Halloween Crafts

We had a free day on Friday since I combined the library lesson with another one. So, we did Halloween crafts.

First, Hailey helped me make cupcakes since I needed to bring a dozen to the ward trunk-or-treat party tonight.
Then we painted our jack-o-lantern faces on our small pie pumpkins. I like painting better then craving and probably won't have them crave until their 8 unless they ask for it.

Here's my pumpkin.

Hailey started making a face and then painted all over it.

*Side note: Once again I'm using the Styrofoam egg carton to hold the paint. However, only four of the twelve sections are without holes.

Then we tried to make the witch craft that Joy School provided but it wasn't easy to work with. I ended up doing all the gluing. There's supposed to be shoulders and she's supposed to be able to stand up on her own but the instructions didn't make sense to me.

Then Hailey and I did a Corduroy Halloween sticker book together while the cupcakes cooled.

Then Hailey got to decorate 6 cupcakes all by herself.

Surprisingly she didn't put a huge amount of frosting like I thought she would.

Then we added sprinkles. She only wanted to put on perfect, whole sprinkles so she ate the broken ones.

We had a lot of Halloween fun together. I'm glad that we did it.

Joy School: Unit 7: Dramatizations

This lesson seemed a bit scattered to me but I think that was because I'm a little more tired with the pregnancy.

We started with painting with Clorox and Q-tips on colored paper.

They enjoyed this effect and painted for a long time.

Then we sang "Doodle Caboodle" and "Spontaneous Delight".

Next, we did "Five Little Monkeys" and acted out "Five Little Ducks". They did very well with pretending to be ducks and going away and coming back when the song said to.

The ended this lesson with first reading "Caps for Sale" by E. Slobodkina and then acting it out.

Chloe was the peddler. Luc and Hailey were the monkeys. I got the cowboy hats from the dollar store.

The kids did great and really got into it. Hailey loves the cowboy hats and plays with them all the time now.

I remember doing this with the Joy School I was apart of when I was little. I have a picture of me being the peddler. Too bad it's in a box in the back of the storage unit or I would've uploaded that cute picture of me too. I remember this activity specifically because of that picture which is why I try to keep this blog as updated as possible, so Hailey can remember.

Joy School: Unit 7: Silly Playing

We started Unit 7 which also has two parts. The first is the Joy of Spontaneous Delight and the second part is the Joy of Trust and Confidence.

Joy of Spontaneous Delight only had two lessons and it's all about having fun and being silly.

First we started the lesson by playing with balloons. Then singing "If You're Happy and You Know It".
Then we got to do silly things like shaking hands with a door handle, jumping out of a box, and acting like a turtle which Hailey is demonstrating.

Following that, they could blow bubbles using a straw. Luc went a little over board with it.

Hailey couldn't blow and kept sucking it up, so I blew the bubbles and she popped them.

Then we did a silly story with flannel board pictures. I had a random selection of pictures that they could use to fill up the story. Hailey didn't get it but it cracked Luc up. (Luc didn't have school, so I had him all day.)

After that, they painted with shaving cream that I added a little bit of paint to the shaving cream piles.

We finished the lesson by reading "The Monster at the End of This Book" which is a Sesame Street book that I got from Walmart for $3. Hailey was very nervous about the monster at the end and didn't want the pages turned. When we got to the end, Hailey just didn't understand that the Grover is the monster at the end of the book since she's not scared of Grover. She keeps telling me that this book belongs to the library since she doesn't want us to keep it.

Preschool: T is for Turtle

Hailey had fun at preschool at Audrey's house. They went on a treasure hunt and made a turtle.
They also had a teeth and a toothbrush to make the letter T.

Joy School: Unit 6: Library and Magic

Earlier we went to the Library for Book Babies and Hailey picked out a book to go along with Joy School. She found "Waiting for Baby" which is a very cute book about a little boy waiting for his mommy to have his baby sister. At the end, the dad tells him his sister came in the middle of the night and that he can go see her at the hospital. Hailey won't be able to come to the hospital to see Hannah due to the H1N1 flu. (No visitors at the hospital under 18 years old.) This reality hit me hard while reading the book and made me sad.

Anyways, to start Joy School and to finish lesson 3, we read the book.

