Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

 Earlier this week, you were introduced to our Foamy Bubbles Water Table.   This table is great for your infants and toddlers, but it also tends to be a great place for exploration for older children as well. While pushing down on the foam to make bubbles,  it was discovered that the wet sponge/foam preserves your hand print! This lead to an intensive investigation-  If pushing your hand down in the foam leaves a print.... I wonder what else you could press down in the foam to make prints with? The children tried a multitude of toys, blocks, etc.  Each and every item left a mark or print in the foam! The favorite item found that kept  the children investigating for hours were.....   plastic cookie cutters! As you can see from the photos, the cutters left a dark imprint in the foam.  It "magically" disappears when you rub across it. Our foam is not a special kind, just plain old ordinary craft sp...

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...

A couple of years ago- I saw this great post from The Chocolate Muffin Tree about bubble prints.  When they did this activity, they used colored bubbles.  I thought, we could try it by coloring our own bubbles with paint. Just so you know, it does take a bit of tinkering to get a good mixture together that will be successful.  We did attempt a few prints with food coloring in the bubbles-  and we did make some of our own "bubble" with dish soap. We did find that we have GREAT dishsoap- so great in fact that it was fabulous at taking care of the color we added with the paint or food coloring. Thus- it was not good for making prints...  However- the best option was to use store bought bubble solution and liquid tempera. (We have since done this with liquid watercolor and food coloring. I would recommend using either of the paints over the food coloring in order to have a nice print) The children absolutely loved this activity...

As I was going through photos today, I ran across a number of picture sets of things that I had intended to blog about a LONG time ago. When life gets crazy, the blog is typically the first thing to go.  Now that I am reorganizing and rethinking things, I thought I would pull a couple of those "someday" posts together for you. (For those of you who have children in care, you will notice that these photos are almost a year old- but that's okay) Last summer- we had a couple of great days of warm, summer rain. It wasn't raining really hard- gently, just slightly more than a sprinkle... So we decided that we would create some paintings and bring them outside in the rain.  In order to keep the paper from tearing- and for the process to work best, we opted to use pieces of freezer paper to paint on. We also used a combination of tempera and watercolor paints, being water soluble- the rain could have an impact on the painting.  We spent so...

   Those of you who have been following the blog for some time know that we tend to offer art activities  closer to the process end of the spectrum most of the time. (Sometimes we do craft.....) I saw a great activity on Pinterest where the art students drew with permanent markers and then used watercolor paints to color over the drawing - the process was fantastic- and the product looks AMAZING too! (Note- the pin I found was used with much older children and I did not wish to give as much direction,- but I liked the idea of mixing the two medias).  So, I set out some markers and freshly made homemade watercolors. (You can find the recipe for those in this post- we make ours with Kool-Aid so that they are vibrant and scented! AND YES- they do bubble like crazy when you make them. It is the reaction of the acids and bases you are mixing)     Like any of our projects- I staged the environment by providing specific materials for th...

Awhile back, I was once again inspired by  Tom over at Sand and Water Tables  to build another amazing engaging contraption : a Pegboard Platform This simple contraption is made with pegboard, pvc pipe and duct tape. It isn't exactly the same as the one that Tom built, but it serves the same purpose . During sensory table play- It gives the children another level to play- and all of the holes in the peg board cause whatever substance to fall through.  Hours of great learning fun and exploration!  When we build contraptions like this- I tend to try to think about as many ways as possible to utilize them. You can change up the material in your sensory table- I bet this would be fabulous with sand- colored rice- I bet you could even squish play dough through it!  At the UP Early Childhood Conference, I put a big glop of flubber/slime on top of it and let it sit. The stringy ooze was fun to watch and provides a great visual! (P...

Sunset over Lake Michigamme on the beach at Van Riper State Park I was born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, that makes me a "Yooper" (pronounced  You-Per). I am originally from just outside of Houghton, but we currently live in Marquette.  When this opportunity arose to participate in the Love Where You Live series, how could I resist!  There are so many places and activities that I could share, but I thought I would focus on a few of our favorites in the U.P. First, I think it is important to mention that the Upper Peninsula is a large area to cover. There are 15 counties, and covers 16,452 square miles.    Depending on which area of the U.P. you are visiting, there could be a wide range of other options!  In the Keweenaw Peninsula- you will find Copper Harbor.  The drive up to this small town is breathtaking.  On the way to the town you can drive along the lake through Eagle Harbor. On the way if you tak...