Celebrating a 2nd Birthday!

Friday we celebrated sweet peas 2nd birthday!

Happy Birthdays songs are the best! 

having a birthday means getting lots of hugs and even some kisses...

No matter what age you turn I still end up spoiling each kid that has a birthday. Play doh and Disney Trains were the hit for this birthday girl!

Sometimes even your favorite stuffed animals have to wear party hats as well...

Normally I would have baked a cake but I'm terrible at baking so store bought cupcakes it was, Enjoy!

We ended the day with a favorite activity stickers. I love it when dollar tree stocks up on puffy stickers because it's something so easy for them all to peel away. And boy did that keep them busy for the next 30 minutes, and they were all so proud of their collections.

Our Cutest Moments:

Staying Busy

As most of you know, I lost my dog last night. She has not been doing well for a long time now but last night we made the toughest call to let her go. We are so thankful that we had a old friend who is a vet that made a house call last night. It was very touching, very sad but we all got to hold her and tell her our goodbyes one last time. I'm happy now that she is no longer suffering from the seizures that happend saturday evening into last night and is free from pains.  I'm sure it will take some time getting used to not seeing miss maggie when i go over to my parents. Almost 17 years with her, she was my first dog/youngest sister and I will miss her dearly. 

We had quite the busy week last week we had a stayed inside for the beginning of the week because of the cold temperatures but managed to get out one day and play outside the kiddos and I both needed it. We had a lot of fun sensory activities. I really love doing sensory time with them. It's learning and playing all mixed into one. 

Water beads was definitely an activity we will be doing more of. Next time however I will be purchasing a blow up pool and we will do it in there. Who would have guessed that they bounced and they were everywhere during play. I hadn't' thought ahead of  time the cleanup process, but luckily a mop was all I needed and two little helpers that helped pick up the little pieces i couldn't see. 

Our Cutest Moments:

Messy Monday!

This is one of my favorite activities to do with kids, finger painting on foil! Today we talked about penguins and how they slide down on the ice so when we finger painted I talked with them about how slippery it was just like the penguins on ice. 

These are some of our books we're reading this week:

I had a teacher friend tell me about this app you can get on your tablets, and the best part about it is free. It's called ABC kids-- tracing and phonics. You can work on matching the letters, finding lower and capital letters and practice tracing them with your finger. We did this activity today during our small group we took turns, I loved watching their excitement when they could find their letter in their name. Learning is so much fun! 

Since we were still having fun learning about letters this afternoon I got out my abc wooden blocks and we had fun again finding our letters in our name, and building really tall towers. 

Our Cutest Moments:

January Newsletter

Dear Families,

As we move into 2017, I want to say thanks to all of you for your help, support and generosity in 2016. I am so fortunate to have such a great group of families! We will be celebrating Lea and Hunter’s 2^nd birthdays this month. Lea will turn 2 on January 15^th, and Hunter will be 2 on January 31^st.  As you know, Brooks’ family has moved to Grimes, and they have generously donated Brooks’ outdoor playset to our daycare. We will miss him and his family. We will welcome a new friend, Belle, into our room on January 17^th. We are excited to have another little girl join us!

We have had a few colds and ear infections, but nothing major so far. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that we can keep our home free from any major illnesses. If you do suspect your child is coming down with an illness, please make sure that he/she is fever free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medications before he/she returns to the daycare. We want to do our best to keep others healthy. Thank you for your cooperation with this! Along this line, it may be a good idea for each family to send a small bottle of Tylenol or other fever reducing medication to keep at the daycare in case your child develops a fever while at the daycare. This will keep him/her comfortable until you are able to come and get him/her. Please make sure you label the bottle with your child’s name.

Our themes this month will include: Snow and Ice, Winter Animals and the color “Blue”. We have some fun activities planned for this month as well.  We will be finger painting on foil and poster paper. We will explore snow and ice in our sensory tub, we will do our happy feet dance on bubble wrap, and make some cute footprint penguins!

Some books we will be reading this month include: Goodnight Moon, Penguins and Pinecones, Snowflake Day, Clap Your Hands, and Thomas and Friends! Some fun music and movement this month will include songs like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and we will also introduce The Color Song!

