The Squeaky Door

It was back in December that I rearranged the play space again.   When I looked back at that post I realized that I mainly wrote about the history of the loft and the reason for the changes.  The post was getting too long so I didn’t include pictures of the finished space.  I will have to do a full post about that soon but right now I want to focus on one small area.

The refrigerator in the housekeeping area;



The new block bin is now located on the right hand side of the refrigerator – this is where the entrance to the block area used to be.  The counter top above the block bin is centered over the block bin and overhangs the bin by several inches on both sides.  This was an intentional design feature.

Due to the placement of the counter top the right hand door of the refrigerator only opens part way before it touches the counter top.  The left hand door opens a full 180 degrees.  I didn’t think it was a major issue so I didn’t correct it then.  Months later the problem is getting worse instead of better.

Even though the food in the refrigerator is easily accessible when the right hand door is only partially open the toddlers insist on pushing on the door to force it to open fully.  Since it is physically impossible for the door to open that far all they manage to do is get the door jammed so tightly against the counter top that they can then not close it.  Meltdowns ensue.

The hinges on the right hand door had also begun to squeak.  Some of the children like to move this door slowly back & forth simply because they like the sound.  I do not like that sound – especially not for a solid 20 minute stretch of time.

Last Friday was an school inservice day which meant I had the older children here for the whole day.  It also meant that my school-bus-driver husband was home for the day too.  So, as the children and I were getting ready to go outside to play I said to my husband “We will be outside for the next 2 hours.  While we are gone please unhook the brackets holding the counter top and move it an inch to the North.  Also, grease the fridge door hinge.”

For the second half of Friday and all of Monday I have silently watched and waited.  Only one of the two-year-olds has noticed the change.  On several occasions he has stood by the refrigerator and slowly moved the right hand door all the way open and then all the way closed.  Sometimes he stands in the space behind the door so he can watch the hinge action from a different point of view.  I’ve been observing him as closely as he is observing the door.

The other children either don’t notice or don’t care that the door doesn’t stick or squeak any more.  I notice, thank-you very much.

Robots

Lately the toddlers have been infatuated by robots.  Originally it was just one of the children but the others have caught on and now they incorporate robots - or at least the word 'robot' - in all their activities.

In one of my favourite observations the 2-year-old boys were bouncing about chanting "Ro-bot, ro-bot, ro-bot".  They do this on and off all day, every day, indoors & out.  Sometimes the girls join in briefly but most often it is just the boys.  On this particular day the 2-year-old girl joined in as a "robot butterfly".

As the boys bounced around chanting, the girl 'floated' around gently waving her arms and whispering "robot butterfly, robot ballerina butterfly".  It was beautiful - mesmerizing - I couldn't stop watching.  Even the boys stopped briefly and stared.  They looked at each other and then continued bouncing around the room madly waving their arms a shouting "ROBOT BUTTERFLY".  There were no ballerinas in their description.

The robots are not limited to active play.  There are musical robots and cooking robots and animal robots too.  Almost everything they build is at some point called a robot even if it starts out as a tower or a house...

Last week they started using the shopping baskets as robot helmets. The basket is placed upside down over someone's head and the handle is used as a chin strap.  It is interesting because this has been done by many other children throughout my 18 years in childcare (the baskets are more than 20 years old & originally belonged to my own children).  I've never suggested that they could be helmets and often there is a lapse between one group of 'robot children' and the next so the helmet idea is not passed on as a 'learned' activity. 

Yesterday I gave the toddlers some foam shapes and let them design their own robots;

These are their finished creations;

I think there may be some robot engineers in this group of toddlers :-)

Hanging Clothes

Over the years I have tried various methods to store the dress-up clothes in the playroom.  Bins seem to be the easiest for the children to use to put the clothes away but they have other issues.  Bins take up a lot of space - something we don't have a lot of.  Smaller children have difficulty reaching to the bottom of the bin and it is often difficult to see/find the item you want when all the clothes are jumbled together in a bin.

