Looking Back

It is Monday morning and as I await the arrival of the first child I am reviewing on the things we were able to accomplish over the past two weeks.  First, I must admit that my ‘vacation’ actually felt very long. I think that is due in part to the fact that we didn’t just have one major project that took up a huge chunk of time.

This year we had several small/medium sized projects to tackle over the summer and chose to start with the biggest ones during my two week vacation.  The remaining items can be done on evenings and weekends.

We started by moving the fence to rearrange the parking and play areas.  This was the biggest job but it took only three days.  Really, it could have been done on a single long weekend.  I will write a separate post about the new outdoor space so for now there are no pictures.

The second largest job was the outdoor art area.  It is not entirely complete yet but the major work is done.  There will be no pictures until the finishes are complete.

We also planned to re-insulate the drafty basement wall.  This is a project we have wanted to tackle since we moved in here more than 17 years ago.  It meant moving all my toy storage so it was also the perfect time to re-organize the bins.  For all of the past two weeks the playroom and basement have looked like this;

This is the task that I disliked but it had to be done.  I didn’t get everything back in place until 9:30 pm last evening.  Now I’m eager for winter to arrive but only so I can feel how much warmer it will be down there.  I am happy that all the toys are organized now – just have to make new bin labels;

All the 25 of the quiet time and table toys mini bins are organized now too.  It was an ongoing project throughout the past two weeks.  I had planned to work on it only on rainy/cold days when we couldn’t work outside.  However, the weather was fabulous for almost all of my vacation so I had to ‘waste’ some time indoors.

Some of the smaller projects included rebuilding the library book shelves and the music/workshop area shelves.  There are still a few playroom modifications that I hope to complete in the next few weeks yet.  The biggest one will be the nature area mini scenes.

My vacation wasn’t all work though – in fact, I did absolutely no paperwork at all.  I still have plenty of paperwork to do.  My desk is covered in it but I didn’t do any of it.  Malta claimed my empty chair as her favorite kitty napping spot but I couldn’t persuade her to finish my work for me.

We replaced the two old cracked rain barrels with new ones from Fort Whyte Alive – which of course meant we had to go on a nature hike while we were out there.  I also got to spend some time working in the garden but I must admit that my native prairie plants really don’t need much work.

There are a few bare spots because the Fringed Brome and the Gaillardia didn’t come up this spring and the sawflies destroyed the Wild Columbine.  I missed the plant sales at Living Prairie Museum earlier this year and had hoped to make the trek out to Prairie Flora during my vacation but that was one of the things I didn’t manage to do.

Sadly I didn’t get out to Quality Classrooms either – they are not open Saturdays so I can only go there during my vacation.  I did make a trip out to Carman for a day.  It was for my Aunt’s funeral but it was nice to see all my cousins and reminisce about spending my childhood summers on their farm.

Also managed to get my hair cut – twice – so it is now shorter than it has been for the last 40+ years.  I had lunch with my mom and she loves my new hairstyle – it is similar to the pixie cuts she used to make me get when I was little.

That’s enough looking back for now.  It is time to go watch the children explore the new spaces and make discoveries.

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.

Bananas

While shopping in the produce department of my local grocery store I spotted something I had never seen before – red bananas.  I was curious so I bought a few.

Now, I’m always a little cautious with food related activities because I don’t want to encourage playing with food instead of eating it and sometimes negative food experiences can influence the children’s willingness to try new food items.

My plan was to compare the new red bananas with familiar yellow bananas so as I prepared morning snack I sliced the bananas like this;

I tried a piece of red banana – advance preparation while the children were all still playing.  The experience was not what I expected.  For what seemed like an eternity I debated about trying to swallow the partially chewed banana slice or spitting it out.

I finally managed to swallow it.  It wasn’t the flavour that bothered me – actually, I wasn’t even certain that it had any noticeable flavour.  I was focused on the texture – it was horrible – grainy, dry…not like anything I have eaten before.

There was no way I could serve these red bananas to the children. Most of the children love bananas – these red bananas might change their opinion of bananas forever!  The children happily ate their YELLOW bananas with homemade biscuits and milk for morning snack.

The red bananas were left sitting on the counter while I did some research and debated about what to do with them now.  I wondered if they were maybe just not ripe?  I love under ripe yellow/green bananas because of the texture.  If the red ones were just under ripe would that account for the horrible texture?