Now, we spent the rest of the time doing the last lesson of this unit. First, I needed to do magic tricks. I had a hard time figuring out the magic tricks that they supplied me with, so I went to the dollar store and got 3 magic sets. I only did two "tricks" which Hailey liked.
Then we made baking powder biscuits to amaze the kids when the rise in the oven all by themselves. Hailey loves to cook.

Then while it baked, we played with soap suds. I mixed equal parts water and liquid dish soap but it never got as stiff as the lesson described just really foamy. So, I check the book again, to realize that the water needed to be hot. Oh well, Hailey still had fun playing with it.

After that, I sent Hailey on a treasure hunt. The first clue told to her look behind the door where we dry our clothes. Hailey wouldn't look on the door, she just looked further into the dryer. At this point, Chloe came and joined Hailey with the treasure hunt.

The dryer took her to the coat closet, then the stairs, then the bath tub.

The bath tub said to look for the treasure under 8 pillows. However, since Hailey helped me make the bed this morning she didn't want to mess up the pillows, so Chloe gladly helped.

In the treasure box was princess fruit snacks.

We ended Joy School with fruit snacks and the biscuits. Also, they were supposed to take turns helping me make butter but the jar was too heavy for Hailey.

I thought making butter was pretty cool. All it takes is whipping cream (by the half and half) at room temperature and 20 minutes of shaking. The hardest part was separating the butter from the buttermilk. Then it needs a lot of salt.

Joy School: Unit 6: Experiments

This lesson had a lot of activities to it. The main point of the lesson is to ask questions and be amazed with the different experiments.


First we made jello. Today was early release for Chloe so she decided to join us. They mixed the lemon jello powder with the boiling water.
Early I froze 1c. of water with blue food coloring, so they were able to mix blue ice with yellow jello. They thought green jello was pretty cool.

Then we read "When the Wind Stops" by Charlotte Zolotow.

Following that we played 20 questions so the kids could figure out what was in my box. This was too hard for them, even with Chloe there. The objects I had was a marshmallow and a purple mitten. They did ask good questions but it was still hard to get them to near it down to figure out the object.

Now we started the experiments which had interesting results.

First I had 1c. of sugar in the jar and added 1T of baking soda (it was only supposed to be 1 tsp but when I went to double check it my eyes went to the experiment below it which had 1T). Then I added 1c of vinegar which kept bubbling over. The kids were amazed by this. However, the cool thing about this experiment was supposed to be the reaction when 6 mothballs were added. The mothballs were supposed to dance, which if they did, we shouldn't see it through the bubbles. I'm not sure how I could have done with better except changing the baking soda amount.
The next experiment was adding food coloring to water and see it slowly mix together.

Then, in a different cup, we mixed water and sugar to discover what happened with the sugar.

Another one we did was about mixing colors together. Hailey punctured a hole in the Styrofoam egg carton, so purple started to leak everywhere. The mess come up but our hands were dyed for a couple of days. I guess around Easter, I'll see if there are any plastic egg cartons.

Then they got to do discoveries with magnets.

And with what floats.

There were a few experiments that I didn't do but still it was a full lesson (especially with the spills and needing to clean up.) At the end of this lesson, normally Joy School would be doing the Valentine's Day party.

Now, I try to look ahead and be prepare for the whole week at a time. So, I looked at the next lesson and it was all about going to the library for a field trip. The library activity is to get the kids interested in the books and to learn how to find answers to their questions. However, we go to story time twice a week (on Tuesday for Book Babies and on Thursdays for 3-5 year olds). Also, Robert sleeps during Joy School so we can't leave the house.

To adjust for that and still do the lesson, we did the question mark craft today and will go to the library tomorrow for Book Babies and Hailey can pick out a book she wants then.

So, here are there necklaces that pieced together to remind them that questions are good.

Preschool: S is for Spiders

For Preschool, the kids were at Audrey's house. I know they talked about spiders and made this cool craft. Also, Josie wanted to see if they knew how to spell their name. So, she had the foam letters and they were supposed to put them in order. Hailey can almost do it by herself but still needs help.

Joy School: Unit 6: Good Noticer

We started the second part unit 6 which is The Joy of Interest and Curiosity. The first lesson was pretty short.


We started with Joy Boy (a puppet) being curious about what we are going to learn today. So, we talked about what being curious means. Next time I do this lesson, I will read a Curious George Book. Hailey is into Curious George right now and pronounces it "Kissing George".


