Marching Ants

The ants go marching one by one....Aw, a popular "classic" for children and adults alike.  Our ant week continues and today's craft had us creating ants that were walking, marching, crawling or moving however we chose in the grass.  The children are doing such a good job at their cutting and tracing skills and we're always very proud of the work they do.

Ants, Ants, Ants

Our theme at Susan's this week: Ants!!  During the warm months in Saskatchewan these little critters can be found outdoors in many places.  The children love to watch them and study their behaviour.  While doing hands-on activities and crafts, the children learn many cool things about ants such as:

*they can carry up to 20x their body weight
*they have two stomachs: one is for themselves and the other is to share with others
*ants have six legs
*ants are excellent team workers
*ants can be many different colours (ex. red, black, and yellow)
*and, according to the children, the red ants are BAD!

Flower Power

The sun has been shining and the flowers around us are in full bloom!  The vibrancy of the colours and wonderful smells stimulate our senses and brighten the world around us.  This week has been "Flower Power" week and the children at Susan's have been busy making a variety of flowers using different mediums and styles.  We absolutely LOVE getting hands-on and artistic in the crafts and activities that we do.

Today we used our natural painting tools - our fingers!! - to have some fun with finger painting flowers.  We also used cotton swabs to paint our bees (who also love flowers very much).  The children love being able to explore moving paint with different tools.

Opposites Week

Well, we're back from holidays.  Sorry for the delay in blog posts as the resident blogger has been busy moving and getting ready for back to work.  But we're now ready to get things rolling again!!

Our first week back and we delved into the world of opposites.  The first opposite we explored was sour and sweet.  This was a taste-testing day as the children used their sense of taste to decipher the difference between sour tasting items and sweet ones.  They found it very easy to tell the difference between the two.

Surprise!!

Yesterday the children at Susan's trekked to Regina to surprise Susan and Mike.  They were flying home from their holidays in Toronto and were scheduled to arrive in YQR in the afternoon.  So, we decided to surprise them by meeting them at the airport.  And were they ever surprised!  It was so much fun!  The children were exceptional travellers and very well behaved.  We are super proud of them! :)

All buckled in a rarin' to go!

Enjoying lunch before the surprise

Hiding....waiting....

Surprise!! Welcome back!! :) 

Watching the airplanes

Firehouse Visit

Today was field trip day and we got to go check out the......firehouse!  It was so much fun!  The firefighters were very friendly and taught us all sorts of things.  We got to see the "museum", the fire trucks (new, old and the big ladder truck), where the firemen do training, where they sleep and eat, how they get prepared for a fire, the inside of a truck, their locker rooms and the cool slide and poles they use. They answered our unending questions and informed us of ALL the duties they have (whew! they are busy, busy people).

Want S'more?

Our little cowpokes sat around a campfire today and made an outdoor delicacy......S'MORES!!!  My oh my were they tasty!!  We learned how to roast our marshmallows just right (although some of them did take to the flame very well and made our treat just a little crispy) and put them between two graham crackers and some chocolate.  The heat from our marshmallows warmed up our chocolate so it was a gooey treat.  Yum!  Not only did we eat our s'mores, we also wore them. ;)  And now, we revel in the scent of campfire as we mosey on our way.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

"Rollin', rollin', rollin'. Get those wagons rollin'..."  Its still the wild, wild west at Susan's this week and we prepared our wild west transportation - old fashioned covered wagons.  Now we can roll away in style.  All we need are a few oxen, some supplies and we're set to venture out into the wilderness and head west.

Banjo Bonanza

Well, today we decided to embrace our musical sides and create our own musical instruments.  Since our theme is the wild west, we made.....banjos!  Gotta love banjo music as you're sitting by a campfire or around the table at Susan's.  We learned how to properly hold and strum our very colourful banjos and can't wait to share our music with our families at home.

Outlaws

Yesterday we were the sheriffs, today we are the OUTLAWS!!  Using fun outlaw names and quite realistic "wanted for" reasons, we created our own Wanted posters today.  The children discussed how outlaws were the bad guys in the wild west and the ones the sheriffs tried to capture.  Also, when rewards were given or promoted then the public would help the sheriffs capture the outlaws.  Be on the lookout for these crazy outlaws in a town near you!