I checked the red bananas daily – after a full week they finally seemed to soften a little.  Tentatively I tried another small piece.  It was fabulous! Wonderfully sweet, mild banana flavour and perfect texture.  Today we would have yellow and red bananas for afternoon snack.

I showed the children the whole red banana and asked them to identify it.  “Banana!” was the unanimous response so I asked if they noticed anything unusual about the banana.  The responses included;

• “They are tiny.”
• “They are straight, not curved.”
• “They are made of meat – ham.”

OK, this is not at all what I expected.  I asked if they noticed anything about the colour.  They replied that the bananas were red – a fact they seemed to think was so obvious that it wasn’t even worth mentioning. Now, enough talking, let’s eat.

Everyone loved the red bananas as much or maybe more than the yellow bananas.  The only exception was the one child who doesn’t like yellow bananas – she wouldn’t even try the red ones.

I doubt the response would have been the same if I had given them the bananas last week.  I guess that they are ripe now but the colour hasn’t changed, just the flavour – and the texture.

MCCA Conference 2014

So, I’m finally getting around to writing about my experience at MCCA’s conference – only a few weeks after the event.

There were some fabulous speakers – my favourite was Jeff A. Johnson.  So inspiring.
I also took several hands-on workshops.  One on woodworking activities;

And one on creating water walls;

I’m planning to add a woodworking centre and water wall to our outdoor space this summer.
Then I also spent a day learning to play the ukulele – loved it!  Robin & Toni Christie from New Zealand kept us busy – no time for pictures.  I suppose I could have included a picture of my bright yellow ukulele but I haven’t taken one yet – maybe later.   :-)

I’m looking forward to even more hands-on learning – outdoors with local presenters – at the upcoming Nature Summit in September.

Never stop playing and learning.

Nap Time

Wow, it has been almost four weeks since I’ve written a blog post — bad blogger. I’ve been super busy – full days with the children, practicum student visiting, conference, presentations, and several evening meetings every week. There has been plenty to write about but no time to write. I started this post more than a month ago so I better finish it before I move on to other topics.

Nap time. When my own children were young we sometimes struggled over nap time. The ones who I felt most needed naps were the ones who were reluctant to take them. There were battles. So, when I first opened my childcare home I was a little apprehensive about being able to get so many little ones to nap.

At first I had used the second floor bedrooms as nap areas – infants in playpens, toddlers on beds. The daily set-up and take-down process was arduous but generally everyone was cooperative. There were, of course, a few exceptions. My frequent trips upstairs to check on the (non)nappers were sometimes disruptive to those that were actually sleeping.

Before the end of my first year in childcare I relocated the toddler/preschooler nap area to the main floor using cots and the living room couches where I could supervise more easily. I continued to use playpens in the second floor bedrooms for the infants to nap. There was still a lot of time required for daily set-up and take-down and many trips up and down the stairs.

I found it interesting that the older children napping on the main floor often slept longer than the infants who were napping upstairs. Many parents seemed surprised too – most of these older children resisted napping when they were at home yet here they actually enjoyed helping with the nap time set-up, fell asleep quickly, and were often difficult to wake after nap.

There came a time when I began to question the safety aspect of having the infants napping upstairs. Yes, we did practice emergency evacuations monthly and sometimes even at nap time. The evacuation times were considerably longer at nap time and although the older children were cooperative during drills – waiting patiently while I ran upstairs to get babies – I wondered if they would do so if there was a real emergency.

It wasn’t something I wanted to risk. I relocated the playpens to the main floor – giving up a little play space but giving my family back the privacy of their own bedrooms. I chose to leave the playpens set up – losing a small amount of space vs. a large amount of time. I detest setting up playpens.

In my most recent renovation I expanded the space allocated to the playpens. My intention was to eventually replace the playpens with cribs. Eventually came earlier than I anticipated because I found some affordable – compact – cribs at Quality Classrooms. In all my year of perusing equipment catalogues I had never noticed that some of the cribs were compact – taking up no more space than a playpen – and on wheels too.

The extra space is now used to store the preschooler’s cots so they too are out of the way when not in use. Nap time set-up and take down now takes less than five minutes and all the children are visible while I complete the task. When not in use the cribs and cots are out of sight behind these rolling room dividers.