Please check my blog for a daily schedule. We do not follow this minute by minute, everything changes as the children’s moods and behaviors dictate, but this will give you a general idea of our day. We are working on color recognition, finding our names, and the older children are working on finding some of the letters in their names during our group times.

A few reminders: please make sure your child has an extra outfit in their cubby. And be sure to make sure you have winter wear such as snow pants and snow boots as it is still wet outside. Please include extra socks in your child’s bag in case our socks get wet on snowy days. Please make sure to check the blog weekly for fun updates on our days. 

Our Schedule

Becky’s Blessings Childcare

6:30a.m. -8:00 a.m. – Arrival and free play (cereal to tide over the early ones till breakfast time)

8:15 a.m. Prayers and Breakfast

8:30 a.m. Washing Hands and Diapers/Potty Time

8:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. - Miss Becky finishes cleaning up and kids play downstairs.

9:15 a.m. -9:45 a.m. – Art and Sensory

10:00 a.m. – Small Group time, we sit on carpet squares and do the weather song, sing ABC’s, Color Song, Days of the Week and try and find our names on the board.

10:15 a.m. Diapers and Potty Time while we look at more books, do puzzles and fine motor toys

10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. - Play Outside weather permitting otherwise we do gross motor activities downstairs

11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Educational TV Time while Miss Becky prepares lunch (Daniel the Tiger, Dinosaur Train, Reading Rainbow Story Books) If they can’t sit on the couch then I bring out kitchen toys for that time only.

11:30 a.m. - Prayers and Lunch time (18 months and up I begin working with them on drinking from a cup) I really encourage them using good manners!

12:00 p.m. – Washing Hands/Brushing Teeth/Diapers and Potty Time

12:15 p.m. – Story Time (Each child picks a storybook to read before naptime)

12:30 p.m. -2:30 p.m. – Soft music playing and lights off for naptime

2:35 p.m. Diapers and Potty Time

2:45 p.m. Prayers and Snack Time

3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. – Play Outside weather permitting otherwise or gross motor activities downstairs

4:00 p.m. Learning Time (Finding our names on the board, Animal Flash Cards, Singing Songs, Counting Items, Finding the Letters in our name Big and Small)

4:15 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Diapers/Potty Time and free playing till Mom and Dad come

God is good; God is great, Let us thank Him for our Food, Amen!

Weekly Menu

Becky’s Blessings Mealtimes	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8:15 a.m. Breakfast	Blueberry Muffins Hard boiled eggs Milk	Peanut Butter Toast Clementine’s Milk	Waffles with syrup Banana Slices Milk	Fruit Assorted Oatmeal Milk	Mini Donuts Blueberries Milk
11:30 a.m. Lunch	Chicken nuggets Mashed potatoes Green Beans Pineapple Milk	Vegetable Soup Grilled Cheese Pears Milk	Sloppy Joes Tater Tots Steamed Corn Blueberries Milk	Ravioli Bread & butter Pineapple Sweet Peas Milk	PB & J Sandwich Apple Slices Carrots with ranch Milk
3:00 p.m. Afternoon Snack	Jell-O and pretzel sticks Water	Strawberry Banana Yogurt  Water	Peanut Butter Cheerio Bars Water	Vanilla Pudding with wafers Water	Lea’s Birthday Frosted Cookies Milk

More Ice Activities!

I think on Friday's I'm going to start making finger foods for meal times and doing more fine motor activities. Although today they were kind of picky with their lunch. It's funny what you think they would eat they don't and what you think they wouldn't eat they will...

This morning we had fun picking out crayons on our fake grass, they sit so well during coloring time and are great about sharing crayons with their friends. 

Painting with colored ice cubes is so much fun!

We love riding our bikes!

This afternoon we had fun exploring our frozen block of ice. It was a fun melting ice activity and science experiment. This is awesome for encouraging fine motor skills. I gave them tools and small cups so that they could scoop up warm water in a large bowl and pour it over the ice cubes to watch it melt. They were so excited when they found the cars frozen in the ice and couldn't wait to get it out. It also taught them teamwork and each taking turns helping one another. 

It makes a great indoor or outdoor science sensory play for all ages to enjoy! We loved melting ice!  Cool in the Summer for outdoor play and great indoor activity for the Winter, plus your kitchen floor will be washed!

Our Cutest Moments: