Zoo Fieldtrip

Today we took our annual spring Zoo fieldtrip. We had our usual crew but unfortunatley we were without Matt who has a double ear infection. Along with the kids and I, we brought along our student Pastor's wife, Emily, and her baby Rhys, and Skyann's mommy. I thank them sincerely for the help that they provided in keeping the kids organized, safe and entertained!

Upon arrival, we ventured into the Aquarium, one of my favorites and I think the kids' too. After that we went to the see the Lions and Tigers, then the Gorillas, then we ate our picnic lunch. After lunch we went into the Kingdoms of the Night and saw all of those dark creatures! After this we made our final stops at the Giraffes and Zebras pens then headed home.

The really awesome part about our day is that the animals all seemed very social and active with us today! At the cat house we were able to "play" with a lion right by the glass. Then in the Gorilla house we interacted with a gorilla that wanted to be social with us. In the Kingdoms of the Night, we saw the alligators up close and swimming and right by the bridge, more than I have EVER seen them, then the beavers were hard at work and busy, which I've never really seen before either. The giraffes came to the glass to greet us and so did the Ostrich in the Zebra pens. They came to check us out too. It was really neat to get such a close up view of the animals for once! The kids really enjoyed it.

Of course I got a bunch of really good pictures too, so I have posted them for your viewing pleasure! I will start planning our next great adventure! P.S. see the post below this one for more pictures on our week last week!

Our busy week!

Last week was quite the busy one. We went to the park and had a picnic, we planted flowers, we had a purple day, we played in the sprinklers and we played outside ALL week! It was so much fun and makes us sad this week with the cooler weather and all of the rain. We understand though that the grass and plants need the water, so we accept it! :)

The park was a blast and the kids didn't want to leave of course. They ran all over the place and enjoyed the merry-go-round alot.

When we planted the flowers, everyone was very interested and helpful at first, but as I suspected would happen, they begin to drift away one by one to play on the swingset or with the outdoor toys! So I finished it up until it was time to water them, then they were very helpful again.

Friday when we had our water day, we had a blast. The kids took all the outside toys to experiment in the water with them, stuck their bums in the water and ran away laughing and got nice and cooled off. We can expect many more days like this throughout the summer.

I have put a lot of pictures in this post for your enjoyment. So this is us staying busy and having fun!

Easter

I apologize once again for my delay in updating the daycare blog. We have been very busy lately and have been happy to finally get to play outside more!

First I'd like to say that our Easter party was a great success. We got to make a few crafts, be bunnies ourselves, take part in an Easter egg hunt, and enjoy the wonderful Easter gift baskets that Alex and Matt's mom made for everyone. Thank you again to her. The children loved them!

Next, I would like to point out some future summer business. I know that I have had a hard time getting my newsletter out the last couple months, but with the transition of my computer this last fall it just seems to have thrown me off. I've had to remake all of my templates and what not. Now that is finally done, so I am currently working on May's newsletter. My goal for this summer is to give you, in addition to the monthly newsletter, a weekly activity schedule each Friday so you know kind of what to expect for the next week.

I have BIG plans for us this summer. I want to get the kids outside as much as possible and get all kinds of exercise and experiences. I plan on taking them on a lot of field trips, even if it's just to the playground or the water park. Some of the places I would like to take them is to the Zoo, Fontenelle Forest, Children's Museum, Air and Space museum, City pool, an Omaha Royals game, sprinkler parks, playgrounds, Lauritzen Gardens, the Safari, story times at the Library, and fishing at Lake Zorinsky or someplace similar. We will also be playing lots of outdoor games, sports, and flying kites and swimming in the wading pool in the backyard. We are going to attempt to plant some flowers and other fun stuff. Please expect the children to get dirty this summer, so don't dress them in their nicest clothes on those days, and expect us to get wet.

My requests are for you to leave a bathing suit and small water bottle of sorts at my house all summer in order to be able to get wet on a whim or have a bottle in case we go to the park or venture away from the house for a small expedition. I have plenty of children's sunscreen, but you might want to provide a hat and or sunglasses that they will wear to keep out of the sun.

I am very excited for the warmer weather and to have so much fun. If you have any suggestions about other places we might enjoy or other things we can do around the house, I am always open to suggestions. I will send a letter home about all of this too, and put it in May's newsletter. I look forward to an active summer.

Valentines Day party and cookies!

We have had alot fun this week celebrating Valentines day over a span of two days. Thursday we had lots of Valentines Day snacks, coloring pages, a game, and party bags, plus our pink day. Friday we finished up our celebration with making Valentines for our mommies and daddies and decorating heart shaped sugar cookies for snack! Yum. Below are pictures of the kids having fun, and I hope they all get a chance to play in the snow this weekend. It might be one of the last big snows of the winter! Enjoy the weekend. P.S. Thank you to Mila's mommy and Alex's mommy for the treats and the valentines!

(See the two posts below this one for more updated pictures and notes!)

Our Color Days!

In the last two weeks we have had our blue day and our pink day. We missed our blue day in January due to my absent mindedness, but have now gotten caught up! When we have a color day, the whole day is devoted to that color. We try and have a snack that color and we play color games and try to find all of the toys in the play room that are that color. So it's a fun-filled day! Below are the pictures of our color days! Also see the post below this one for our outside fun!

The Great Outdoors!

After a long, cold winter we have finally emerged for a warm weather week and got our first glimpses of Spring. We took advantage of the warm weather this week and spent it outside as much as possible.

We took our lunch to the park on Tuesday and then played on the playground for about an hour before heading back to the house for naps. After naps we went to the driveway and played for another couple of hours, with the balls, riding bikes and just hanging out! It was alot of fun and the kids loved it!

Over the next couple of days we spent a few minutes outside as it started to get chillier! Today, we have camped out in the house due to the blizzard going on out there, but have had fun making Valentines and decorating heart shaped sugar cookies for snack!

Below are some pictures of our outside adventures this week! Enjoy.

What's New!

I know that I have been behind since my computer crashed in Dec. on giving you all a newsletter and updating a calendar for you all to have. We have been staying busy singing, dancing, rhyming, reading and playing games. We have been very into board games lately and one of our favorites is the Storybook game. It is a bunch of flashcards and each person takes a turn drawing a card and then they have to make up a story about that card. It gets funnier as it goes on because you put the cards together so the stories should keep going from kid to kid. The kids are getting very creative. I love this game and it's so good for them to build their creative thinking skills and to be able to learn connections between different objects. The kids get very excited about this one.

We have also been working on our letters and numbers and shapes. January we worked on the letters M, N, O, and P and the numbers 10, 11, 12, and 13. The shape of the month was the square and the color of the month was blue. We missed our blue day, so I will be having that probably next week, but I'll update you soon. We will have a Valentines Day party on Friday the 13th of Feb. and that will be our pink day, so keep that in mind. If your child does not have something pink to wear, as my boys don't, then we can make a sign out of pink construction paper to safety pin to their shirts.

This month we will be working on more letters and numbers and the theme of the month is friendship. So we are working on building friendships and how to treat our friends.

Below is a few pictures of things we've been up to. Enjoy! I look forward to more fun this month.

The boys working hard on a block tower!

Our water painting experience!

Our finished water color masterpieces!

New friends, Matt and Malia playing together!