usual and there is oh so much TALKING. Transitions between indoors and out, play and meals, etc take soooo loonngg. Honestly, dressing five toddlers for winter play takes less time than getting seven 4-9 year olds to stay focused on what they need to do to get ready. So much time discussing/planning what they are going to do – please just do it!

I was expecting this – I had witnessed it on inservice days even when ALL of them were not here. The older ones tend to arrive later than the little ones – maybe because they are used to the later start of school classes or maybe because their parents face similar delays getting the out the door at home. I decided to make a few changes to our daily routine to lessen the delays.

Usually the little ones have been here for an hour or more already and it is almost morning snack time when the older children arrive. If I let them go play ‘for a few minutes’ until snack then we have a transition from arrival to playroom, a transition from playroom to snack, a transition to get ready to go outside – which will also require a bathroom break because the first two transitions and snack took an incredibly long time. It will be at least 10:00AM before we manage to get everyone out the door – no way I’m waiting that long before going outside to play in the summer!

So, I decided to make some adjustments to our (my) schedule and in order to do that I’d have to modify the menu. In past summers we have occasionally packed snack to take with us to have on a hike or at the park. On our regular menu not many of the morning snacks are portable so I created a special ‘summer’ menu in which all the morning snacks were portable. Our picnic bag was packed and ready before the older children arrived. The younger ones who arrived early had some indoor play time, bathroom break and were getting ready to go outside when the older ones arrived – also ready to go because they hadn’t actually come in.

That one schedule change meant we were heading out about 30 minutes ahead of our ‘normal’ schedule when I have only preschool children but up to 2 hours earlier than if I had let the older ones play indoors and have snack before going out. It also meant we got our walk, picnic snack and active play/tag/game time in the park early in the day before it got too hot. We still had time for lower energy, outdoor constructive and creative activities in the yard under the sunshade before lunch.

Since that schedule change required a modified morning snack menu, I decided to do a completely different ‘summer’ menu for lunches and afternoon snacks too. Even though I intended to ‘simplify’ the menu for summer, it turned out to be a very time consuming endeavor.

I involved the children in the menu planning with discussions on what they would like to have the following week. They were not very helpful. There were the some who loved everything and couldn’t decide and others who really would prefer only marshmallows and gummy bears. We did try a lot of new recipes – some of them were very popular and have been/will be added to our regular menu. I might have time to write a post about them sometime in the future.

However, there were many weekends when I was left scrambling because I had no idea what groceries I needed for the upcoming week because I still hadn’t completed writing the menu. Meal prep was also arduous as unfamiliar recipes required more time and thought even if the recipes were ‘simple’.

Nap/quiet time in the afternoon was shorter with mostly older children. I barely had time to clean up lunch and only very occasionally got to take a ‘break’ before it was time to get nap/quiet time stuff put away and start prepping afternoon snack. We had ‘refreshing’ afternoon snacks like frozen fruit smoothies or ice cream and berries before heading outside again until home time. Some days I didn’t sit down at all between 6AM and 6PM. When I did finally sit down, writing blog posts was the last thing on my mind.

The older children have all gone to school now. Our routine is changing again. We have welcomed two new infants into our group. The four-year-olds are adapting to their new role as the ‘big kids’ setting examples for the new ones. The former ‘baby’ of the group is now suddenly the ‘middle’ child. It has been surprisingly quiet – and I’m doing a lot more sitting because if I stand there will also be an expectation that I carry one, or more, of the children.

It is another variation – a new phase – in a mixed age group in family childcare.

Sunflowers & Squirrels

Squash, peas, beans and sunflower seeds are large enough that the toddlers can plant them independently so we plan to grow them in our garden every year. We always grow a little bit of wheat so we can grind it into flour and bake something with it. Tomatoes are a staple in our garden too but we usually purchase seedlings to ensure we get plenty of tomatoes. Each year we also try some different things for variety – this year it was dill, radicchio, and carrots.

