Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

  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've been busy, and other aspects of life have taken over for the time being. Thus, I've been away from the blog. I'm still busy- posting here and there on our Facebook page. I'll be back eventually. Until then.... I thought I would schedule a few posts from the archives to repost!  This one orginally posted last August. Enjoy! Last night, I finally sat down and tried to make it through my google reader. (After an hour or so of reading and still having over 1000 posts, I cleared it.... So, if I missed something great that you wrote about please bring it to my attention!) One of the posts that I did manage to read before clearing the slate was a selection from Tom Sensori . If you have a sand and water table and have not been to Tom's blog ... you need to stop reading this post and go over there RIGHT NOW! (Just don't forget to come back!) T om has amazing ideas for really making the most of your table and providing engaging learning activities for...

We talk about the weather around here a lot. It of course, impacts the way we do things and it changes a lot. They have a saying here in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan, "If you don't like the weather... wait five minutes, it will change."  Over our long weekend, we have intermittent thunder storms and rain. Today, it is 85, hot and muggy, with a prediction that tomorrow's high will be 62 . When it comes to predicting the weather, your guess is as good as any, and be prepared for rapid changes. We don't tend to let the weather get in our way.  When it snows, we pile on the clothes, when it gets hot we wear less. When it rains, we stomp in the puddles.... and when we have a nice hot day, we just add water! The children were a bit on the cranky side with the heat and humidity, until the hose came out! Buckets of water for splashing and carrying.... A sprinkle of water to run through to cool off, and then a nice pile of cool mud in the mud pie kitchen :). ...

We are very fortunate to live minutes away from Lake Superior , the largest fresh water lake in the world (when measured by surface area). For some people, it is hard to believe that Superior is really a lake because of its large size. We love to go swimming in the lake during the summer, but the weather has just not been warm enough to make that a reality yet..... so instead, today we went wave chasing!   The waves were crashing up against the break wall near Presque Isle Park, and we saw a few surfers braving the waves near McCarty's Cove. (We didn't get any photos of them though...) We thought that we might stop at one of our favorite rock picking sections of beach, but much to our surprise the weather, wind and waves had carried so much sand in over the winter, there were very few rocks! So, we chased waves (or the waves chased us...) instead. Sometimes, the waves just catch you........ Nothing a fresh pair of socks, shoes, and pants can't fix :)

 Yesterday, I spent my afternoon working with a little help from Dane to create the start of our sand and water wall. I was first inspired by Jenny over at Let the Children Play who provided ample options for creating waterwalls. I immediately put the waterwall on my long list of things to do. However, as time passed and I thought about things through our long winter.... I realized that I didn't just want a water wall. We have a HUGE sandbox, and I'd want our wall to be for both sand and water. (And whatever else we decide to use it for!!!!) I also found a lot of inspiration from Tom over at Sand and Water Tables . Tom encourages the addition of different options to sensory tables. With a little more thought, it became clear that our huge sandbox is really just a big outdoor sensory table. So, with that in mind, combining the ideas and inspiration, our sand and water wall was created.  We opted to make our wall out of a piece of 4' x 4' plywood, the ...

This past spring after the Upper Peninsula Early Childhood Conference , I was given a wonderful book: Do-It-Yourself Early Learning by Jeff and Tasha Johnson . This book is fantastic! There are plans and suggestions for a variety of toys and activities that you can make yourself with very inexpensive materials. One of my favorite suggestion is to make a pvc pipe construction set. The book outlines various sizes of pipe to cut and a number of different types of connectors. Today, we used some of our set to make "A Bike Wash" (A similar suggestion for a car wash is outlined in the book. However, we did not opt to buy a different size pvc pipe for our version.) The children had a fantastic time cooling off and tinkering with the pipes. "What happens when you put your finger over the hole?" I'm fairly certain that the bikes only went through the wash once or twice.... The weather has been quite warm, and it was just as much fun to play with the "bik...