Nature creations

Last week we made beautiful branches by weaving ribbons and yarn through branches. We created nature light switch covers for our bedrooms. We made nature gardens in clay. And of course nature printing of leaves, grass...whatever the kids could find in nature! It was a beautiful sunny day! We've put Iyla's branch in our garden for some color, I love it. That was my favorite of the day. Her light switch cover is in our bedroom. All of these activities are a fun way to get outside and look for different shapes and colors in nature.

This week, we are going to concentrate on making paper bag kites. The weather is calling for a chance of showers so we will set up under the covered area incase. But this could mean we might have some wind to fly our kites...that is if they dry in time. We were outside yesterday and saw some kids with some kites and thought it would be a great time making our own. So, I've got streamers, sparkles, paints, stickers everything to make the brightest, shiniest masterpiece in the sky!

Week 5 - Balloons!!!

Hooray for the sun! We had a great day last Thursday. I acutally got a tan that day it was so nice out! I am happy too since it was Balloon theme. We had bubble wrap printing, which made a nice honey comb pattern. We had balloon heads and of course water paint balloons!!! I had a bunch of white sheets that I cut up and made into 'flags, capes, curtains...' whichever, and the kids had a great time jumping on the balloons; tie dying the material with wonderful paint explosions!!!! Super fun day, we had naked kids running around covered in paint - to me that is a very successful class of exploration.

This weeks theme is creating with nature. We will be branch weaving, grass printing, nature arranging with foam and clay, painting and printing nature and creating our very own nature light covers for our bedrooms!!! The weather forecast says sunny so hope to see you out! Don't worry I won't forget the cream this week.

Contact Info...

Hi Parents,

Some how in the daze of it I have lost my cell phone so if you are wondering if class if running you can call my home phone 250.338.6310 as for the afternoon class...I will leave a message on my answering machine for you. I just hope that I find my phone. Another problem I am having is with my shaw account. Is anyone else only able to pull up their address book? This is really causing some problems with my online courses...
So if you have emailed me and I haven't gotten back to you this is why.
Becky

Tomorrows Theme...come on sun!

This weeks theme is going to be the exploration of balloons! We are going to milk rubber gloves filled with paint and squeeze punctured balloons also filled with paint. I have looked up and mastered the water balloon fill up so we are going to do a water balloon splat as well as decorating balloon faces with all different kinds of materials. Children can use the materials supplied to create their balloon friends or take things from nature. Children will also explore bubble wrap printing. Now all of this is counting on the 'NO RAIN' factor once again. Thanks to some of you S.M.A.R.T parents I will bring a big tarp to set everything up on this time. There will, of course, be hot coffee and water and this week I will be bringing the ghetto!

Just letting parents and children know that this weekend, Sat 16th, is Market Days in Cumberland. There will be a kids zone activity tent set up. Creative Exploration will be providing art activities until 2 after which there will be scarecrow creating. The theme for Market day is the Olympics so art acitivities will include a tennis toss, mosaics, facepainting and other fun acitivies.

What luck...

What luck, as soon as we change our classes to outside we have rain! I want parents and children that registered to note that the end of the spring program will be pushed back to the 25th of June because of our sick week and last week being rain.
We were able to have the morning class before it rained, I am calling that a test run. I forgot about the elements such as wind and paper flying around! So I really hope that it stops raining this week :(
Our theme for our first week outside was 'Art sports.' We played golf on paper, we used squirt guns and a combo of bowling and soccer with cups with paint sitting waiting to be kicked over from the soccer ball. Cups flew, paint didn't, it was an interesting try but not what I expected. The wind was blowing and it was cold, thanks to all the paretns and kids that bundled up and braved the weather last week for our first week outside. Lets hope for better weather this week...

Drawing with...

Our first week outside!!!

