I have Ziplock Power!!

Today, at our center, we served the kids bagged lunches instead of the normal lunch on a plate. They were all so excited with the change!! Many of the older kids were excited to have "chips instead of vegetables!" My two year old class was so excited! In their lunch bags they had a sandwich, chips and apple slices. So much excitement!!

I required the kids in my class to eat their sandwich before they were allowed to eat a lot of their chips. After I had helped one little guy in my class open all his bags 'o lunch, he began munching on the chips. His sandwich was just sitting there and I told him to eat his sandwich. When he didn't I zipped his ziplock bag of chips shut, telling him he could not have anymore until he ate some sandwich (I really am mean!! :)). As a result, he tried and tried to open that bag and could not do it. So, he began to cry. As a last resort, he gave up and ate his sandwich, to which I rewarded him by opening his chip bag again. It was too funny!!!

Summer Vacation

Ryan has been coming with me to my center this summer since he has been out of school. Our school age kids go on fieldtrips the entire summer. They go to the pool at least once a week, they go to the park pretty often and they often go to the free movies that our local movie theater hosts. In addition to these regulars, they have special things happen at least once a week as well. They have been to see a play, to a great Kids Workshop at Home Depot, have had a police officer come to talk to the kids about good and bad strangers and allowed the kids to see the police car, they have gone to Wood Grill for lunch (all 48 kids), an educational trip to Martin's Grocery Store and celebrated "Cow Appreciation Day" at Chick-Fil-A. I have posted a few pictures of Ryan having fun on his fieldtrips this summer. I will continue to post pictures for the remainder of the summer. He has been having such a great time!!

Two and Three year olds go on a "field trip"

During the summer at our preschool we have lots of school age kids on top of the normal enrollment we have on a day to day basis. As a result, the school agers and the 4 & 5 year olds go on field trips and trips to the park and pool on a regular basis. The little kids don't go because with their age we would need lots of parents to go and it is hard to get that many to volunteer. Terasa Leel is the teacher of the 3 year olds and some of the older 2 year olds-Lydia and Emily are in her class. (We have a lot of two year olds at our center and I could not have all of them in my room--therefore they moved some kids around to accommodate all of them). Terasa and I decided to take a mini field trip with her kids and mine. Since we could not leave the school grounds we decided to have a mini-field trip on the school grounds.

The big kids go on their field trips in a small school bus we own. Terasa and I loaded all of our two and three year olds on the school bus and drove them around the parking lot for about 10 minutes so they would think they were going somewhere. They were so excited about riding the school bus!! At one point, when driving around the parking lot, Lydia says "Mommy, why we passing the van?" Of course we thought we could outsmart our kids by driving them around the building a few times. Lydia noticed her van too many times to think she was going anywhere:).

Once off the bus, we hooked up a sprinkler and had them run through the sprinkler for about 45 minutes, we went up on the playground to play while they dried off a bit and then brought their specially packed lunches (for our field trip) up to the picnic tables and they ate their packed lunches outside!

After lunch, we went inside to change the kids out of their bathing suits and lay down for a nap. All but about 2 of the 20 kids that went on the "mini-field trip" passed out within about 5 minutes of laying down. It was a fun day! Terasa and I have decided we would like to do this again, but we are going to re-coup a little bit before tackling it:) Lydia and Emily, along with all the other kids, had a great time!!

Best Job Ever!!

I have the best job! Today I had the great fortune to go on a field trip with Ryan and his class while helping out with the kids and getting paid for it!! I left my class of two year olds in good hands this morning and began the two hour van/bus drive to Safari Park in Natural Bridge. We had several parents go along so my group of kids I was responsible for was only three--Ryan being one of them. We went on a wagon ride through the Safari Park while the various animals came to the wagon to eat out of the buckets of food that we were given. We saw camels, emus, zebras, donkeys, elk, buffalo, tigers, deer, giraffe and a host of other safari animals. Seeing them up that close and eating out of my hand was a trill for the me as well as the kids. Ryan was a little skiddish of the larger animals, but jumped in there and fed the smaller ones. He did feed the larger animals, while still keeping his "safe" distance. I highly recommend a family visit! I plan to take Lydia, Emily and Mike later in the summer. It made our zoo trip pale in comparision.