My Daycare Coach

When the weather outside is frightful, come inside and make something delightful. Here are some fun winter crafts to do with your 2 and 3 year olds. The first is a color page of a scarf. After the children color them or 🎨 them. Help them to hole punch the ends and add cut yarn pieces. Some of the 2 year olds need more scaffolding. You can punch the hole and cut the yarn pieces for them a head of time.  For the mitten, have a precut paper mitten and allow the children to add colored tissue pieces. Then add glue. We used chubby paint brushes to paint on our glue. For a parent friendly approach (that some of my daycare assistants preferred) You could trim around the edges that overlapped the mitten.  For these winter hats, have paper plate halves available with markers and lick and stick tape and Pom poms and glue too.  For our winter tree, we used a die cut of a tree layered with 2 colors of paper. The children added "snow" cotton balls with glue sticks and some ...

I found this Idea on Pinterest a while back and thought I would give it a try. It was a great way to get the families at my daycare involved with our program..( I'm always looking for ways to involve my families) I asked them and everyone I knew to save their milk jugs, rinse them, and bring them to daycare before a 3 day weekend. My three assistants and I took turns with 2 glue guns going to create this wonderful space. 💪🏻 It took a total of about 2 days with plenty of breaks to finish. But our children loved it! They thought it was the coolest thing ever. The Dramatic play was flourishing.  Have you ever tried a crazy Pinterest idea? How did it turn out for you? Leave me a comment below and share a story with me. I'd love to hear from you. 

I had some extra time this week because my work closes down for the week between Christmas and New Years. I know right? As a family childcare provider, this was typically a very busy time of the year  school kids needed care and having to keep track of which kids would or wouldn't be here and finishing up our Christmas crafts in time. It got kinda hectic sometimes.  So I chose to make grownup crafts this week  I've been wanting to try making some string art wooden signs  so I started off with something simple. Here's how I did it.  First I gathered my supplies: Small wood plaque  1in panel board nails A hammer Wood stain Paint brush for stain Colored string A pencil  Black and Silver paint pen Paper First Stain your wood plaque with your color choice of stain. I used Golden Oak for mine. After it dries ( I let mine sit over night) cut a heart out of paper and set it on your plaque to make sure it fits. Position it where you w...

A fun simple gift idea: Coasters Supplies: Small tiles  (mine were from Home Depot for $.45 each for these octagon shaped ones) Felt sheets Mod Poge  Spray adhesive glue Pretty scrap paper   (I bought a big pack from Michael's) Choose your scrap paper choices. Next trace out and cut out your paper slightly smaller than your tile. Next apply a small amount of spray adhesive to sick your paper to you tile. Then add thin layers of Mod Podge. Make sure to let dry between applications. I did 3 coats to my coasters. After completely dry, cut out felt slightly smaller than your tile. Use the spray adhesive to glue your felt to the back side of your coaster. Now just wrap 4 of them together  with some pretty ribbon and a bow and you have a simple and fun gift. I customized my paper choices to each of my family members. They loved them. 💕