The weather was crazy this summer – most of our plants did OK but not great. All four types of squash failed to produce any usable fruit. The wheat and radicchio started off nicely and then fizzled and died – first time we’ve ever had a complete wheat crop failure. We had a fair number of tomatoes and a few beans and carrots but would have liked more. The sunflowers grew very well – almost taking over the whole garden.

We had planted two different types of sunflower seeds but there seemed to be more than two varieties of sunflowers – many different sizes and colours, some stalks with just a single flower, others with multiple flowers, some with few seeds and others that were mostly seeds. These fancy ones were my favourites;

The sunflowers created a lot of interest in the garden. Butterflies and bees were plentiful all summer long.

Squirrels were also frequent visitors in our garden – and they were not overly concerned about sharing the yard with toddlers.

The cats were entranced – probably wished they were allowed outside too instead of just watching through the window.

The squirrels were very messy – leaving piles of discarded shells and debris all over the yard.

They also left our sunflowers looking like this;

Luckily we still managed to collect some seeds to plant next year – and we discovered that the seeds from those fancy sunflowers turn your fingers bright purple!

Even without seeds the sunflowers made wonderful loose parts for outdoor play. The biggest one was a whopping sixteen inches wide!

Both squirrels and sunflowers were welcome attractions in our yard this summer.

Mud & More

June 29th is International Mud Day – something we celebrate every year.  This year the school-age children were thrilled that there was no school so they were able to join in the day’s activities.  I had the water table set up full of dirt – it was up to the children to add the water and make the mud;

I also put out another bin with plain water for hand washing but some of the children enjoyed making repeated trips from mud to hand washing and back so really there were TWO mud bins.  I cleaned the hand washing bin and added fresh water several times but it always looked like this;

Because of this;

We were outside all morning and the children took breaks from mud play to build bridges;

play tag, and capture things like this;

There was a five minute downpour which was very exciting after I reassured the children that we would NOT have to go back inside.  We do often play in the rain but because we didn’t have raincoats and boots some of the children were concerned that we were not properly dressed for the weather.  However, it was Mud Day and everyone had clean clothes waiting inside so  all that rain was just a bonus It created some muddy puddles and the tarp became a slip and slide;

and the mud table got soupier;

Then, one of the children notice that the first tomato has begun to grow.  Three of the children decided to ‘watch’ it for nearly 20 minutes ‘waiting for it to turn red’.

I think maybe it will be ready when they return in two weeks – after my vacation.  I wonder if they will remember to check, or will they be too interested in exploring all the other new things – my ‘vacation to-do list’ is two pages long.  I love vacation time but the return of the children is so exciting too!

Summer Holidays

So, today is the last day before my ‘holiday’ begins.  As usual I have a HUGE list of projects to complete this summer.  Some of them are smaller projects that will be done on weekends.

The ‘big’ project will involve rearranging the parking area, moving the fence,  and an overhaul of the gravel area and loose parts storage.  I wrote about the plans last Spring – read about it here.  We already built/moved the sheds but ran out of time last summer to complete the project.

I’ve had nearly a full week with my new summer group and it was wonderful.  Everyone is settling in to our routine and the lack of a school-defined schedule has greatly improved the ‘flow’ of the day.

Outside I have all the new stumps stored in the corner of the yard waiting until the yard project begins.  Interestingly, the older children have deemed this to be the ‘perfect cooking spot’.  Hmmm, I’ll have to modify my plans a little so we can continue to accommodate this;

The old stumps are still as popular as ever.  The lone boy in the group seems somewhat concerned about all the climbing and jumping about.

Later he put on the construction helmet and did this;

‘No climbing here’ :-)

I found a dead moth and gave it to the insect lovers.

Turns out it wasn’t dead – just injured – so it was rushed to the emergency room. For nearly an hour a team of dedicated medical personnel worked to save the moth – or at least make it a little more comfortable.  Here is his x-ray/chart;

As excited a I am about all the renovations I have planned for the next two weeks I am also going to miss these kinds of activities too.  However, I’m certain we’ll have many more adventures when we return.