Our featured book this week is 'Owl Babies' (by Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson) All my kids from babies, to toddlers and preschoolers just love, love, love this story. Even my two big school aged kids still enjoy listening to this story. The very first time I picked this story up to read to my kids, I thought it was such a plain and simple story. Three baby owls missing their mummy... waiting, waiting, waiting for her to come back. And when she finally comes back, everyone is happy again. That's it. That's essentially the plot. I wondered why the children were so eager to listen to this simple story so many times. Was it simply the three cute little baby owls in the story? Probably. Then just last week we welcomed another new little baby to the family *. It's been a rocky start, as it usually is with most children getting used to a new environment. All the other children were quick to point out whenever baby was crying and feeling sad. Why is baby c...

One the staple items in every educator’s toolkit are felt board pictures for rhymes and story time. There’s just something very captivating by the felt pictures. Perhaps it’s a sensory thing with the soft feel of the felt and the bright colours. The kids all get very excited whenever I pull out one of my felt picture kits for story time. So I thought I would share a few of my favourite felt story time kits which are fairly simple to make. Where is the Green Sheep This kit is by far the most favourite among all my felt picture kits. The children all find the cute and colourful little sheep absolutely irresistable. The kit I put together also includes four fabric squares corresponding to each coloured sheep for colour matching games. The little felt sheep were so easy to cut out, I eventually added on traditional black and white sheep to sing other sheep nursery rhymes like ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, ‘Little Bo Peep’ and ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’. Go Away Big Green Monster This was another v...

One common question that pops up in Family Day Care forums and discussions is “What is your number one best buy or favourite piece of equipment or toy?”. I’m always curious to see what other educators have up their sleeve and I’ve uncovered a number of gems through such discussions. I don’t consider my own set up highly sophisticated compared to others, but I aim to be intentional in the way I set up my environments and include lots of open ended materials that can be used in many ways or can be repurposed into different set ups and play invitations. Today I’d like to share one particular set of equipment which I consider to be one of the most versatile in my set ups and has been worth every cent invested and more. Jumbo size building blocks I bought them five years ago at Big W in a set of 78-80 pieces for under a hundred dollars or thereabouts. They were such a big hit I went back to get another set but they were all sold out. They’ve become an integral part of my set up and function...

One of the key things I like to include in my weekly or daily environment set ups in my family day care are ‘activity trays’… also sometimes referred to as ‘interest tables’, ‘discovery trays’ or ‘sensory bins’. It’s essentially a hodge podge of various bits and pieces, thoughtfully curated and arranged in a way to generate interest in children to explore and discover. Our Easter themed activity tray this week is filled with eggs and little baby chicks, watched over by a noisy mother hen A post shared by Serenely (@livingserenely) on Mar 27, 2018 at 5:45am PDT I like them because they often add a pop of colour or an interesting corner to the general play area. Plus if they hit the right spots, they can captivate and engage a child for ages on end. Gearing up for Easter with an egg-filled theme this week... 1. EGG SHOP PLAY 2. HUMPTY DUMPTY STORY TRAY 3. FIVE LITTLE CHICKADEES FELT STORY BOARD 4. MELTED CRAYON EGG DECORATING ACTIVITY 5. EASTER EGG COLLAGE ACTIVITY A post s...

One of the big projects I planned last year was to give our backyard a major overhaul. Here’s an overview of how it looks like now after the overhaul! When we first laid out the garden, we had envisaged a sort of zen-inspired landscape … Over the years, our family grew and evolved. Things got added into the backyard to keep up with the changes. Various plants and a few fruit trees. Outdoor toys and play equipment. A sandpit. Even more so since I started my family day care . We tried to make the most of the existing landscape and work with it to accommodate the various add-ons. But it was hard to stay on top of the mowing and the weeds. The original landscape just got lost in the midst of all the changes. So I rolled up my sleeves and got down to business. I did up a plan and list of materials. I applied for a small grant from the local council and got a modest sum of money to supplement the cost of materials. I found a great guy to do the heavy lifting with digging up the whole backy...

Today’s entry is not so much a post as it is just a way to showcase the latest addition to our outdoor play area… Our new mega sized outdoor chalkboard! It started out when I was cracking my head to think of a project for my sustainability practices assignment. (As some of you know, I am currently back at ‘school’ studying Early Childhood Education as part of my big venture into setting up my family day care ). One of the projects in the assignment was to create an outdoor play space made from recycled materials. Thanks to the labour of love from my dearest hubby… And my ‘expert’ painting skills… We converted an unused wooden door (we happened to have sitting around in our garage gathering dust) into this fantastic new play space in our outdoor area… The children absolutely loved it! They were so excited to see it when they headed outside the first day after it was set up. And I had half the morning ticking away smoothly with all very busy and fully engaged children, drawing...

So I know I said yesterday that I am officially finished with my last post for the year. But I just had to sneak in these photos of the wonderful party we had yesterday to celebrate Nathan’s fourth birthday and a sort of final year-end/Christmas bash we had for my beloved day care children. None of   my parties have ever been the fancy sort, but the only thing I hope for is that they are fun and memorable. We borrowed an inflatable pool and colourful plastic balls to make a simple ball pit which the children all just went mad over. It got a little crowded in there at times, but we somehow always managed to work something out. Hubby sportingly took on the role as the ‘magic balloon man’ and made all sorts of fun shapes and creations with a little balloon kit we got from the party supplies section at the shops. The theme of the party was all about lollipops. So I made some ‘ marshmallow dough ’ for the children to have a lollipop-making activity. I knew my children all love ...