Monday Menu!

another menu coming your way!

Monday
Cinnamon Baked French Toast
and Turkey Bacon
it was a hit, i mean really anything with syrup is a hit
and these kids LOVE turkey bacon!

Tuesday

spaghetti dogs

i saw a pic of this on pinterest and knew i had to try it with my kiddos!

cut up a cold hot dog into small chunks

then stick a few piece of uncooked spaghetti in the hotdog

then boil 

and eat!
i am hoping the kids have fun making these and eating them!
they are weird about new foods but i think since the love each 
food by itself they will love it together!
hopefully i will have pics soon!

Wednesday
meatballs and mashed potatoes 
i buy the frozen kind of meatballs :)
kids aren't a huge fan of mashed potatoes
but they LOVE meatballs!!


Thursday
peanut butter banana honey quesdillas
i have made this one before and it was a huge hit!
i just spread a tortilla shell with peanut butter,
add a few thin slices of banana, drizzle a little honey
top with another shell and pop it in my quesdilla maker!

Friday
chicken nuggets, and tator tots
ya know the kind in a bag
super easy just throw them into the oven and call it a day!


ALSO JUST SO PARENTS ARE AWARE I DO SERVE A FRUIT AND A VEGGIE WITH EACH MEAL
I JUST DON'T ADD IT TO THIS MENU BUT I PROMISE THERE IS ALWAYS FRUIT AND MAYBE 90% OF THE TIME THERE IS A VEGGIE!


linking up with 
menu plan monday


what are you making your kids?!?

z-o-o

throughout the week the kids have been busy playing zoo

we have had all sorts of animals around here

tigers in cages, koala bears climbing trees, peacocks strutting around

lions napping, bears playing ball, monkeys swinging on the swing set.

its been crazy and fun trying to maintain this zoo!

another fun fact is the kids can spell zoo.

this is

EXCITING!!!

its exciting because a large part of the kids 

want to learn to read, write, spell!
i love when children are ready to learn and not being pushed to learn!
they are learning naturally and when they are ready!

(parents ask your kids to spell zoo for you and share the excitement with them)

back to our zoo fun!

i got a bunch of animal/zoo stickers for the kids

stickers always give me busy, happy kids!

he was showing me that he ripped the giraffes head off!

its all good, its just a sticker buddy put it back together!

we then made an elephant hand print!

(thank-you pinterest)

and because spelling Z-O-O was so much fun

we decorated the letters in a zebra, giraffe, alligator prints!

here are the kiddos working away at their Z-O-O project!

I decided i need to do things like this more often because they had a fun learning!

this little lady has become my little crafter and needs to make sure every ounce of paper is covered in paint, and every dot of glue has been covered!  she takes her time, does things neatly and nicely and is always the last one finished with a big smile on her face!!  

she teaches me to slow down, stop, and enjoy the moment!

the toddlers with the help of some very eager preschoolers learned to 

ROAR, GROWL, TRUMPET, YELP, HOWL, AND HISS

(animal sounds are a blast my friends, a blast!)


and today's post will be linked up with the following!
be sure to check all the great linky parties for some awesome ideas!
mingle with us

Its Playtime
&
Naturally-Nifty

peacocks

tuesday i came across a paper plate peacock HERE

and since the kids are into playing zoo right now

i knew they would LOVE this peacock!

at the zoo in our town there is a peacock that 

walks around doing its thing

and all the kids at daycare talk about it!!

so i got the materials together to make our beautiful peacocks!

i used paper plates, blue paint, blue paper cut out like a bowling pin, silver dots, and turquoise sequence

and you will need glue!

whats a post without a toddler eating paint?

i didn't take pictures of the steps to make the peacock because my toddlers got a little crazy

with their paint!  

but we painted our paper plates blue, then added the body, next the silver dots, a sequence on top of each silver dot, and finally some eyes, and a beak!  ours isn't as fancy as the one above, 

but i do what i can with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers!

this is what was going on instead of getting step by step pics!

crazy boys painting themselves, and rubbing their paper plate in their hair!

he cuteness makes up for his craziness!

on tuesday i had a very small group of kids so when they realized what they missed out on

they had to make them as well!!

so here we are day to making another round of peacocks!

they really did turn out nice, and the kids are always soo proud of the work they do!

some of our final products!!

linking up with Naturally-Nifty #11

be sure to check it out and link up!

(tomorrow is my "friday" and i just a little excited for a long weekend!)

menu monday

another week

another menu

monday - taco muffins

1 biscuit fill with taco meat and cheese,

cover with another biscuit

top with cheese

back in muffin tins!