Then we read a little story about "Maisey and Daisey". The story is found in the Joy School story books (there's two volumes and I own both) and it is written in the lesson with flannel board pictures to go with it. The interesting thing is that the book talks about two birds and the lesson talks about two squirrels. Of course, there's a song that goes with it too that we learned.


Then we went outside to observe nature. (This was supposed to be a field trip or neighborhood walk that took us 25 minutes.) Hailey has been noticing that the season changed and the leaves are different colors. So, while we were outside observing we talked about the signs of Autumn. (Hailey thinks Fall is a type of weather so for the season I need to call it Autumn).

We brought three leaves back inside with us so we could compare and contrast them. Lately, Hailey has been putting my medicine (3 pills) in order of biggest to smallest and loves to count and state what color they are. So, comparing three leaves that are different sizes and colors were just up her alley.

We ended the lesson with a Good Noticer badge which she proudly wore the rest of the day.

**Side Note- This lesson is supposed to be done close to Valentine's Day. So, at the end of this lesson we were supposed to talk about the upcoming party. Since this had nothing to do with the topic of the day, it was easy to take out.

Joy School Song

Here is a video of Hailey singing the Joy School song. This is her favorite song.

Joy School: Unit 6: Rules and Decisions

This is the last lesson of the first half of unit 6. We did a lot of discussion about what are rules and what are decisions which small wiggly activities in between.

Then we learned a new song "Decisions" which is very long but had pictures for every phrase.

After a visit from Joy Boy and sang to him the Rule song, I read "Ira Sleeps Over" by Bernard Waber. This was a very long book and Hailey is not old enough to sleep over at some one's house so I don't know if she really understood what was happening. However, she loves books and loves Joy School and kept asking for more school.

We ended with an art activity which Chloe joined us. They are painting with Q-tips.

They enjoyed it and painted long then usual with normal paint brushes.

Joy School: Unit 6: Decisions

We opened Joy School today with Hailey choosing which finger plays to do (her options were flannel pictures). Then we did a flannel board story about "Mrs. Duck's New Hat" which Hailey also enjoyed and quickly decided which hat she liked best and stayed with her choice.

Then I did a Popsicle stick puppet (design was provided) show about good decisions, bad decisions and how they make us feel. We talk about good choices and bad choices all the time at home and she knows the right answer even if her actions doesn't show that. And of course, there was a song "Choices are Connected" to learn about our feelings.

We read "Shortcut" by Donald Crews which Hailey enjoyed. It's about a group of kids that decided to take the shortcut home by using the train tracks instead of the road and got surprised by a train coming. Hailey took this book to the bathroom and retold the story to herself.

We finished with the an art activity where she could make whatever shape she wanted with the stripes of paper. Then we stapled it together and she glued it onto a file folder to make a sculpture.

Preschool: R is for Rainbows

The downside of living in an apartment complex is that sickness spreads quickly here. So I helped a neighbor and watched her kids for two hours while her regular babysitter is sick with the flu. However, this meant I had 6 kids for preschool which was interesting but manageable.
After our welcoming song and our ABC songs, I read Minnie's Rainbow. I lost Robert's and Wyatt's attention before the story started and could tell Wesley was getting bored. At the end of this book it gives instructions about how to make a rainbow on your wall with a mirror (which the provided), a jar, a flashlight, and a dark room. So, after the story, everyone went up stairs to see a rainbow. The rainbow was hard to see because it was a small sliver on the wall but was still there and the kids pretended to see it at least. Then they each wanted a turn using the flashlight.

After everyone got a turn, we went down stairs and I blew bubbles since they also have a rainbow effect it to. They kids loved popping the bubbles.

For the final activity they were supposed to make a Rainbow R from notimeforflashcard. But with this many kids, it got simplified a lot. First I had them try to write an R on their paper. Audrey did very well. She drew a circle first, then the line straight down and finally the diagonal. I could tell it was an R. Then I gave everyone stripes of colored paper to make a rainbow.
Wesley, Hailey and Audrey glued all the stripes on. Hannah did most of the stripes while Robert and Wyatt made a mess and threw them on the floor. (Wyatt also colored his lips and the table.)

Hailey was the only one who did her Rainbow in the correct order. I was very impressed.

So, I survived preschool with six kids with very little difficulties but probably don't have enough energy to do that on a regular basis.