Program Planning: Weekly Site Schedules

Our Club is the largest of our three sites and sometimes it's hard to keep everything straight. Everyone has their own organization system, but for me the best way to keep everything organized is color coding. For our schedules, I have assigned each staff a different color so that everyone knows in advance what programs they are responsible for planning and implementing.

I send these schedules out the week before implementation and staff are responsible for prepping their lessons and supplies the night before so that everything is ready when it's time to implement the lesson for the day. Before we leave for the night, I double check the cleaning list and make sure each staff have their rooms ready for the following day.

Have you found great ways to organize your schedule and hold staff accountable? Let me know!

World Post Day - Career Exploration & Holiday Hoopla

According to the Universal Postal Union's website, the purpose of Universal Post Day is to "bring awareness to the Post's role in the everyday lives of people and businesses, as well as its contribution to global social and economic development". This holiday seemed like an open invitation to showcase a Career Exploration into a postal career. An easy way to accomplish this could be to have a mail carrier or post master visit your group and discuss their career. Another idea could be to take your group to the local post office for a tour. 

You could also put together a project that shows just how amazing our mail service is. We've got a project in the works to start a pen pal club with a group I met at a recent conference. When we send them our package, I'm adding tracking service to it so that our kids can see how far their package travels each day on it's way to our new friends. Some learning activities involved with this are going to be using technology to determine the distance between our club and theirs and to find out how long it would take to travel if we drove the club bus, took a flight on an airplane, or walked. Then we'll compare how long it takes our package to arrive at it's destination.

Have you had a Career Exploration with someone working in the Postal Service? Have you had experiences with having a group pen pal exchange? Let me know!

October Fun for Little Learners

Little learners require special activities designed for little hands and developing minds. One of my previous life experiences was teaching preschool (my first class was a group of 10 little boys and that was a bit of a culture shock for me). Our club doesn't have little ones (membership starts at 6) but I know there are a lot out there who do take PreK so I wanted to share some ideas of activities that can be done with the club or as family projects.

Clipping Tubes - Cut cardboard tubes into 2-inch lengths. Have your child use spring-type clothespins to clip the tubes together to make simple designs. You can also ask your child to clip specific numbers of tubes together.

Torn-Paper Pumpkin - Give your child a small paper plate and a piece of orange construction paper. Let you child tear the orange paper into small pieces and glue the pieces all over the paper plate. Then let your child glue on a green construction paper stem to complete the pumpkin.

Ghostly Family - On a sheet of white paper, help your child trace around your family's hands. Cut out the shapes. Have your child turn the hand shapes into ghosts by turning the hand shapes upside down and using black crayons to draw eyes on the palms of the hands. Glue the ghosts onto a large sheet of black construction paper so that they appear to be floating in the night sky. Which ghost is the smallest? Which is the largest?

Trick or Treat Container - Cut the top off a plastic gallon milk jug, leaving the handle attached to the bottom. Cut out shapes from construction paper and help your child glue them onto the jug to create a funny or scary face. Glue pieces of yarn around the top edge of the jug for hair.

News for Everyone - Share the newspaper with your child. Read the comics and captions under interesting pictures. Point to letters that are in your child's name. Look for numerals in the advertisement pages.

Measuring a Pumpkin - Set out a pumpkin. Let your child cut off a length of yarn that he or she thinks will fit around the pumpkin. Have your child try wrapping the yarn around the pumpkin to see how well it fits. Measure and cut off a piece of yarn that fits around the pumpkin exactly. Let your child compare his or her yarn to the piece that fits the pumpkin exactly. Ask "Is your yarn piece longer or shorter?"

Journals - Spend some quality time with your child by setting aside some time each day or week to write in a journal together. Just staple several sheets of paper together to make a journal and have your child dictate something for you to write. Try offering a topic each time such as "What did you do last night? What makes you happy? What is your favorite game?"

What is Litter? - Set out various pieces of litter (soda can, gum wrapper, plastic bag, paper, etc.) and nature objects (leaf, branch, rock, etc.). Ask your child to point to the objects that are litter. How does your child know that the objects are litter? What should be done with them? Hide some litter around the room, and let your child search for it and put it in a garbage bag.