My intention is to use these dividers as easels for art activities but we haven’t tried that yet.
The best part is that all the napping children are within 12 feet of my centrally located desk and within 20 feet of an emergency exit. I’ve come to another conclusion too. As I’ve observed the children as they settle down for nap time I’ve noticed that there are no arguments when they can see me. They lay happily in their beds, talking or singing quietly, occasionally smiling and waving at me until they fall asleep.

I wonder if nap time struggles are not really caused by resistance to napping but rather by the feeling of being left alone in a ‘quiet’ space where the children may actually feel abandoned. Or, maybe these children sleep so well because they’ve been busy playing all morning and getting plenty of outdoor time too.

Screen Time

Yesterday I read an interesting CTV News article about children and screen time.  I thought it was wonderful to compare screen time to nutrition – an analogy that puts the focus on the content of the programs.

Recently I was asked to speak to a group of Red River College students who were just completing their ‘Introduction to Family Childcare’ course.  As part of my presentation I included a slideshow of the past and present learning environments in my childcare home.

Screen time was briefly discussed during my presentation and the subsequent question period.  Yes, I used to have several computers available for the children in my program to use – and I did not even restrict the amount of time they engaged in the activity.

No, I don’t currently have any computers, tablets, or televisions that are available for the children to use at any time during the day.  The reason for the elimination of the ‘computer area’ was due almost entirely to the quality of content available and the fact that the children had no interest in ‘healthy’ content once they had experienced the ‘junk’.

Years ago when I first started my blog I wrote about the use of computers in my childcare program and their gradual elimination.  It is not that I don’t value technology – I use it all the time.  When the children have questions that I can’t answer we can find the answer on the internet – it is an invaluable resource in addition to their hands on experience.

Unfortunately I think the content of children’s media today has far too much focus on competition instead of collaboration.  The smaller screens further emphasize the ‘individual’ over the ‘group’.

I once had a discussion with the staff at my son’s school.  My son was extremely slow to engage in new situations and had a tendency to withdraw from social interaction.  They were concerned because he refused to use a new program they had recently introduced in their computer class.

I suggested that they should let him sit with and watch another child until he felt comfortable enough to try it himself.  They said that was not possible because it would be considered cheating and would not be fair to the other child. Seriously?!?! What were they hoping to teach?

The children and I have discussed the use of screen time – they all have access to screens at home.  They’ve described how they like to use their hand held devices when they are bored – it is easier than finding something else to do.  They’ve retold me all their favorite parts of the movies and shows they’ve recently watched.  If there are any ‘good’ parts in these shows I haven’t heard about them, the children  focus on the violent, destructive, mean or rude segments – that’s what they remember.

As I write this there are two children here – they are reading the label on a cereal box and debating the nutritional value.  Maybe I’d have screen time as part of the program if there were ‘nutrition’ labels on the content of every program.  However, I’m not sure I have the energy to break through their addiction to the junk so instead my program will continue to be screen free and really they don’t complain about the absence of screens when there are healthier options available.

Liking the Space

It seems like I’ve been neglecting my blog.  Truth is, I’m feeling a little overextended at the moment.  Meetings, editing, writing presentations, paperwork, and other commitments have been eating up all my ‘spare’ time.

The 11 hours/day that I spend with the children has become my ‘quiet’ time.  Right now I’m supposed to be working on a slideshow presentation that I need to finish for tomorrow so I really shouldn’t be ‘wasting’ time playing around here but….

I wanted to share some of our experiences as we try out our newly renovated spaces.  There have been (mostly) positives and (a few) negatives from my perspective and the children’s too.

I haven’t really got the time to do this now so I’m just going to post a few pictures for now.  Here is a ‘magic’ tower;

The blanket was successfully removed and replaced several times without knocking over the impressive structure hidden under it;

In the nature area there has been a lot of interest in our new tree pieces – we now have several different sizes to choose from.  Here are some of the smaller ones that were being used to make a fence;

The new art spaces have been popular too – for the preschoolers;

And the school-age children too;

Even the cats have been checking out the new spaces.  Malta has decided that the nap area divider is her property;

However, there have been a few disputes about that.  Both cats have also claimed that the carpet under my computer chair belongs to them;

I continually have to decide whether the paperwork is more important than disturbing the cats.  Maybe it is their way of telling me to go outside and play instead :-)

Hopefully I’ll have time to write a ‘real’ post after things slow down a little.  Until then, I’ve got more work to do….