ROOTS

This week marks the first week of our Summer Camp at Little Munchkins, and we couldn't have asked for better weather! We spent our days enjoying the fresh air and learning about plants and gardening. 

    

We started off by planting our own flower pots. The campers painted their pots, chose what they wanted to plant, and made personalized labels.

We were all surprised to see that when we went to water our plants today some had already started to sprout! 

We decided our gardens needed a little sprucing up so we also made our own stepping stones! You can use cement, but I know how much the children enjoy cooking so we made our "cement" from scratch.

INGREDIENTS: 

2 Cups Flour

2 Cups Sand

2 Cups Glue

1 Cup Salt

1 Cup Water

DIRECTIONS:

Mix together all ingredients. Spread evenly on a greased cookie sheet. (Spray hands with cooking spray before spreading!) 

"I'm so strong... I'm actually mixing cement."

These need to dry really good so we still have ours sitting out to dry. Once they're completely dried out we are going to put a coat of mod podge over and set them in our gardens! 

Continuing on with our green thumbs, we also created our very own terrariums! (We used recycled apple sauce jars.) We learned about the different layers needed to successfully create a terrarium and what each layers job was.  

Once we had our layers in the jars we went on a walk searching for plants to put inside. 

We made a new friend along the way!! :) 

While we were on our walk we saw tons and tons of daisies! We dug up a few bundles and created our own little garden to transplant them in! 

We made a rock fence around it and painted the rocks...

We weren't sure how the daisies would take, but they appear to be doing great! The children seem quite pleased with their new addition to our back yard!

Gardens take time, patience, and responsibility, and I am very impressed with all the children's efforts in creating and maintaining our gardens. Every day as soon as we get out, they unravel the hose and make sure every plant is watered and doing ok. I never have to ask or remind them. Nothing feels better then to watch all of your hard work flourish (literally!) 

Can We Do Yoga?!

"Can we do yoga?" Is a question I get asked a lot, especially at quiet time. I get excited and say yes, but I'm quickly told "No, Leslie. This is for the kids. We're the teachers and you just watch." So I sit back and smile as my three and four year olds lead each other in a yoga session. 

They repetitively did "tree", "cobra", and "warrior" poses and helped the younger ones on their form. I asked them where they learned to do yoga, and most would tell me they watched their mom do it from the TV. (They're always watching.) 

The children have enjoyed doing the yoga so much that it has become part of our quiet time routine. Every day after we clean up,  they spread out and begin going over all the positions. To extend their interest I decided to bring my yoga mat in for the children to use, and later decided to create a yoga center in our classroom. Each day we try to learn and perfect a new position as well as a little bit of history.   

The space provides a big enough area away from other traffic, natural light, yoga mats, and some references for the children to look at. You can often look over and see a few children trying out some of the new positions that are posted. You can see the excitement across the children's face when they successfully master a new move! 

  

"Look I can actually do bridge now!"

I have high hopes for bringing in a real yoga instructor to our classroom to keep our learning going! 

WHY THIS MATTERS:

Like adults, children receive great benefits by practicing yoga. Yoga teaches us about our bodies, and is not only good for our physical well being, but mental as well. Yoga helps with flexibility, coordination, balance, posture, and strength. Yoga is also offering social skills amongst our Munchkins by taking turns, helping and encouraging other children, and respecting other people's space. Yoga is also proven to reduce stress and build self confidence! Did I mention that yoga is FUN?!  I encourage everyone that is reading this to take a few minutes out of their day and try some yoga! Namaste! 

-Leslie Dionne

Beating the Winter Blues

People living in colder climates are often wishing to live somewhere warm and sunny all winter long. I'm not about to lie and say that I LOVE Winter, but here at Little Munchkins we choose to embrace it. We're outside all winter long, snow or shine, providing meaningful moments for the children in our care. Watching the excitement of the first big storm, laughing uncontrollably during an intense snowball fight, and catching snowflakes on your tongue are all things children don't get to experience when living in warmer areas. As you get older, the stress of winter can pay a toll, but if you stand back and watch children outside in snow you can find that magic you experienced as a child creep back. 

Here's some of the things we've done throughout this winter:  

The children were able to bring their creative side outside, and add some color to our backyard. 

            

Some days it is just TOO cold. Our four year old group used the extreme temperature to try a science experiment to see what would happen to hot water if they threw it in the air! They made their hypothesis as to what would happen and collected their data once their results were in. The water turned to snowy dust as soon as it hit the icy air. Next, they wanted to see if they added food coloring if the dust would turn different colors, but it did not work.   

One day the snowflakes were falling perfectly on our mittens! We spent most of the afternoon collecting and comparing them. This led into many discussions of how snow flakes form and how no two are the same. 

       

           

Elsa doesn't have anything on these snowmen! There has been lots of snowmen brought to life this winter by the Munchkins, and it was no easy task! You need communication, team work, listening skills, & strength to make a snowman this complex! 

The perfect protection during a snow ball fight! Snow forts take time, patience, creativity, planning, and hard work! 

Apparently Canadians refer to it as sliding but where I grew up it's sledding! Every time the children get outside they run straight to our shed. Sledding allows the children to burn off lots of energy, take turns, share, and is just plain fun! 

By mid winter the snow banks in our parking lot are MASSIVE and the Munchkins LOVE to climb them. This is very challenging but so rewarding when making it to the top! Going for nature walks in winter also makes it easier to see animal tracks. We're getting pretty good at identifying the types of tracks around here! 

We setup water balloons on our zip line, and launched snowballs from our catapult! The water balloons would not break so they decided to throw the snowballs instead. Still, the balloons didn't break. Finally the children decided we had to PUNCH them down!! As the balloons hit the snow they were surprised to see it was "magic water" inside! 

                   The after school group made monsters, hung them on trees, and used them as targets! The monsters didn't stand a chance!  

Spring is finally starting to come our way and the snow is beginning to melt! The children are a little sad (the educators are really happy!) , but we all know what fun is around the corner; MUD!!!!!! 

- Leslie Dionne