Feelings

This is week 3 well 4 (if you count workshop week) of student teaching. I have spent the past two days reminiscing about my days as a nanny and a one on one at a childcare center. I cannot wait to get back to working with my littles. I was telling my mom that today and she asked, "Why did you even bother getting your B.A.?" Here's why:

1. In most childcare centers you need your B.A. to be a head teacher even if you only want to work with infants and toddlers. 
2. You need your B.A. to be a director or assistant director.
3. A B.A. opens tons of doors for me outside the field of education. 

My mom became all furious like this was new information. I NEVER wanted to teach in a K through 3 setting until the spring of 2014. I knew student teaching would make or break my decision to be a classroom teacher. It's not like I am hating my experience (I would TRY a year in 1st grade) but I miss everything about infants, toddlers, and even preschoolers. I miss the spit- up, blowouts, and witching hour. I miss the messy house, sticky fingers, and diaper changes. I miss singing all day everyday. I miss nursery rhymes, picture books and making up my own songs to go along with anything and everything we did. I miss the snuggles, kisses, and the innocent and incredibly adorable things toddlers and preschoolers say and do. 67 more days with 2nd graders and then hopefully I can get back to the age group that means the world to me! 

G is for Grace

I have thought about doing this craft with the girl I nanny for for months now. I kept pushing it back because I didn't think she could do it. She is 17 months now and I thought for sure she would be more interested in the pom-poms instead of the craft itself but I was wrong. I cut out a letter "G" and put it on the table. I put three dots of glue on the paper and opened the bag of pom-poms. She immediately grabbed a pom-pom, put it on the glue and said, "Push!" I didn't even tell her what to do... I think I nanny for a genius! Seriously, I was amazed. Once she put all three pom-poms on she reached in the bag for more and said, "More, more, more!" I said, "More glue?" She showed me her pom-poms and said, "More gue!" 

So simple and yet so freaking cute don't you think?!

Bunny Colors

I whipped this simple color matching activity up in 15 minutes. It will be a great way to introduce the 1 year old I nanny for to colors! I'm hoping to get more "big" pom-poms from Micheal's and add more colors as she gets older.

Bees

Last week the toddlers learned about the letter B and bugs.

Prep:
Letter B- yellow
Top half of B- black
Black crayon or paper for stripes
Googly eyes or sticker eyes
Plastic circles for wings
Antennas- black paper

We only have 9-10 toddlers on any given day so I usually do the crafts one on one. I want to share a conversation I had with one two year old:
Me: "Okay, here are antenna's to put on the bee's head."
Two year old: "Oh, like an earthling!"
I started laughing and asked him if he was an alien and then he did his goofy laugh and cheesy smile.

Mouse

This week my toddlers are learning about the letter N and Nursery Rhymes so on Monday they made a nest out of the letter N.

On Tuesday they made Humpty Dumpty.

On Wednesday, the boys made mice.

 On Thursday, the kiddos made buses out of egg cartons. Unfortunently, I have no pictures of that.

On Friday they made "The cow jumping over the moon."

N is for Nest:

Letter N

Bird

Circles for eggs

Brown strips of construction paper

Humpty Dumpty:

Don’t remember where we got this craft idea…

It’s all made out of construction paper  

Mice prep:

2 medium pink circles for ears

1 small black nose

1 large brown triangle

Cow jumping over the Moon:

Yellow moon

Yellow stars

Cow (we let the kids add spots if they wanted)