Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

Earlier this week, we started to make a few catapults after reading this wonderful post over at All Things Beautiful. They found the idea from Almost Unschoolers (click here). I love all of the online tweaking and inspiration going on!!! Our first group of builders this week decided that they wanted to decorate their catapults with paint. So, of course, we had to wait for the paint to dry before we put them together. We used scraps of wood, clothespins, plastic lids (from milk, juice... etc), and tongue depressors. We also used hot glue to put them together. Our ammunition has consisted primarily of cotton balls. Although, today when a group of girls was simultaneously shooting theirs off, they became "POPPING POPCORN BALLS." "Fire in the hole!" Today's group of children did not want to wait for the paint to dry. They were having so much fun with the painted catapults, that they wanted their own "right now!" So, they opted to deco...

Welcome to this week's edition of "What Would You Do With It?" This week's featured item is...... Egg Cartons! We have used them to/for: 1) Plant seeds in 2) As a sorting tray 3) To make a caterpillar 4) To make "bug-eye" glasses 5) As eyes on a puppet Now... it is your turn... What would you or did you do with them?? Don't forget to check out the previous week's postings and add your ideas there too!

Our outdoor play space is continually evolving..... (This photo is from June 2006 when we first moved in.) I can't seem to locate the photos from 2008 when we had 19 tons of sand delivered! I'm sure all of the children remember the huge truck backing into the yard and dumping the HUGE mountain of sand that became our sandpit. (This photo was taken in September 2009 after the completion of our new fence.) As you can see the majority of our "stuff" is misplaced as we had to move it away from the perimeter for the fence work. (This photo is from June of 2010, before we put in the new play structure.) In early September, we were informed that we were eligible for a Quality Improvement Grant from the Great Start Regional Resource Center (4C of the UP). I could not in good conscience ask for anything to use indoors. (Have you been to our place? We seriously have a lot of resources!). We have however been working on changing our outdoor space, and there ...

The children are always interested in playing "Hide and Seek." I have gone back and forth with the idea behind this game, and have opted to allow the game as long as a few rules are followed. For example, we only play Hide and Seek at our house or in our yard. (When we are on a field trip, Ms. Amy gets too scared when she can't tell that our friends are safe.) On our property, we set boundaries. If Ms. Amy needs to check in, everyone knows that the game is over and comes out of their hiding places. We have also adapted the game to include our dinosaur friends. It has become sort of a mix between an Easter Egg Hunt and Hide and Seek. One of our friends collects a certain number of dinosaurs. Everyone else closes their eyes as they are hidden in the play area. Then everyone tries to find the hidden dinosaurs. This game usually involved lots of running, seeking, and communication. How many do we have? How many more do we need to find? Where do you think the last one(s) c...

"Tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver

If you have been following along on our journey, you know that Dane has opted to add Art History to his curriculum this year, and we tend to focus on that every Thursday. (It is abundantly clear that all of the subjects are interwoven, but we tend to start with a focus and add all kinds of other aspects into that focus each day.) Today, we started to look at Frescoes. Many artists throughout time have used a Fresco technique in their work. Our focus today was on the Minoan Frescoes. If you are not familiar with the technique, artists used pigments on wet plaster to create their works of art on a wall. As the plaster dries it soaks up the pigment and the work of art is then part of the wall. Being that this was our first attempt at creating a Fresco, we opted to make ours on a cardboard/plaster canvas instead of on the wall. However, don't be surprised if you see a post in the future where we put this technique to use on the walls!!!! We started with some cardboard piece...