Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

Well, just when we thought things were turning around.... we've got another/reoccurring bug in the house. I haven't had much time to blog, as I'm the healthy one trying to be more than one person right now. I hope to have my What Would You Do With It Wednesday (on Thursday) post up in the morning. I'm too beat right now to finish it. Hoping that we will all be up and running at full speed again soon so I can get back to normal with the posts!

I'm a bit behind in checking back on comments and blog reading in general. Honestly, there just are not enough hours in the day! While I was on vacation, Deborah from Teach Preschool awarded me a Versatile Blogger Award, then last week, Michelle Willow over at This and that About Kids graciously awarded me with a Stylish Blogger Award. Thank you Deborah! If you have not been over to Deborah's blog, it is a must read! Also, she does an amazing job of finding ideas from all around the web and shares them on Facebook and Twitter. Hop on over and check it out! Thank you Michelle! If you have not been over to see this great blog, you need to take a moment to check it out. Michelle lives in Croatia and she has some amazing ideas! Now, to follow the rules for acceptance: 1) Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award. 2) Share 7 things about yourself 3) Award 15 recently discovered great blogs/bloggers (The Versatile Blogger guideline was different the first time

First, I want to apologize for the tardiness of my post. We've been sick. I'm not going to get into long details, but alas.... Here is the first New Edition of.... I had really hoped to go through the thousands of photos I have and find some great ones of the children using berry baskets, but with all of the illness around here it just didn't happen. We like to use them to make art prints. You simply dip the basket in paint or roll the paint onto the basket and press to print. The children here really like to use the mini paint rollers so the second option tends to be more popular. The other way in which we really love to use berry baskets is to use them as bubble blowers! I have seen some folks cut their baskets into pieces and put them on sticks to use. We like to just dip the whole basket in bubbles and hold them up into the wind! Here are a few ideas I found around the web that you know we will be trying! This first photo comes from Fun In the Making and is a cute litt

We've been hit with upper respiratory infections and/or strep throat. Fortunately not all at once. The daycare has been able to remain open. However, I'm focusing on recuperating. Fear not, we will be back in full force once we've kicked this bug!

Do you remember last week when we painted the snow with our giant paint brushes ? There was a considerable amount of "paint" left over, and instead of bringing it inside we opted to leave it out to see what would happen to it. Overnight, it froze.... and then snow started to collect over the top. Today, we decided to bring one the paint containers inside and experiment with the frozen "paint" in our sensory table. The paint itself is just water mixed with a package of powdered Kool-Aid. (the kind you need to add sugar to without the sugar added.) I prepared the table with small containers of water of varying temperatures and a few spray bottles of water as well. The children were also given pipettes and turkey basters. Through their scientific explorations, they quickly found that the warm water worked better to melt the ice than the cold water. They were also surprised to find that the water collecting in the bottom of the table was really cold!

I'd like to re-introduce you to.... What Would You Do With It? Wednesdays! I admit, I have not been very diligent in keeping up with posting this Wednesday Blog Hop. I have oodles of ideas and have been finding amazing inspiration across the web! So, the new trend in my Wednesday posts will be to feature 5 ideas I have either tried for found. Additionally, each week I will feature my favorite link up from the previous week. (I'm working on a couple of new buttons for all of you who like to add the featured flair to your blog :). There are new items added to the list, and we will re-visit some of the items that have previously been featured. There is no link up this week, as I will be working to get the new format and buttons up and running for next week! Here is a list of upcoming featured items: 1. Plastic Berry Baskets - January 19, 2011 2. Glass Baby Food Jars - January 26, 2011 3. Plastic Baby Food Containers - February 2, 2011 4. Tissue Boxes - February 9, 2011 5. Crys

Who said outdoor swimming pools were just for use in the summer time? I know that up until this year, we only used our pool outside in the summer. After a great workshop from Dan Hodgins , I learned that you can use swimming pools outside in the winter too: They make great winter sleds! Their size gives children a great opportunity to work together. We are still in the "testing" phase with this wonderful idea! So far, we have learned that the pools work best when the trail is made from really compact snow. The pool does not slide as fast as some of our other sleds. Our " butt" slide is much steeper than the hill we sled on at the park, and the pool works much better on the "butt" slide. Have you ever used a pool as a sled? If so, we'd love to hear your recommendations as we continue to test and perfect our pool sledding technique :).

This week, we have been trying to add some color to our outdoor winter wonderland. First we spray painted the snow, and then we painted the snow with giant paint brushes . Today, instead of just painting the snow, we are painting with the snow! Everyone who lives in a climate where winter snow is the norm knows that there are all kinds and variations of snow. Some snow is powdery, some is super sticky, etc. The best kind of snow for this project is sticky, wet, snow. I've been itching to try this, and considering that we didn't have "the right kind" of snow and that the temperatures are too cold to hope for sticky snow in the near future, we brought this activity inside! We collected some snow and put it into our sensory table. The indoor heat turned the fluffy powdery snow sticky rather quickly! Then we used our spray bottles filled with colored water (food coloring and water) to paint the snow in the table. I provided the children with the primary colors and

Yesterday, we spray painted our snowy white outdoor canvas. Today, we decided to go BIG, and to continue to add some color to our world of white.... Again, like yesterday, we opted to use Kool-Aid to color some water. Today, we put the powder into buckets and pitchers with water. For our paint brushes, we took our handy dandy pvc pipe set and made some giant ones! Some of them have sponge pieces on the ends (We took apart our water bombs from this summer and attached them to the end of the pvc pipe with pipe cleaners and packaging tape.) We also made some brushes with the pieces of a new clean mop head. We used the same technique to attach them to the pvc pipe. Like Dan Hodgins notes, when it comes to paint brushes- the bigger the better! Then, out into our winter wonderland.... This painting was a lot of fun. It did not hold the children's attention as long as the spray bottles did. There is something magical about squeezing those that keeps little ones entertain

We're back in Michigan! I had expected to come home to piles and piles of snow, but warm temperatures and rain has melted some of our snow. Don't get me wrong, there is still a layer of white stuff out there, but not the heaps and mounds that I'm sure we will be seeing in the months to come. I have all of these great outdoor projects and I was eager to get to work... but it appears that they will have to wait for fresh snow! So, today, we opted to use the crusted snow as a canvas! A pile of spray bottles.... a stack of powdered Kool-Aid... excited children...... and.... a layer of crusted snow (the perfect canvas!) We added some color to the yard and enjoyed the "yummy" scents. "This orange smells like orange!" Instant outdoor art! Teacher Tom, those letters keep showing up here too! "X" marks the spot! I wonder what buried treasure lies below? It is a good thing we buy powdered Kool-Aid in bulk, considering we don't actuall