Crafts

Hey there -
I'm pretty excited this afternoon. I've been doing some planning for the rest of the week and some crafts that we'll do together. Of course with this week being Halloween, there are plenty of crafts and art projects to do with kids. Even if you don't celebrate Halloween, many of the crafts revolve around the fall season, pumpkins and animals. As you know if you've read any of my other posts, I absolutely love animals and educating kids about them. So this time of year is great to dispel certain myths about spiders and bats especially! And doing crafts that are centered around them is a great way to have kids become more comfortable with them.

I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned this website before but if not, you should check it out. Its www.preschooleducation.com I get most of my arts and craft project ideas from there. This week I've picked out several projects. The one that we'll be doing tomorrow is super simple but so fun. One at a time, you paint a child's foot with white paint and then have them press it down hard onto black construction paper. Once it has dried completely you can add eyes to the "heel" part of the footprint. This is the ghosts head. And of course kids can be as creative as they like adding other features to the ghost as well.

The other craft that I'm excited about is called paper bag pumpkins. The kids crumple up newspaper and stuff a paper bag half full. Then they twist the uncrumpled part of the bag and tie it off - this is the stem of the pumpkin. To finish off the project, kids can paint the pumpkin orange and once its dry they use black marker to draw a face or decorate however.

All of this to say, I'm super excited for the week and all the fun things the kids and I will be doing together.

Have a great day - thanks for reading!

Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids Childcare Provider

Snow!

Hello everyone -
It snowed quite a bit here yesterday so today we took full advantage of it. Snow boots, coats, mittens and all, we headed outside and played in the back yard for a while. We built a snowman and gave him eyes (2 rocks from our landscaping) and a nose (a carrot of course!). We forgot the mouth and buttons so the next time it snows we'll be sure to add those features. This is Colorado, so most of the snow is already gone - but who knows? It could be back again tomorrow!

I hope you all had a great day - thanks for reading!

Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids Childcare Provider

Anderson Farms

Hello everyone -
I'm excited to blog about our adventure yesterday - it seems that we've found some really fun places to go in the past couple of days. And they are either free or relatively cheap!

Yesterday we went with another provider and her kids to Anderson Farms in Erie, Colorado. While it was about an hour long drive, it was well worth it! The weather was gorgeous - another beautiful fall day here in Colorado. I think it got up to about 70 degrees. I've been to Anderson Farms before with another job with kids that I used to have. It is a large farm that has so much to do including barrel rides, wagon ride through Animal Acres (we got to feed a buffalo and these very large cows!), wagon ride to a very large pumpkin patch, corn maze, kiddie corn mazes, petting zoo (rabbits, goats, llamas, chickens, ducks, geese), playground, fake train that kids play on and in, and much more. The kids had an absolute blast and were sad to leave at the end of the day. Children 3 and under are free - the only cost for them is the cost of a pumpkin if you choose to pick one from the pumpkin patch. Adults are $10 but you can print off a coupon from their website - and the cost of admission includes everything I listed above (except again for the cost of a pumpkin). I highly recommend to anyone and everyone that can make the trip there, to head to this great farm. It was so much fun!

We got some great photos from the day too so I'm hoping to post them on my website sometime here in the near future. Stay tuned for other changes to my website. My husband has been busy getting these changes up and running. And a big thank you to our friend Scott Asano for his great photography work on the website. I highly recommend him as well for any of your family/lifestyle photography needs. His website address is www.scottasano.com Check it out!

Okay - that's it for today. As always, thanks for reading!

Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids Childcare Provider

Littleton Historical Museum

Hello -
Today the kids and I went to the Littleton Historical Museum and had such a blast. For of all, it is completely free, which is always something that I'm looking for as a provider. There is a really nice museum with displays about the history of Littleton. When you go outside, they have several different farms with living history interpreters, meaning the staff there are dressed as they would be in the 1800's. We met a blacksmith and were able to watch him as he made different creations out of iron. The kids loved watching the sparks fly as he hit the hot metal with the hammer. Its amazing what they can make!

We saw many animals there such as peacocks, chickens, turkeys, geese, donkeys, sheep and cows. We visited a garden and learned that it is actually a very small garden compared to what they would have had back then. They grow so many different kinds of vegetables like cabbage, corn, squash, zucchini, beans, carrots, pumpkins, and much more. There is also a small schoolhouse and a couple of houses. There really is so much to see and explore there. And what made it so great was the beautiful fall weather that we're having today.

So for any of you that live within driving distance of the museum, I highly recommend it. Again, its free and there is so much to see!

Have a good day!
Kendall Stark
Monarch Kids Childcare Provider