  (suppose to have this last week friday but we ended up having pizza instead)

tuesday - cream chicken on bun

cook chicken breast in crockpot day before

(i like to add a little garlic and a little lawreys seasoning) 

cool

shred

add can of cream of chicken soup

(i make 5lbs of chicken and will need 2-3 cans of soup)

add milk if its to thick, add flour of its to runny

always a quiet table when cream chicken on bun is served!

wednesday - simple lasagna roll-ups

these were all over pinterest a few months ago, it called for "weird" ingredients 

so mine are much simpler

boil noodles

cook meat and add spaghetti sauce

lay out lasagna noodle

spoon full of meat/sauce mixture add mozz cheese

roll up

(i make 1 roll up per child)

cover with leftover meat/sauce mixture

top with cheese

for 8-12 kids 

i use 1lb hamburger, 1 LARGE jar of sauce

(my kiddos are not a fan of hamburger so i use a lot of sauce little hamburger)

1 package of mozz shredded cheese

thursday - turkey, turkey bacon, cheese ranch roll-ups

tortilla roll-up spread a little ranch, a few slices of turkey

1 piece of turkey bacon a slice of cheese

rollup

stick a toothpick in it!

this is another favorite!

some of the kids pull the thing apart and eat it individually 

and other eat it altogether!

friday - CLOSED!!  


MENU is subject to change 
whenever i feel like 
and am to lazy to cook what was planed :)
that is what pizza is for!


Linking up with
Menu Plan Monday 

its a zoo...

at first i thought "hey daycare is like a zoo"

and then i realized nope 

its not

its more like a jungle

all let lose into one space

fending for themselves

will do whatever it takes 

to get what they want!

so now i dream about my daycare being a zoo

each child

in their own space

doing their own thing!

but what fun would that be?

ANIMALS CHILDREN, LET LOOSE DOING AS THEY PLEASE IS MUCH MORE FUN!!

anways...

today when i got done cleaning breakfast up

the kids were playing tigers

and they needed a zoo keeper!

so myself and another child 

fed them, put them to sleep, gave them shots

(duh, jill tigers need shots to! when i questioned why a tiger needs a shot)

played ball, and went for walks 

(walking is healthy even for tigers)
also, tigers behave much better than children!  I was amazed!

so i decided that we would do a tiger craft!

what would we do without the internet!

i love that i can google "printable tiger"

and i get all sorts of goodies!

i found this one HERE

only the older kiddos did this project!

i am trying to get better about only doing things the kids are capable of

because otherwise im stuck doing all the work

and that doesn't show what they are able to do

only shows what I am able to do with very little time!

of course my daughter was all "im not making a tiger, 

im making a cheetah!"

you would my little stubborn child that likes to do things your way!

 super impressed with how everyone's cutting skills are coming along!

only had to help a few kiddos!

otherwise they were on their own!!

they are sooo serious when they are working!  

some of the finished products!

i knew that if i had the younger kids do this i would be cutting out their pieces

and then helping them glue them together!

so of course when you want something easier

you use a paper plate and make a paper plate tiger!

paint the paper plate orange

 suck on the paint brush
(adds a little extra to the finished product)

 add, eyes, nose, and stripes

and then take a photo of cute boy saying

"look jill i did it!"

WAY TO GO BUDDY!!!

Then i found this giraffe head printable HERE

made a neck for it added some brown spots

 and then we took different toys and measured to see how long the neck was

with the different items around the daycare!

12 blocks

16 people

(notice the paper we also did milk lids which was 15 lids)

we wrote down how many of everything we measured with

people was the most

microphones was the least!

they LOVED this activity and stayed busy forever

finding different things to measure with.

it was a GREAT activity for counting, one to one correspondence,

measuring, more or less, number recognition, and even reading

  (they liked "reading" what i was writing) 

overall it was a fun day at the zoo!

we will continue on with zoo activities the rest of the week!

Linking up with

Sunday Showcase

&

Sharing Saturday

a little late but it works!

earth day... and a birthday girl!

FRIDAY!!!!!

i love fridays,

i don't like the thought of living for the weekend

but to just take each day at a time

but this week

i think i may have lived for the weekend

not because there is anything special

just time to relax!

today we did a little earth day project

by making a hand tree

i traced the each child's hand

used a circle punch to punch holes

from green scrap paper

i used a variety of different shades of green

and green pattern paper as well

 we then glued our hands down to our paper

and started to add the "leaves" to our branches!

 we talked about how God created the earth 

and that it is our job to take care of it

by keeping it clean!

  the toddlers were not to thrilled about me holding their hands down and tracing them so i just gave them a paper plate (not very earth day friendly item...opps) and covered it in glue and let them cover their plates with the dots! Its the little things in life that make them happy!

here are a few of our finished products!

i loved how they turned out

they look so pretty!

