Jocey entertaining Grady....

Really just trying out the video part of my camera....

"Brushing Our Teeth"

Addie and Ali showing their real "pearly whites"

Scarlett and Grady making sure their teeth are clean!

Grady's Sparkling Clean Tooth!

Liam showing us how to "brush" our teeth with paint and toothbrush!

Scholastic book orders due today....

Please let me know if you are wanting to order books from Scholastic as I plan to place the order this evening. Scholastic is a great way to add books to your child's library -- many are under $3.00 and when you purchase books our child care library benefits from free books as well.

A few pictures from last week..

The Littles!

Being silly...

He's so proud....there is no stopping him now that he has figured out how to climb up on the sofa. He will learn the words "sit down" this week! :-)

Wet Wednesday!

I don't know what happened to our "ice storm" but it's sure wet outside! We had to make do with our paper snowmen today.

Grady working on his snowman.

Happy faces!

Hello....Hellooooooooooo!

Liam wasn't too sure about the sticky glue:-)

Lights! Camera! Action!

Well the good news is that my wonderful daughter and her family gave me my very own camera for Christmas! The bad news.....I don't really know how to work it! Luckily...it's pretty much point and shoot -- here are a few pictures of our Monday so far....

Ali and Addison coloring.

Grady making lots and lots of circles!

A big welcome to Liam and big sis, Scarlett! This is Liam's first day and he's doing great!

Updated Blog

Hello parents!

My blog is now fixed -- still not sure what happened but everything seems to be lining up better now. Please remember to actually visit the blog as there are things on the sidebar - like dates I am closed - that are important to know.

The address is:

http://juliaschildcare.blogspot.com/

If you are having trouble accessing the blog, please let me know.

Some pictures of our week!

The children with their leaf wands! They had fun yelling pumpkin patch to make them smile!

Grady using the counting mats - well...Grady really enjoying playing with the pasta shells! Scarlett waiting patiently for her turn.

Ali and Addie showing their pattern strips.

Some fun things we have been doing....

I've been reading about the Montessori approach where children move from being undisciplined to disciplined, disordered to ordered, distracted to focused through the activities and their environment. I love the philosophy and hope to add experiences that help the children learn skills as well as feel a sense of accomplishment. While it's always important to foster self-esteem by praising our children, they also need to feel that "praise" inside without the constant approval from others.

For the next two weeks or so our theme will be fish and we will be reading The Rainbow Fish and The Pout-Pout Fish (CUTE book).

Here are a few of our activities....

This is "fish tracing." On the tray is paper, colored pencil and two fish stencils. The tray is placed on the counter and if it's free a child can choose this activity. They take it to the table, do the activity, put all the supplies back on the tray and return it to the counter for another child. There is independence...they choose the activity, concentration as they do the activity on their own (I have demonstrated at the beginning of the day), order as they put the supplies back on the tray and return the tray to the counter.....and accomplishment as they have started, created and finished an activity.

The tray with the supplies (LOVE the Dollar Tree).

Jocey tracing her fish.

Nolan with a fish he traced and colored.