Enjoying the beautiful weather!

God is Good, he is still letting us spend lots of hours outside enjoying the beautiful colors of Fall. Today I took my toddlers outside and we learned to crunch the leaves with our feet, throw the leaves into the air and just play in them. Hopefully we don't have many allergies in this bunch however I do apologize ahead of time. 

Yesterday we had fun working on our fine motor skills by holding onto a water color paint brush and dipping them in different colored cups of paint. They loved it and it was fun watching them with their different techniques! 

In the afternoon we explored some playdough I found while I had been cleaning some stuff out, I was just going to throw it away but thought they'd like to explore it.  they actually played with it for 15 minutes. However the cleanup was definitely messy, apparently it was fun to smear it onto the flooring! 

Our Cutest Moments:

Happy Halloween!

Everyone looked so cute in their Halloween costumes on Friday. I forgot to buy ink this weekend because it was so crazy so I have Tuesday off this week so I'll print them all off and hand them out to you all on Wednesday. 

Painting our pumpkins was a lot of fun!

Before we dressed up in our costumes we had our little party treats which consisted of string cheese, a banana. goldfish crackers, and a halloween brownie with milk. Were pretty low key on sweets! Afterwards Miss Deb shared some gummy fruit snacks with us and we practiced using our please and thank you's! 

Our Cutest Moments:

Happy Birthday Logan!

Today we celebrated Logan's 2nd birthday! I can't believe he is 2 years old already where has the time gone? We sang happy birthday to him throughout the day!!

Birthday cupcakes are always a big hit!!! 

When you turn 2, Miss Becky will always spoil you silly on your birthdays. Funny thing in this video, is that this was Logan's favorite chair when he was younger and is still a favorite!

This afternoon we read lots of Halloween books, and painted our square pumpkins with orange paint! Most of them were quite proud of their pumpkin masterpieces. 

Our Cutest Moments:

Pumpkin Granola

It seems lately I've been obsessed with granola and anything pumpkin, so when I found this recipe I had to try and make it.

What you need:

7 to 9 cups of oats
1/2 c olive oil
1/2 c honey
1/2 c pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place oats and cinnamon in a large bowl. Pour olive oil, honey, pumpkin and vanilla in a small bowl and whisk until combined. Pour half of the honey mixture on top of the oats, turn the oats over and add the other half. Combine with your hands (it works better than a spoon) until well coated (this is messy, but OH so fun!).

Dump the oats onto 2 cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes, then stir and return to oven. Bake for 7 minutes, stir and return to the oven for 5 more minutes. Oats will be somewhat moist until they dry after baking. Allow to cool completely, stir in raisins and store in an airtight container.

Halloween Activities

Halloween activities are always fun to partake in with my toddlers, keep checking your child's folder for cute artwork I always tend to get carried away during the holidays! In this activity they had fun stamping cookie cutters in white paint and making ghosts on their papers. We also practiced saying the word "Boo!"

We sing Itsy Bitsy Spider daily so I thought this activity was perfect for them, and kept them busy for 15 minutes before lunchtime.

 

 

 

Our Cutest Moments:

Pumpkin Pictures

It's another holiday where I enjoy taking fun pictures with my toddlers. I found this costume on ebay for $3 last year. They get pretty excited when I put the curtain up for picture time, however some of the littlest ones were too smart for that. I had to use some crackers as a bribery reward!

Then there are the outtakes...

and then well then this happens too...

Our Cutest Moments:

Creepy Crawlers Lesson Plan

Music & Movement (Self-Expression, Songs, Instruments-rattles & shakers)	Bible Time with Miss Beth and Miss Nancy	Itsy Bitsy Spider Finger Play	Raffi Songs There’s a spider on your head, on your head!	Where is Thumbkin?	Monster Mash  dancing with colored scarves
Literacy & Language (Book titles or language activities)	Reading: My First Halloween	Reading: 5 Little Pumpkins	Alphabet Animal cards Practicing saying the names	Reading: Baby Bear, Baby Bear What Do You See?	Reading: Halloween ABC
Gross Motor Indoor & Outdoor (Toddler Games, Physical Coordination)	Playing in the gym Playing outside	Outside Play Dancing to music inside	Playing outside Finding worms	Throwing balls through a hanging hula hoop	Running and walking up and down grassy hill
Fine Motor (Manipulatives)	Ripping up paper	Scribbling with black and orange markers	Eye Ball Stickers on paper	Putting yarn pieces on sticky contact paper	Stamping with cookie cutters in paint
Creative Experiences (Art and Sensory experiences)	Gluing pieces of paper down	Spider Handprint	Monsters Inc. Handprint and Footprint	Bat Handprints	Wet Cold Spaghetti noodles in the sensory tub

Our Newsletter

Little Llamas

October, 2016

Dear Families,

As the autumn weather approaches, our focus will be on the change of season.  We will as always, be spending much time outdoors so the toddlers can experience the sights and sounds of autumn first hand.  We have many fall books and songs to introduce during circle time, and we will incorporate different aspects of nature into our art and sensory activities. With that being said, please restock your child’s cubby with appropriate clothing for the season.

Our themes for this month include: Creepy Crawlers, Messy Week, Pumpkins, and Halloween. This month we will learn about pumpkins and practice saying the word. We will play with super fun pumpkin-pie scented orange play dough and cookie cutters. We will explore the inside of a pumpkin.  We also ask that you bring in a small pumpkin during the week of October 24th. Each of the children will get to decorate his/her own small pumpkin. We will also decorate a big pumpkin as a class.

Some fun projects we will do this month will include finger painting with pumpkin pudding, exploring the inside of a pumpkin, playing with cold wet noodles in the sensory tub with cups and bowls, exploring small and big pumpkins, dressing up with costumes, as well as many more fun activities! Be sure to check out the lesson plans located on the bulletin board outside our classroom for many more updates! And be sure to check out our blog for lots of fun pictures! http://cookingandcuddling.blogspot.com/

We will also be reading three new books this month: “It’s Pumpkin Day, Mouse “Llama Llama Trick or Treat”, and “5 Little Pumpkins”. And of course, we won’t forget our fun music time this month. We will be dancing/rocking to “Monster Mash” and “Shake your Bones.”

We will be celebrating our Halloween party at the end of the month. Please bring a Halloween costume for your little one to wear. We will dress them up and take a group picture, along with a picture with a pumpkin as a gift from me! We will parade them to other classrooms to show them off!  We will also have a snack sign-up sheet to provide fun finger foods that day.

I'm always looking for donations for our classroom as I take a lot of pictures I'm always looking for printing paper 4x6. Thanks!

Just a heads up, I will be on vacation during the week of October 17th through October 21st, if you guys have any questions about anything that week just ask Miss Deb. Thanks! You can always still contact me via facebook too! 

Friday Fun!

Our early mornings consist of cuddling, story time and sometimes we just need to get our energy out and rock out to oldies music. 

Our playground seems to have attracted a lot of little biting bugs (mostly biting me) so we've been taking more morning walks to stay away from them. 

Sometimes we get a little distracted heading back...

This afternoon we went outside to our playground as it was cooler out so we didn't get bit. I decided I wanted to find some worms so we dug away with our shovels into the dirt and found a couple of big ones to hold. Don't worry we all went inside afterwards to wash our hands.

Our Cutest Moments: