Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

Today, we decided to craft some easy capes. If you are looking for some other fun cape ideas made with fabric, you might want to check out this link to the diary of a quilter for a super easy cape.   If you do a search for tutorials, you will find a wide variety of capes out there. We decided that we could make some capes out of plastic bags and duct tape. The children decorated their capes, but most of the taping was an adult project.  I did not prepare the capes in advance. I believe that crafting with children, even when it is more of an adult type product focused activity, the children need to see and be a part of the process. The value in a craft project for children and adults is learning and seeing the steps involved to make a product.  Children can learn the sequence of events. First, you put tape around all of the edges of the bag. Then you add tape to where the handles of the bag were. This will make the straps for the cape. We ma...

I  love it when another professional really challenges me to re-think and contemplate my belief system. I had the wonderful opportunity to hear Dan Hodgins speak at the MiAEYC Conference last week in Grand Rapids.  Since his session, I have seriously been contemplating "the process." Dan challenges us to make our practices match our belief system. You can read more from Dan here . Dan says.... If we really truly believe in the importance of process.... We NEVER send home art projects.... I am really struggling with this thought.  I am a firm believer in the importance of process. I have worked with not only children, but also with adults as they work through artistic processes.  Art is a process, and so is life. We are continually doing, changing, adding, and moving on. But.... I think that there are times when the product has importance too. I don't think that it has nearly the same amount of importance as the process, but in my mind it does h...

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 :).

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...