School Days, School Days!

They are upon us! It is that time of year again where will be starting our Preschool curriculum. We will be following a preschool program called Reach For the Stars. It is a great program that helps guide us through our Preschool learning journey.

As you all know that we have recently moved the preschool/play room to the basement. We are getting onto a good routine as to when we go downstairs during the day, but I have to confess I am not on a good afternoon routine yet after we pick up Owen from Kindergarten. They all want to be doing different things in different places at that time, so I cannot guarantee if pick up will be downstairs or upstairs for the moment. Follow the arrow on the door. If it is pointing down, then we are downstairs. If there is NO arrow on the front door, then we are upstairs doing something. My hope is that we will find a consistent routine with this after Monday when Raymond starts preschool and we can all play together.

I will be finishing up the Sept. newsletter to send home with you all on Monday with a calendar and other information of things we will be doing for the month. I would also like to start a library checkout program with all of the books that I have, so watch for more information on that. I am going to be a lot better with the blog and my goal is every Friday to update with a post on the week in review with pictures of things we have been doing.

I will be teaching midweek at my church the first semester of school on Wednesday nights, but they have bumped the starting time back this year to 6:30 pm so this should not interfere with pick up times or anything like that.

Last but not least for the moment, as you all know we are expecting a girl!!! A nice closing to our little family. Her due date is around January 15, and in the past I have taken 1-2 weeks off of work depending on the circumstances. Upon the arriving date my mom will also be here to help out if I happen to go into labor a few days early, your child will not be stranded at home by themselves! :) I will keep everyone posted as the time nears with more information as to the exact dates I will be closed. We are very excited to finally be adding a little girl to the mix though, but it will not change any of the lessons scheduled other than the month of Jan. will be a little more flexible on lesson plans and we will be extending our Christmas break until Feb. 1, where we will pick up our preschool stuff again.

I look forward to another great start to the Preschool year!

Summers End is Coming!

I can't believe I'm saying it seeing as it's only the middle of July, but the end of Summer is already drawing near. School starts on Aug. 17 which is only a month away and it's time to start getting back into our learning routine!
I have been spending the last few days starting my curriculum planning for the Fall. This summer really has flown by. Maybe it seems like it is going fast for me because my oldest son, Owen will be starting Kindergarten and it's something I am excited for but also dreading because life with Owen will change forever! :( That's just me being a sentimental mommy.
We will be doing lots of fun things this year and I will be using a new program called Reach for the Stars which has even more activities than I had before, so I am excited to introduce this. Plus I would like to continue to try and take the kids to story time at the public library as time permits and other fun activities as they come up. Momsofomaha.com is a great website that keeps you posted on all new activities going on in the area, so I check it weekly to see if there is something going on that I'd like to take the kids to. So I would like to keep an open-ended permission slip for field trips, if that is okay with all of you. If we will be taking an all-day field trip, I'll give you advance notice of that!
The schedule will change a bit this year. Because we live to close to Owen's school, he does not qualify for busing, so he will need to be driven to school and picked up daily. Hopefully as the year goes on and I meet some of his classmates parents, I might be able to get him some rides, but for now expect that I will need to leave the house every day at 8:30am and then again at 3:45pm to pick him up. I have no problem bringing all of the kids with me, just please be aware that I will not be at home from 8:30am-9:30am and then again from 3:45-4:00pm. So if you need to pick up your child please do it before or after these times.
I will be starting the newsletter again and will send home a note with all of this information in more detail. I just wanted to give you an initial idea of how this year will look.
I am very excited for this school year and anticipate exciting and new things to look forward too! Mid January we will be welcoming the newest member of our family to join in our fun! Early September we will be moving the daycare room back to the basement, so anticipate some minor but better changes there. I am having a very basic computer made for the kids to begin practicing computer skills and preschool games on. I am also starting the search for some new set up ideas for the playroom to help organize our learning better. I hope you will all like the outcome.
If you ever have any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to talk to me. As a side note, we will sadly be losing Skyann and Jacob as they are starting on a new venture of school, family, and perhaps a new home. So that will be exciting for them and I wish them the best, but we will miss them. So that is the current update! I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the nice cool weather.

Our Summer Days...update again!

Once again, I know that I am very far behind on posting an update! Time flies when you are having fun and before you know it, I am two months behind! :) We have been staying very busy this summer and enjoying our field trips. We have been venturing to the downtown library on Tuesday's for storytime, swimming in the backyard pool, flying kites, playing at the sprinkler park and inviting some new friends to drop in and play with us from time to time.

Unfortunatley we have also been battling a cold that has spread throughout the house and working hard at trying to get everyone well again!

This last week we also got to go to the summer movie festival and see a free movie, Surfs Up. I always have my eye out for new fun things to take the kids to do. I love taking them on new adventures and having fun.

My family would like to share with all of you our big news, which I have already started sharing with you this last week. We will be expecting our 4th and last baby around January 15! Please be assured that this will not affect the daycare in any way. I will plan on only taking no more than 2 weeks maximum off when the baby is born, but won't be able to give you exact dates until the time gets closer. I will definatley keep you all posted on new updates as we get them. We are very excited and can't wait for this next little adventure that lies ahead!

Without further ado, I will post some pictures of our adventures from the last couple of months! I hope you enjoy. I will try and be better at staying up to date with my posts, but with kids in and out all the time, it makes it hard to find time to get on the computer! So please forgive me in advance for my tardy posts.

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!)