Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

The warm temperatures have melted the snow! It seems so odd to be raking instead of shoveling during the middle of March! Our outdoor time has increased significantly and today- we spent a lot of time making music! After the winter snow, we have a few things to touch up....  The top of our thunder drum needs a little sanding and a fresh coat of paint, and our tire drum needs a new drum head.... And... we have all kinds of plans for some new additions too... stay tuned! If you are looking for more details in regard to our outdoor music area,  you might want to check out these posts: Making Music Xylophones and Outdoor Music Update to our Outdoor Music Area Thunder Drum and a Touch of Color IF you would like to hear some of the wonderful music we made today-  Visit our Facebook page! I posted a couple of videos there. I shared this post here:   I'd love it if you'd link it up to my outdoor inspiration- mus...

It is spreading!!! There is music in the air over at T&M Daycare in Harvey now! Tina and Mark installed this lovely banging station: (Photos courtesy of T&M Daycare) Have you been inspired to make music in your yard yet?  Please link up and share if you have:

I apologize for the quality/exposure of the videos today. We recently purchased a new camera and the instructions came in French.... So, I'm still learning how to use it properly! Hopefully I will have a good handle on how to adjust the settings for better videos soon! Just about a year ago, we started to make our ever-evolving music area in the backyard. After seeing some great instruments crafted out of wood scraps and pvc pipe at various children's museums, I put an outdoor music area on my wish list. Then when Teach Preschool featured a post from Jenny from over at Let the Children Play on outdoor music, the inspiration and desire could no longer be contained! It was time to take that off the wish list and make it a reality. I like to think of all of our areas as semi-permanent with continual evolution! We are a small home based child-care, so our budget for equipment is not very large, but we don't let finances get in the way of providing a quality pr...

These posts were originally published  in May of 2010. Our music area has been updated quite a bit since then, but it will give you some basic instructions for creating the xylophone. I've wanted to make an outdoor area for music for quite some time.  We had a new fence installed around the play area, and my thought was to put a HUGE xylophone on the fence, like the one we saw mounted on the wall at the U.P. Children's Museum.   However, after being inspired with additional ideas for an outdoor area through following Teach Preschool on Facebook, we have opted to create an entire section of our outdoor play space to making music! The first project for our Music area was a Giant Xylophone. Here are a few photos as we worked to put it together. This photo is of our temporary installation. Due to the size of the xylophone, we need to reinforce it with wood, as the string is not strong enough to account for gravity. The xylophone is made out of scrap 2x4 pieces...

As you know, I have been quite busy of late. Too busy to blog most of the time. Tonight, I am giving you a small piece of what I have been working on. For my Learning Technologies course, I needed to produce a video. This short video was created using Audacity to record music and audio. I also used Windows Movie Maker to edit and compile the components. I hope you enjoy it!

After this weekend's UPAEYC conference with Dan Hodgins , my backyard is starting to become "famous," well, at least locally. What an honor and a surprise! In response to some of the questions and comments, I am going to provide a few more photos to help those of you who are looking to make some changes to your outdoor classrooms. Our Mudpie Kitchen Like the other sections of our yard, I did not come up with this idea on my own. I was really inspired for this area by my blogger friend Jenny over at Let the Children Play . She found an array of great mudpie kitchens . Immediately after her post, I started to scrounge around the house looking for things to add to our mudpie kitchen. We had a kitchen in our backyard (you know, one of those plastic ones), but I wanted a more natural and "real" kitchen. Our mudpie kitchen is evolving. The stove burners are made with moveable wooden cookies. We have 2 shelves right now, I do see this changing over time...