Our Busy Days!

As you are all aware, it has been VERY hot out the last few weeks and therefore difficult for us to play outside too much, plus it has been very rainy this summer. To make up for our days we were stuck inside playing we have been busy on the go and will try and continue to do so for the remainder of the summer.

Friday, we were fortunate enough to be able to load up the kids and take a field trip to Leavenworth Park to play on the playground and have a picnic. It got hot right before we left but the kids had a blast and got really sandy and dirty, which is always fun! This weekend it came to my attention that there is a free sprinkler park and playground only about a mile from my house, so seeing as today is supposed to be the nicest day this week, we decided to take a field trip there too. The kids had so much fun. We played in the water and then got really dirty in our swimsuits on the playground and then went back to the water to wash off and play some more. It tuckered the kids out! They were falling asleep over their grilled hot dogs afterwards. We missed Jared, he would have had fun, so we'll have to go back again real soon!

In my previous post I discussed how when and what type of curriculum we were going to be starting. As it turns out that curriculum wasn't currently available as I had thought. However, I have decided that our preschool hours and work will fall in line with the regular school year (Sept. - May). This way the kids get a summer vacation like most other kids. They are too restless to pay much attention to a lot of learning, and we want to get as much outside time as we can! But I am already working on our Fall curriculum and we will have some fun new things planned such as color days where we all wear a certain color and learn about it and get our picture taken, and letter days, and show and tell, and movie days, and pajama days, and hopefully some new field trips that I am working on. We are going to hopefully have some guest speakers with my daycare provider friends about Fire Safety from a Fire Fighter, a Police officer to discuss stranger danger, and more! I am very excited. So August will be our last summer month then we will start our preschool days! Please let me know if you ever have any suggestions for activities, crafts, meals, snacks or themes. I am ALWAYS looking for new ideas and I want to know what you would like to see your children doing this year!

In January and the end of May, I am also going to provide you all with a sort of parent teacher conference to tell you what we've been learning, where your child is in the learning process, show you their portfolio, go over the parent handbook as a refresher and cover any questions or concerns you may have!

This is going to be a great year I hope and I look forward to teaching our kids and having lots of fun! Please enjoy the slide show below of our most recent adventures!

Program Update

I apologize for my inconsistent postings on our blog, but hopefully will be able to do more updating now that we are getting a little more organized.

We have taken time off from most of our curriculum planning for the month of June in order to spend as much time outside as we can and have some free play time. Also with the transition of losing Christian and Olivia and gaining little Malia, it takes a bit of time to get everyone back on a schedule. So next week will be our last week of full free time. Then we will be getting back to the grind of our curriculum during the hotter summer months.

Starting July 1, we will be starting a new curriculum based program for preschoolers and toddlers provided by Reach for the Stars. The author of this program is also the President of the Child Care Share group for the Omaha area. Her program is very in depth and laid out day to day on things to learn and topics to teach. It covers not only the favorites like ABC's and 123's, but it also encompasses each learning subject such as cognitive, creative, fine and large motor skills, vocabulary and verbal, etc. I think it will be a great program for our kids and it will also help keep us on track when it is already laid out for us!

We will still of course have our free play time with toys and our outdoor recess time. Many of the day to day activities that go with the program include, art, exercise, physical activities, dancing, singing, playing, motion, coloring, etc. If you have ANY questions about what we will be doing, please don't hesitate to talk to me. Also with this new program in place, I feel I will be able to better evaluate your children's progress as they learn and be able to better report to you the things that they are accomplishing!
Also as a reminder I will be closed Friday July 4 at 4pm until Tuesday July 8. I will be back from vacation and reopen on Wednesday July 9.

I still have one full time spot available during the day for any kids you may know that need child care for ages 18 months - 5 years. So please send them my way if you know of anyone!

I wish you all a happy and fun weekend! Here are a couple of fun pictures of our "crazy" days at daycare!

Zoo Days!

Last Friday we made our annual field trip to the Henry Doorly Zoo, which I think turned out great. It was supposed to storm in the morning but ended up being one of the most beautiful days of the year so far.
We toured the whole zoo minus the elephants and rhinos, which frustrates me because they are a zoo favorite in my opinion and that is one complaint I have about the Omaha zoo, is the placement of these animals. They are way out in the boonies! Anyways, despite this fact the kids didn't really seem to miss them this year.
We at a picnic lunch in Bear Canyon and then finished our day touring the inside exhibits.
The kids were well behaved and very active and enjoyed the trip, I think. We took our wagon and the double stroller but really no one rode in it, so they got lots of exercise. I got some good pictures of the group.

In other news: Christian and Olivia will be leaving our daycare after this week. After two years of being here they are moving on. Olivia is starting Kindergarten in the Fall and Christian will be starting a preschool closer to home. So we will miss them, but that will leave me with one available spot for any kids over the age of 18 months if you know of anyone looking for full-time daycare Mon-Fri.

We will also be doing some "All About Me theme" stuff this week where we will learn about ourselves, our names, our parents' names, our address and phone number. These are things kids should really know before they start kindergarten. So we will begin working on them. Maybe you can help them practice at home with so that they can memorize these things and teach them a code word so they don't go tell strangers these important things.

Happy Mothers Day

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The Week

This week has had some absent kids so we have put off the letter L for the rest of the week and will finish it and start the letter M next week. We did get some good outside playtime in this week and I think the kids really enjoy stretching their Winter feeling from their bodies and adventuring into the warm spring air. We've been playing games and exploring and simply running and playing very hard the last couple of weeks.

Unfortunatley we also have the fifth disease rash spreading around which is aggravated by the sunlight and heat, so we won't be in the sun as much probably next week simply to avoid becoming itchy. Though the rash is harmless and there is no side affects, it is still a long pain for us outdoorsy types!

I wanted to post some pictures of us playing over the last week! I hope you all have a great weekend!

Something Fun for Kids

Welcome Malia!

Congratulations to Jared's family for the arrival of their new baby girl today. Malia Slechta was born today to Jeff and Amanda, parents of our friend Jared. We are all very excited for you! I can't wait to meet her! Welcome to the world!