Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

With the new standards for cribs in childcare coming into effect in a few months, there are a lot of cribs out there that will no longer be used as cribs. We don't use cribs in our home, but a friend of mine had four that she was getting rid of. It seriously ERKS me to think of all of those cribs in a landfill.  After all.... they have some perfectly good parts that can be put to use! Before we could get to work making our upcycled creations, we had to take apart the cribs.  I was really excited to see that some of the cribs had plexi-glass ends. I have oodles of uses for plexiglass! The children spent hours working with real tools - screwdrivers to be exact, taking apart the cribs! The children managed to successfully take apart two of the cribs. Their concentration was amazing, and their excitement when the screws were removed and the pieces came apart was priceless! I have been collecting upcycled ideas for cribs for quite some time, and now that I'...

If you're looking for "What Would You Do With It? Wednesday" Don't worry.... I'm bringing it back with a great line up of wonderful guest postings! We will kick it off in September with Deborah Stewart of Teach Preschool!!! ! She will be sharing some great ideas with clothespins! So, get your ideas together to link up! If you are interested in writing a featured guest post, check out this post for more information. Today, I thought I would share our "field journals" with you.  With all of the back to school buzz here in the states, you can get some great deals on supplies right now. A couple of weeks ago, I found composition books for $0.40 each! So, of course, I stocked up on them! I thought that giving each child a journal to write in whenever they wanted would be a great way for them to work on their pre-writing/writing skills. They have access to them all of the time and have the opportunity to document whatever they choose. Sometimes...

Bear with us this week as the blog undergoes a number of changes!  If you haven't noticed already, we are a dot com now! Soon, you will be able to find things easier and the website and this blog will all be housed in one place:  www.childcentralstation.com There is no need to change your bookmarks, all of the old ones will redirect. 

Over the past couple of months, I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet and connect with oodles of other folks in the field of early childhood education. Both in person and online.  It has been an amazing journey of friendships, challenges, growth, and excitement!

I've been having a fantastic time meeting early childhood educators and professionals all over the U.P. of Michigan! One of my most popular training sessions this summer has been "It's Not Rocket Science, but Sometimes It Feels Like It!" We have been working to break down the fear barrier that is sometimes associated with science, and to build confidence in scientific exploration.  One of the great things about this training is that participants walk away with this great kit from Learning Resources: (courtesy of the Great Start Regional Child Care Resource Center) As much as I am loving presenting, sometimes I think that some of the children enrolled in my care could do just as good, if not a better job in teaching this topic!  They have mastered the science kit, and have been having a great time exploring extension activities. We LOVE to play with vinegar and baking soda! One of the fun extension activities with the science kit is to blow the cork off of ...

My friend Sue, the Great Start Regional Resource Center, 4c of the UP Community Childcare Specialist for Menominee, Schoolcraft, and Delta Counties gave me a wonderful bag of treasures the other day!  A big bag of wide cardboard tubes! I was going to add them to the tinkering station, but the children had other ideas! (Don't they always?) They thought that they would be perfect in the block area. They had a lot of fun building pyramids, castles with holes/windows, and fences for their critters! I thought for sure that the tubes would turn into tunnels... but not today..... instead, they were: GIANT MUSCLES! NEW EARS! (Fantastic for listening, might I add!) GREAT CUFFS OR BRACELETS! AN ELEPHANT NOSE! Hours and hours of FREE fun! Thanks Sue! Do you have a great idea for re-using, re-purposing, and/or upcycling "trash"? I'd love to have you share it in a guest post!  Starting in September, I will be featuring great "What Would You Do With It?" Wedne...

In addition to our pet dog Scooby, we always seem to have some sort of critter around here.......   We have borrowed bunnies from the farm....... We have borrowed and hatched chickens . We have collected Monarch eggs and caterpillars... borrowing them for a short time to observe and then we release the butterflies. (You will find oodles of posts about our caterpillar and butterfly experiences if you use the search box !) We have raised frogs from eggs The children absolutely love observing and interacting with the animals. So, after we completed our recent frog life cycle observations, we decided it was time for some new "pets." We filled our aquarium up with water and let it sit for a few days to stabilize before we took a trip to the store for some fish! Now, when we were at the store, Dane decided that it would be cool to get some Neon Glo-Fish (danios) and some Zebra Danios .  It was difficult to decide, and we had to make sure that the fish we chose woul...