January and winter fun

Homemade bird seed cakes!

I had recently seen a recipe for bird seed cakes on Pinterest. This afternoon, the wild bug bit me and I decided to go for it. It was a quick 10 minute project!

I used:
1 can of Crisco  shortening
About 5 scoops of bird seed
And someI was imaginingpyrex and ramekins as molds

So easy, just melt the crisco in a pot on the stove, stir in a few scoops of bird seed, and spoon the mixture into your molds and wait for it to solidify.

Update: 

Well, the plan was not iron clad- didn't work out the way I had planned... 

Challenge 1: I think I added too many scoops of birdseed, I think it would be better to have the seed more embedded to hold it together.

Challenge 2: I couldn't get them out of the pyrex without crumbling the whole thing!!

So, I scraped it all back into the pot and remelted it. This time I chose plastic Tupperware as the molds, so that I could flex the sides to pop it out. 

Outcome:

Even with the tupperware, the "cakes" didn't hold up. I put one outside near our bird feeder which sees very heavy bird traffic and no one touched it, not even the squirrels and jays who tend to take what the others leave behind... 

I was imagining something more solid that I could pop into my suet cage and then I could stand in the backyard singing with birds perching on my finger like Snow White.....

PINTEREST FAIL!

On the plus side, I poured the remainder into a pie tin and my chickens thought it was Christmas!!! 

November classroom activities

Nature table with drying sunflower head, fall leaves,pine cones,eucalyptus bark and wood rounds,various branches and seed pods for exploring. 

Cardboard tubes with ping pong balls

 Teepee! Made with bamboo poles, a bedsheet and clothes pins.

Sunday Morning Slime

This was a morning where I was dying for an easy going, slow to start, hang out session at home. My 6 year old, however, was on pace for the Indy 500 and realllllly needed something to occupy him and take it down a few notches!

So, as fast as my coffee starved brain could compute, I thought ..... Slime! I gathered up the ingredients and we went to town creating the recipe.

He has really been on a recipe and cooking kick lately and wants to have cooking competitions and pressure tests in the style of Masterchef Junior every day after school.

Recipe + Sensory = Success! 

I made this recipe from Family Fun for my Nursery School class the week of Halloween and it needed some tweaking because it turned out more like crumbly rubber, without the slow, drippy give that it should have. I figured that was the result of too much Borax, so I dialed it back and it came out great!

October Classroom- Down at the Patch!

Now this classroom has some life breathed into it!

Golf ball painted pumpkins with fluorescent Bio Color and crows on a wire. (Description below) 

Crows! I love these and have gotten lots of compliments from my fellow teachers. The kids painted the crows with real feathers that I collected from my molting chickens. The plan was to make feather prints, which some of the kids did, but most of them wanted to cover the entire bird black, which is awesome too. When they were dry, I added the eye, and hung them up on a piece of black yarn string like a utility wire. So cool!  Templates for the crows HERE and HERE. 

Sunflower garden in the hallway:

Meet the Farm Residents

Pictorial Directory of all the Knuckleheads: 

Meet Jack - 16 months: 

Thunder - 12 Years:

Kitty the Red Eared Slider - Age estimated, at least 20? He is as big as a dinner plate! (Just for a reference, not for an entree! ;)  )

My daily take from the girls: 

Daisy the Bunny, age 2,  and Kikko, age 9. Dae is a buck and he is in LOVE with Kikko!! It's like Pepe Le Pew and the girl cat... Pretty funny.

There are way more residents to add, I will update with more! 

Back to school - September classroom

Time to go back to school! I teach a 4 year old Preschool class with a teaching partner and an aide, and I love it!

Here are a few shots of my classroom during set-up.

I created this welcome board outside of the classroom door. Each child has a uniquely decorated fish with their name on it:

Inside the classroom, my back to school bulletin board:

Handmade felt tree mounted on a small bulletin board that holds our name tags. I stuffed it slightly with batting to make it puffy and give it some dimension. In the morning when the children are arriving, this board is lifted down and set up at the classroom door where we greet them and take attendance. Though we do not need name tags anymore, we still use them, as it has become part of the morning ritual and helps with name recognition.

Science Center - Stocked with rabbit pelts, giant evergreen cone, rocks, minerals and petrified wood with two types of scales, large magnet, bone, big teeth with dental care accessories, and color lenses, mirrors and magnifiers. These selections will be rotated as time progresses and our interests change. I studied Science Education at Humboldt State University, and I Love this area!

Newly rearranged Art Area: 

(There used to be Huge shelves blocking most of the windows, and that was the FIRST thing that I had to change!!)