Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

 Our program experienced quite a bit of turnover this past fall as many of the children who had been with us for a number of years outgrew us!  So, we have been quite busy with a wonderful group of infants, toddlers, and young preschoolers. When you work with a younger crowd- your mindset changes to make sure that the activities are not only developmentally appropriate, but also safe. We need to worry more about mouthing, tasting, and eating than we have had to in a very long time. I have been inspired quite a bit by the creativity and ingenuity of Asia Citro over at Fun at Home with Kids . She has some great ideas for safe edible water beads , and a fantastic slime!  As I was reading her post about water beads, I thought about some of the slimes we have made (like the Kool-Aid slime ) and I thought- "hmmmnnn Tapioca, tapioca is a starch, corn starch is a starch... I wonder if boiling tapioca pearls will create a fun bumpy slime?"..... so of course, I had to experiment! Look ...

We always make homemade play dough. The tried and true recipe we use comes from an old elementary school cookbook- you can   find it in this old blog post.   The only difference is, for the eucalyptus play dough you add green food coloring and some eucalyptus oil.  (I usually add a few drops of the oil after the play dough is complete.) The dough is soft and pliable. The children love to play with it. Sometimes we cut it; Sometimes we squish it. It is the perfect play dough for days with super drippy noses! This recipe is great for other essential oils as well. One of my personal favorites is lavender. Do you have a favorite type of play dough? I'd love to hear about it!

  We have a number of young children who are going to become big brothers or sisters for the first or second time over the next couple of months.  We have been reading a number of books about new babies and we have been practicing holding and caring for our baby dolls. As a home based childcare professional- I work with a number of families and young children as they prepare for new little ones to come into their lives. One of the biggest things I have found to help children as they become siblings is to give them an opportunity to mimic and care for their own little one.  Through children's pretend play - they work to make sense of the world, and they have an opportunity to practice and to learn. Sometimes older siblings are still too young to be able to help with all of the tasks of taking care of a real baby, but giving them a baby doll to practice with helps them fell as though they are more of a part of what is going on. One of the easiest and simple sensory table experiences ...

I bet the suspense is killing you, so I won't keep you waiting any longer- The TOP post, the VERY BEST post of 2013 here at Child Central Station based upon reader views is: Make Your Own Moon Mud! If you missed it, hop on over and check it out! I promise you won't be disappointed- hours of messy- gooey, sensory fun! Today, I'm joining forces with one of the most amazing groups on the planet- The Kid Blogger Network to bring you The Very Best Kids Activities of 2013 Blog Hop! Please take a moment and "Hop Around" to check out all of the wonderful posts and activities being shared, and if you are a blogger please link up your best post of 2013 as well! Powerful Mothering , The Good Long Road , All Done Monkey , Afterschool for Smarty Pants , B-Inspired Mama , Babble Dabble Do , Bits of Positivity , Boy Mama Teacher Mama , Caution! Twins at Play , Child Central Station , Creative Family Fun , Creative World of Varya , Cute and Peculiar , Dirt and Boogers , Edventure...

Babies need to beat the heat too!  Sometimes working with infants and toddlers can be challenging,  as they have trouble reaching up and into most sensory tables.  You also have to be careful and monitor them for more safety issues,  where you definitely don't want the water to be too deep.  Here is our favorite, tried and true infant (and toddler.... and preschool.... and school aged)  sponge water table to help beat the heat! We use an under the washing machine tub, I think we spent about $10 on ours at a local hardware store. Then, we fill it with 1" thick craft foam. Ours is in 4 pieces that are cut to fit perfectly in the tub. (You do not need to have individual pieces,  we just happened to have this foam already in smaller pieces. One large piece would work just as well). Then.... all you need to do is add cold water and a little bit of soap for bubbles (optional). The children seem to like the bubb...

We have done this activity quite a few times, but I have never blogged about it! We always have so many fun things going on, that often you only get a small glimpse here! I first saw this at the U.P. Early Childhood Conference from Dr George Forman during a showing one of the Videatives .  The concept is quite simple. You use a piece of clear contact paper, sticky side up. Sometimes I have used duct tape to hold it down and sometimes I have used clear packaging tape. It doesn't really matter, you just need something to hold the paper down with.  The tactile contact with this sticky paper is wonderful sticky business for little ones to explore! This little guy kept going back to explore the sticky surface. It kept him engaged in learning exploration on and off for almost two hours! He wasn't the only one there to explore. Even the older children stopped by to play with the sticky patch.  Will my sock stick? How about a few of the toys? How strong is this sticky paper?...

There has been a HUGE BUZZ around the web in regard to water gems/water beads. After seeing them on so many different blogs, I figured I had better check them out. Obviously, if so many people are going nuts over them, I had to see if the hype/buzz was really something to talk about.......

Last week, I gave you a sneak peek into the ins and outs of making your own light table .  (Well, at least our versions of them!)  There are oodles of different things you can do with a light table, but one of our favorites is to draw on it!  Sometimes we use sand and sometimes we use salt. Today, we covered our table with a layer of salt and then added a package of dry Kool-Aid to give the salt a slight tint and a wonderful smell! The children spent quite a bit of time throughout the day, drawing and writing.  Sometimes they would use their fingers or hands, and sometimes they used other tools like plastic butter knives or wooden dowels. I love how the light adds optical aesthetics to this tactile activity.  Even some of our younger friends found this activity to be intriguing.  Have you tried sand or salt on your light table? 

Have you ever put Ivory soap in the microwave? I first learned about this experiment from over at Housing a Forest.   (We have been microwaving small pieces of soap quite frequently since then. Not full bars, I cut them into about 6 pieces). We have been saving all of the soap sculptures and crushing them into "soap flakes" for later use. We added the flakes and today's sculptures to our sensory table with a double roll of toilet paper.  The children had a great time shredding and cutting the toilet paper while crushing the microwaved soap. Then, when we were satisfied with the cutting and shredding, we added some warm water. This wonderful mixture is known in the field of early childhood education as "clean mud."  Our batch ended up with a little more water than necessary, but it sure is fun to play with!  This is the first time we have made clean mud in the microwave. In the past, we have used a cheese grater to grate the soap. (When I first started in ...

Fairy Dust Teaching shared a great post on making moon sand the other day , and I realized that we had not made any of ours in a long time! So, today..... We made some!  We started with cornstarch.  Then we added about 1 1/2 times of the colored sand. It is not an exact science, but you don't want to end up with too much more sand than cornstarch. It is the cornstarch that gives the sand it's unique moon sand qualities!  Fairy Dust Teaching uses water, we like to use oil instead. With two boxes of cornstarch and an equal amount of sand, we use about 2 smaller bottles of baby oil. (Most of the time!) Today, I noticed that we were out of baby oil! So, instead, we used some old tanning oil and added vegetable oil until we achieved the right consistency. (I asked the children if they wanted to try the new recipe, but they didn't want to try it today!)  Moon sand is great because it is like a sand, but when you mold it, it keeps the shape.  So, n...