I have occasionally used hooks to hang the blankets and dress-up clothes but found plastic hooks often break and metal ones sometime get caught on the fabric and tear the clothes.  I also have some safety concerns about using hooks especially around infants and toddlers.

So, most often I have used hangers to store the dress up clothes;

 

All the children can easily see the selection and pull it off the hanger.  However, putting the clothes back on the hangers was a frustrating - sometimes impossible - task for the little ones.  The hangers were a favourite toy for many of the children who used them for everything except hanging clothes;

Which of course meant the dress-up clothes were always left strewn on the floor.  Then the older children and/or I would be tasked with hanging everything up over and over again resulting in a lot of grumbling.

Recently I bought a new hanger from Ikea and it has been working very well.

There are no sharp pointy parts.  The hoops are accessible for children of all ages/sizes. The items are displayed to it is easy to find the one you want.  Even if all the clothes get taken out it does not take long to put them all away again.  The only problem we sometimes have is that the children tend to use the top hoops first thereby covering the lower hoops and making it more difficult to hang clothes on them. 

Overall everyone is quite pleased with this new clothes hanger.  There are far fewer complaints about hanging up the dress-up clothes now.  In fact, many of the children use this new hanger for everything. 

Since puppets and stuffed animals so often get hung up here too I've now got another hanger - I just have to find a good location to put it.

Indoor Activity

Walk!

I am certain that if I recorded all the things I say to the children in a day and then tallied up how often I repeat phrases ‘walk’ would top the list.  A distant second would be ‘stop’ followed closely by ‘down’.  All my most common instructions pertain to redirecting activity level.

The list would of course be far different if I made separate lists for ‘outdoor’ phrases and ‘indoor’ phrases.  Only when we are indoors is there a need to restrict the children’s running, jumping and climbing.  It is not the activity that is wrong – it is the activity within a small, confined space with many other people.

Yet, children need to engage in gross motor activities.  During our long cold winters we do go outside every day but the length of time we spend outside is often not enough for the children to release all their pent up energy.  So, I try to provide alternate gross motor activities that are more appropriate for indoors.

When I removed the loft stairs the music area became larger – more room for dancing :-) Dancing is one of the children’s favourite forms of indoor active play and something they often initiate.  There are also some other features I incorporated in the room to encourage movement;

 

The step up to the nature area is a natural ‘speed bump’ and a great place to practice stepping – or jumping – up and down, on and off.  The pipes are mounted high at the entrance to the block area to encourage stretching to drop toys through the pipes and bending to enter the block area.  We do more bending and stretching by practicing yoga poses – another favourite activity that the children will often initiate.

Crawling is also encouraged – it is such a wonderful full body gross motor activity. It is generally much slower than other types of movement and because the children are down on the floor falling is rarely an issue.  The children will often crawl during dramatic play activities when they pretend to be various animals.  Sometimes we set up the tents and tunnels to promote even more crawling;

Recently we’ve had the spinners out in the playroom.  These require an impressive amount of balance to remain upright as you stand and spin.  The younger children always use the spinners near a wall or shelf so they have something to hang on to as they spin in circles;

Currently we have the foam hop scotch puzzle on the floor. The squares provide boundaries for hopping or jumping – the difference between hopping and jumping is described here.  Using the squares to define the hopping area provides a ‘safe’ zone for those who are not engaging in the activity – they can walk around the mat to avoid being involved in a collision.

I may have to restrict some types of active play indoors because I don’t have an appropriate gym space but that doesn’t mean I have to eliminate it completely.  We still much prefer to be outdoors but when we’re stuck indoors we don’t have to remain sedentary.

Variety

Sometimes I feel like I should be writing more posts.  I reflect on why I haven’t been writing.  Have I been too busy? It doesn’t always take long to write a post but if I haven’t got a solid hour of time to commit to it I usually don’t start.

Lack of inspiration?  There is always some type of activity or a change that I have made to our play space but sometimes I hesitate to write about it – again.  Maybe I’ve written about a similar activity with a different group of children.  Also, I make so many changes to our environment sometimes I wonder if readers get tired of hearing about them all.