Since starting my daycare in August of 2008 i have lost 2 families!
and one left because there little guy was going to Kindergarten and wouldn't be needing me anymore,
and the other left because mom was going to start her own daycare and we talk daily and are always sharing ideas, helping each other during stressful times, and just a great support!
i miss both those families dearly!
otherwise i have had the same families (older siblings have gone off to school but i still care for the younger kiddos!), have added a few extra and all those families keep me busy by having more babies!
I am soooo blessed with this daycare..even though some days i think i might go crazy!
which leads me to this...
Today was a very special day and these next few weeks are going to be very sad for me!
The first family to sign my very first daycare contract will be leaving for good in a few short weeks!
i can actually remember the day like yesterday when her mother stopped over almost in tears because she was sooo thankful her daughter was going to be coming to my house for daycare, and she signed the contract and i was going to be in business!
I have known her since she was a baby and when i started my daycare she was just over 15mo old!
and today she turned 5!
she has been a lover, a fighter, a beautiful young girl and a drama queen
and when she leaves us for good she is going to be missed
by everyone!
it will be sad!!

Happy Birthday Princess!!
(she calls me Queen Jill the most out of any daycare kid so today i will call her a princess)

linking up with

Toys in the Dryer

and

TGIF Linky Party #26

rain drops keep falling on my head...

its rainy, gloomy, and dark outside!

my favorite kind of weather!!!

normally i would be like

MOVIE DAY!!!

but instead we got out a few books about rain and clouds

we read 

splish! splash! Spring

it looked like spilt milk

and little cloud

all great books!!!

check them out!!

the first project we did was

a name matching project!

I had the kids paint a piece of tag board blue

after their tag boards where blue

i worked with each child at placing the letters of their name in clouds onto the tag board

and then they matched their "letter clouds" with their "letter drops"

my oldest kiddo

was able to do this all by herself!

i mixed her cloud letters up and asked her to spell out her name! and since she had watched me help the other kids she was able to do this with a little help of a couple letters!  she quickly matched each rain drop to the right cloud letter!  i love watching these kids learn more and more each day!!

do you love my shoes!  they are my favorite and are worn daily!  wish i had 3 more pair because they are almost to worn to wear anymore!

anyways back to project time!

after lunch i got out the shaving cream

thank you dollar tree!

and had the kids make their own clouds in the shaving cream!

we also talked about what clouds would feel like if we could touch them!

and we looked outside to see what was happening because of all the clouds!

rain drops!!  

we also sang "if all the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops"

(old school barney song!)

and of course we made a huge huge mess!

that still needs to be cleaned up, 

but blogging comes first my friends! 

this post is linking up with 

kids co-op

its playtime

mingle with us

a story + Art = a Great Start!

all great blogs and fun links!

be sure to check them out for some more supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

ideas!

absorb

we learned what the word absorb means

(parents be sure to ask your children what it means)

i poured water on the counter and absorbed it with a sponge

i then asked the kids what absorb meant

they said 

CLEANING!!

i then explained that it means to suck up

they said 

"like when someone spills milk you suck it up with a rag!"

EXACTLY!

then they said 

"so its still like cleaning?"

yep it kinda is! :)

we then painted with some things that absorbed the paint

and other things that didn't absorb the paint

this was a hit!  we have painted with all these materials before

but combining them was new, and fun!

we also painted with the primary colors

 instantly the kids were busy mixing colors and creating new colors

and of course mixing and creating is super fun!

i love when i can just sit back, snap photos

and let the magic of learning happen on its own!

when kids are busy communicating with each other

using our new word absorb, and talking about the color mixing they were doing!

and you know its a great day when babies eat paint! :)

(non toxic my friends!)

and then things get really fun when that one child

you know the one that likes to step over the line you drew

just to see what would happen

(its my child)

and then when you say, hey thats supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

(another new word we learned today!)

EVERYONE joins in and you are kinda kicking yourself

but yet the learning is still happening 

language is still going on 

and really all messes are cleanable!

and even though the kids are painting themselves 

and saying they look like zombies 

(i don't even think they know what a zombie is)

you are like whatever, 

because a year ago those kids would have NEVER 

gotten more than a finger covered in paint!

and then they aren't even painting anymore they are just smearing 

and then looking at me

like is this still ok

(which i will admit normally its not)

but today it was because it was done with control!

you see friends sometimes i lose control

12 kids, and paint...its easy to lose control!

and when that moment happens its not pretty

i yell, i make them stop what they are doing

and control has been lost!

but when you have control

things like this happen

and its good, 

its fun

its awesome!

so im learning something from these kids

and its to absorb the moment 

and not lose control of the spill!

linking up withShow and Tell #97