Skip to main content

Where in the World, Winners, AND I'm back!

Image
By
I'm back! We had a fantastic vacation, too hard to pick any "favorites" but here are a few highlights of the past two weeks:

We visited Marine Land in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. It was fantastic! We had the opportunity to feed and touch beluga whales!!!!
Niagara Falls was unbelievable ;). We loved the Maid of the Mist boat ride (among other things....)

All and all, we traveled just short of 2100 miles. It was great! I'm sure I'll be sharing more of our adventures in the days to come.

Just before we left on vacation, our new globe arrived. We have a lot of maps, atlases, and puzzles of maps, inflatable globes, but we didn't have a "real" globe to explore. I decided to buy this one because Dane (and some of the other children) are wild about animals!
 Is this globe cool or what? There are animals on it all over the place! When you plug it in, it illuminates even more critters that you cannot see when the light is off in the oceans.
The children were very quick to start identifying locations they were familiar with. Then they started hunting down our animal cards and toy animals, matching the animals to their photos and location on the globe.
Right now, Australia is on their brains. (I think it might be because of the great little critters Donna from Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning sent to us!)
After we were finished with the cards and some of our toy critters; we took out the computer and started to do a little google research on some of the animals and places. We spun the globe and randomly stopped it by poking it with one finger. Whatever animal was under our finger was our research target. We had a great time learning about some of the more uncommon animals on our planet and their habitats!


I am really excited to be sharing some information with a couple of other folks about where we live through the "PAY IT FORWARD" project. We received a wonderful package about Tennessee from Scott over at Brick by Brick, and I am happy to report that I will be sending out 3 packages to the following folks:

Pam from How Long is This Hall
Greg from Males in Early Childhood Education
and
Stacey from Boys, Baking, and Bargains

Please drop me a personal email with your address so that I can get a great Upper Michigan package sent to you and your children!

I am still getting back into the swing of things, I am hoping to get back into my "normal" routine by the end of the week.

Comments

Play for Life said…
Welcome home Amy ... Man those beluga whales are awesome and so are our Aussie animals. I'm so glad Dane and the other children are having fun learning about them. That's a really awesome globe!!!
Donna :) :)
July 12, 2011 at 8:39 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Easter Egg Caterpillars!

By
OOOPS! This post has moved, please click on the photo to be redirected!
16 comments
Read more

A Few Ideas With Marker Caps (As Promised)

By
Yesterday, I hope I convinced you not to throw away your markers that "don't work." Today, I will share with you a few ideas for what to do with all of the caps. The possibilities are nearly endless, but here are a few of our recent creations: 1) A Leprechaun/Fairy Ladder/Rope Ladder: 2) #1 if not permanently secured can also double as a rope bridge: 3) #1/#2 can also be made into a train track for your homemade trains :). (No photo available) 4) You can use them as beads for a necklace: 5) You could make them into a wind chime. (No photo available). 6. You can use them as small manipulatives to count, sort, and make patterns with. (No photo available). 7) You could use them as playing pieces in your own homemade board game. (No photo available). 8) You could put them on a wire and glue them in place to make a twirling whirly-gig. 9) You could top them with a lid from a milk jug to make tiny tables or toadstools. 10) You could make them...
15 comments
Read more

My friend died

By
 I learned a hell of a lot from Dan Hodgins.  He was mentor, a friend, and a "bone shaker" for many of us in the field of Early Childhood Education. He was and will always be a champion for children, and protector of childhood.   I have so many great memories of time spent with him, it just doesn't seem like we had enough time. Dan died this past Saturday.  Interestingly enough, Dan and I talked about death quite a bit. It is one of those topics that isn't talked about all that much in our field, but is super important. All living things eat, all living things poop, and all living things die.  Dan and I recorded a podcast for awhile called "Shaking Bones." Dan was always shaking bones, even before I met him. To say I was honored to be asked to be his co-host would be putting it lightly. I loved recording with him. He was never afraid to touch on topics that were a bit edgy, or issues that sometimes weren't talked about much at all.  We even...
3 comments
Read more