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 ;-)

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;

  

 

 

 

 

The bins;

 

 

 

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

 

Water fun day :-)

Vacation 2015

Well, I’ve been back at work for almost two weeks now and I haven’t managed to write a single post about my vacation projects or anything else either – bad blogger – busy summer.

I planned six – yes SIX – projects to complete during my vacation.  We got three done and one of them actually isn’t fully complete yet.  Today I am going to write about the biggest of my vacation projects – the front entrance.

Back in 2005 I wrote about the front entrance for my CBA portfolio.  I explained how I wanted the entrance to be a welcoming, comfortable and functional space.  Here’s the pdf version of that portfolio entry if you want to read the whole thing.  CCC-entrance

Looking back at it now I have to laugh at the line about it being painted a ‘bright mauve colour’ – that certainly wasn’t welcoming.  I would never purchase paint that colour – it was some old paint that was left here by the previous homeowners.  Even as ‘free’ paint it was putrid and the entrance didn’t stay that colour for long.

My newly renovated entrance is much more inviting.  We even added a ‘Welcome’ sign up on the cats’ loft because even Mali and Malta love to greet the children in the morning;

You’ll often find Mali waiting in the entrance for visitors to arrive.  Here she’s trying out one of the new chairs;

Only by going part way up the stairs can I get most of the entrance in a single photo;

I put the toddlers’ name tags on their bench so they can sit on their ‘spot’ without having to turn around and see which hook is theirs.

The East side of the entrance has some information for parents, storage for extra clothes, the digital picture frame with photos of the children ‘in action’, and the new addition – a relaxing fountain which the children love but I tend to turn off once everyone has arrived because the sound of constant running water becomes very irritating distracting.

The old magnetic bulletin board on the West wall was also annoying because gusts of wind from the door would blow the magnets and papers off the board.  I now use wires and these handy hooks from Ikea;

The parents are thrilled by the new entrance – the children prefer some of the other new spaces but that’s another post.

Loftless

Only one more day before my ‘vacation’ begins and of course I have some big projects planned.  I am usually very busy during my vacation and often go for several days without turning my computer on even to check email therefore it is highly unlikely that I will be writing any blog posts. So, before I get too busy to write I wanted to briefly tell you about a ‘little’ project that has been keeping me busy for the last few weekends.

You may remember back in December I wrote about the various lofts we have had in our play space over the past ten years.  In that post I explained that we were no longer using the loft as part of our play space but would instead use that space for additional storage.

 

 

Admittedly it was a very convenient spot to store cots, bedding, books, toys, and other bulky items.  In fact, it may have been too convenient to store things in the loft.  As more and more things got tossed into the loft it was becoming apparent that getting anything out of the loft was going to be a major ordeal.  So, although it was not on my list of ‘fun weekend projects’ I resigned myself to the task of cleaning out and reorganizing the loft storage space.

 Then there was another interesting development.  My oldest still-living-at-home son decided to move into his own apartment and took a bunch of his stuff leaving empty space.  So, I reorganized the basement toy storage area along with the loft storage area and when I was done there was nothing left to store in the loft!

An empty loft doesn’t really use up any floor space but it is an awfully big item in a small room and if it is not needed why not take it down.  Now, taking it down is not a simple project when there are other items in the room that are attached to the loft.  Once I had decided that the loft was going my first step was to make a plan for how to rearrange the items that were going to be remaining.  Things like the block bin which was constructed between the upright supports for the loft – it was going to have to be rebuilt as a freestanding unit.

It was a somewhat slow process that was done in small phases over several weekends.  The playroom went from this ‘using the loft for storage’ space;

 

 

  to this temporary arrangement with an almost empty, partially dismantled loft;

 

 

And it is now a completely loft free zone;

 

 

 Here is another view of the new loftless space;

 

 

There is still a lot of finish work yet to be done and I have to decide what to do about the flooring – that was going to be a separate blog post but this renovation forced me to remove the old mats earlier than planned and I still don’t know what I’m going to replace them with.  For now we’ll just have to make due with what we have because I have bigger things planned for my vacation. :-)

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.

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;

 

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!

  

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.

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.

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

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

   

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.