Hi Parents
sorry that things are going so slowly with photo posting, we were sick and we moved, now I am waiting for Telus to get our internet connection going. Luckily,Matts laptop can pick up some wireless signal around here. This weeks theme is going to take full advantage of being outside 'ART SPORTS!' We are going to turn sports into our painting tools. It should be fun, messy and silly. Lets hope for good weather, i am hoping that the rain will be over at the beginning of the week, saving the sun for the end of the week. There will still be hot coffee and tea available for parents. Please add one week to the Spring program to make up for our sick week. Again, I apologise for the short notice. Matt posted a note on the door, apparently, it was no longer there for the afternoon class. That being that he put it on the right door... I hope everyone took advantage of the free coffee and tea at Tarell's. Cross your fingers for sun on Thursday, remember no class if it rains!
Thanks again for your patience with all the changes in my life right now.
Becky & Iyla

Food creations

Food creations...I wanted so badly to paint with spaghetti that I decided on Food as a theme. At the time, I had a bit of a mental block past different fruit and veggie stamps and spaghetti noodles. I am so happy that I thought of the potato heads, they were great!!! Parents, if you are looking for something to pass the time potato heads are fun and great. I will be adding those to the list of awesome crafts to do with kids! I have since thought of some other fun things to do with food so next time I guess. We did try a combination of yahtzee and marble painting with dried beans, paint, yogurt containers, and paper. I thought that if we put the paint in the container with some beans and put the lid on SHAKE IT, and then dump the beans onto the paper below it would be exciting. It was interesting but found out less if more with the paint in this situation. Marble painting seems to work out much easier as far as mixing colors and such. Our food stamps we great, I am a huge fan of potato stamping - easy and you can cut whatever shapes you want or need. Red peppers were great and apples are another favorite!
I would like to say a big hello to the new brother in Lily and Nadia's house. Hooray girls, and welcome baby boy.

Spring 2009 - Easter

So sorry that it took me so long to get this post up! Easter is already been and gone, 2 weeks late I am! We have been in the middle of moving and I am really enjoying this weather! Love being outside right now! So the Spring program has started, we are 2 weeks in. Our first week being Easter theme, we wore bunny noses and hopped from table to table creating all different kinds of art. The kids made shakers out of those plastic eggs. They put dried lentils and beans into their plastic containers, mom taped it shut...viola music! I put out glitter glue and sticky foam shapes for decorating the eggs, they looked great! And alot of fun. Kids made easter baskets out of yogurt containers, tissue paper and paint. I saw a few of them out at the local egg hunt with their baskets, it was great! I made up some festive stamps which I quite liked. I think that its time that Becky puts the stamps away for abit I think... Oh and lets not forget play dough bunnys with pipecleaner!!! Actually we even had some playdough Easter sluggs! Easter is always fun, exciting and full of sugar, I tried to get the first 2, leaving out the third for Sunday, I think it worked. I love seeing kids in their easter outfits, noses, ears and smiles. Iyla...chocolate mustache

Last week of the Winter program

With all the snow and frost finally starting to melt, we celebrated Spring in our last class of the Winter program! We decorated flower pots and planted some sunflower seeds, Iyla's is already stating to pop out of the soil!!! We created colorful pom pom caterpillar creatures on leaves, everyone loved the feeling of running their hands through the box of pom poms. We created mosaic butterflies with different kinds of dried veggies and noodles. And we decorated flowers with tissue paper. A complete celebration to spring!
Thanks to all the parents and children, we managed to donate $100 to the No. 6 Mine park this time around.

Easter Theme

This week...Easter!!!! Don't worry parents I won't have candy, I am sure that they will get enough this weekend without me contributing! Hope to see all your little bunnies this Thursday for the first week of the Spring Program!
Don't forget all of you afternoon people time change from 2-3 to 1-2.

Egypt inspired Art

With my usual camera in for cleaning, I tried to catch all the action going on with my point and shoot. I brought back some papyrus paper for the kids to feel and create Egyptian art in the traditional way. There was the full heiroglyphic alphabet in stamps with a key so that everyone could spell their names. Most were having trouble fitting their whole names on one sheet of paper! We also made 3D pyramids which proved to be a bit of a challenage getting them to fit together. But once together the kids went to work gluing different colored sand on each side of the pyramid. (Hint: for different colors of sand put salt in a container with food coloring and shake) We also made colored sand layers in small containers. Some kids made them into beautiful necklaces. I added this acitivity last mintue and the kids loved it, great one for an at home project. I had also printed out some Egyptain coloring pages from the internet - great place to find lots of interesting pages for kids to color. I cut them out and everyone was able to choose the image that they liked, glue it on their papyrus paper, and color. The finished projects were remenisent of the paintings you could purchase everywhere in Egypt.

This week is our last week of the Winter program and we are going to celebrate Spring by planting a seed and decorating the pot. Focus will be on mosaics. Hope to see you there! The Spring program will follow directly after the Winter program starting on April 9th. Note afternoon class time change to 1-2pm.