Mostly, I think it is a matter of ‘not enough’ for a full post.  A cute story, exciting activity or pictures for which the description is just missing something.  Sometimes I just can’t explain in a post what was going on and why I thought it was interesting.

Today I simply have a few photos that I want to share along with just a sentence or two – not enough for a full post for each but things I like.  A small variety of pictures such as this one of the toddlers using twigs to go ‘fishing’ in the snow;

And this one I took when all five of the little ones spontaneously decided to cozy up on the step together and read books;

And when I brought out the sensory bin with sweet grass, dried herbs, and animals etc  and as the children played the 3 year old stopped briefly, closed her eyes and said “Oh Cheryl, I love it – it smells like your garden.”

Yes, I love that too. :-)

The Summer Yard

So, I was looking through my 'Blog pics' directory - the place where I store the pictures I plan to use in blog posts - and realized I had taken a lot of pictures of the yard space but had never written a post about last summer's yard renovation.  A mid-winter post about the summer yard might be just what we need :-)

It was back in 2013 that I first wrote about the plans  to move the fence that separates the gravel area and the parking area.  You can read more about those plans here.  We didn't have enough time that summer to complete that renovation so it was slated for summer 2014 instead.  This is a 'before' photo taken from above;

And this is an overhead view of the yard after the fence was moved;

It is a little difficult to see but we lost a small triangle section of the gravel area on the left side of the picture but gained the same amount of space near the lane past the neighbour's garage - where the tipi is now.  This extra space allows us to see what is going on outside the yard which was nearly impossible when the fence ended at the corner of the garage and our van parked perpendicular to the lane.

Here's the view as you come down the steps from the house to the deck;

As I walk across the grass area and look left toward the garden;

and right toward the covered seating area;

Walk through the covered seating area and enter the gravel area looking towards the right side of the hill;

Then look through the gravel area to the left of the hill towards the corner of that used to be playspace alongside the carport;

Now in the gravel area looking back toward the house and deck - here you can see the old water barrels which have been re-purposed to store the loose parts;

Turn around and look toward the 'new' playspace past the hill where the tipi is now;

This is the most popular space.  Even in winter the tipi is the favourite sit spot - as snow is cleared from the parking area it is piled behind the tipi making it a cozy little spot;

We love our outdoor play space in every season.

Good-Bye Old Tree

Last summer the tree across the street was marked for removal - we loose so many of our grand old elm trees due to Dutch Elm Disease.  Although loosing trees makes us sad, the tree removal process is also very exciting.  One morning last week we noticed that the city workers were putting 'No Parking' on the street signs around the tree.

We had the perfect vantage point - the tree is directly in front of our window;

After the signs were put up the snow plow removed all the snow banks from the area around the tree.  Then, for the rest of the morning there was no further activity.  We waited. We had lunch and then I closed the blind so it was darker for the toddlers' nap time.  As the children slept I caught up on some paperwork and answered a few emails -- then I heard the trucks.

Seriously, why do they always come at nap time?  Who do I complain to about this?  I paced back and forth listening to the chain saws and impatiently waiting for the children to wake.  As soon as the children began to stir I flung open the blind and sent all the children to the window as I put away the cots.  The baby stayed in his crib - standing there he could see over the children at the window.

All the branches had already been removed from the tree and they had cut a notch from the trunk;

They tied a rope to the tree as a safety measure so it would not fall on the nearby houses.  Then, one more cut and the trunk began to fall;

CRASH! Wow, that was loud and the whole house shook.

As the workers began cutting the tree trunk into smaller pieces one of the children started complaining about the 'bad pirate' wrecking the tree.  I was confused until they pointed to this worker's helmet;

:-)

The tractor then picked up the trunk pieces;

And put them in a big dump truck;

It was all very interesting and kept the children engaged for the remainder of the afternoon.  I printed off a series of pictures of the tree removal process and used them to create sequence cards.  The children have enjoyed looking at them and reliving the excitement of the day.