Marble Fun - Tie several marbles in the toe of a large sock. Have your child fell the sock and try to guess how many marbles are inside. Take out the marbles and count them. Take turns placing marbles in the sock and guessing.

Jack-O'-Lantern Flashlight - From orange construction paper, cut a circle to cover the end of a flashlight. Cut jack-o'-lantern features out of the circle. Tape the circle to the end of the flashlight. Darken the room, play music, and let your child use the flashlight to shine jack-o'-lanterns on everything while dancing around the room.

Tennis Ball Carry - Place a large spoon and a basket filled with tennis balls at one end of the room and an empty basket at the other end. Let your child balance a tennis ball on the spoon, walking carefully across the room, and put the ball in the other basket.

Sniffy Name - Place a sheet of construction paper inside a box lid. Help your child print his or her name by squeezing glue onto the paper. Then let your child sprinkle fruit flavored gelatin powder on the glue and tap the excess into the box lid. After the glue dries, let your child let everyone sniff his or her name.

Does your site have PreK or are you a PreK care provider? Do you have an awesome October project idea? Let me know!

Mad Hatter Day

Mad Hatter Day came about because a group of computer techs decided in 1986 to have a day to celebrate silliness. The designation of the day comes from the tag on the Mad Hatter's Hat that indicates 10/6 (which actually shows the hat style of the order). In our facility we are celebrating Mad Hatter day with a celebration of all things Alice in Wonderland.

There are some simple ways to incorporate an Alice in Wonderland theme day in your facility - the first is snack. We do a daily after school snack and for Mad Hatter Day what is more appropriate than tea? Some of our kids have probably never even tried hot tea so it will be a first. If you have a small group, having a variety of real teacups is neat, but if you've got a large group like we do that's a little complicated. Instead, we'll be sampling hot tea (served out of styrofoam cups) and have some lovely teacakes and finger sandwiches. One of my favorites is to make banana bread and slice it thin enough to make sandwiches filled with cream cheese.

For games we will be playing croquet. Now, we don't have a croquet set, but we can improvise with pink lawn flamingos, small dodge balls, and goals fashioned from half hula hoops.

Have you celebrated Mad Hatter Day or had an Alice in Wonderland themed day with your group? Let me know!

World Teacher Day - Holiday Hoopla and Service Skills

Know what's better than a Holiday Hoopla post? A Holiday Hoopla AND Service Skills post! World Teachers' Day gives us a chance to celebrate and serve those people who contribute everyday to making our world a better place - our teachers. Our club has started a new program to honor our teachers at our school sites where we choose a teacher of the month to say a special thank you to. Each site has the kids vote on who their teacher of the month is and we make them a card, give them some teacher-oriented goodies (office supplies!) along with a treat that the kids have made (things like snack mix, cookies, etc). It doesn't take a lot of money, but it means a lot to these teachers to be recognized from an outside organization.

So, what can you do if you want to celebrate World Teachers' Day but you're not ready to commit to having a monthly ongoing project? Why not take a platter of goodies to leave in the teachers' lounge with a nice card signed by all of your kids? Groups could also make personalized gift bags for the teachers in your school. Purchase small gift bags and fill them with teacher-friendly tidbits like sticky notes, pens, some hard candies or chocolates, and a gift card for a local coffee shop.

How do you celebrate the special teachers in your life? Do you do something special for teachers at your school sites? Let me know!

Science Spot - Space Week Activities

October 4-10 is International Space Week. This week has been designated because October 4, 1957 commemorates the launch date of Sputnik 1 and October 10, 1967 commemorates the signing date of the first International Space Treaty. Since this celebration lasts for an entire week, it encourages many projects. In our club, the kids love hands on science activities and we incorporate a lot of these through Magic School Bus episodes (the original, I haven't reviewed the new version).

The first episode we pull in for International Space Week is The Magic School Bus Lost in Space (Season 1, Episode 1). Once the kids watch the movie (all of the episodes are on Netflix and I've found several on teacher tube as well) you can use the parent/teacher activity and have them use everyday objects to create their own sort-of-scale solar system.

The second episode we cover is Out of This World (Season 2, Episode 11) where the kids learn about craters and the impact that space objects can have on our Earth. The activity that goes along with this is using household objects to make your own craters and I can tell you that our kids absolutely loved this project.

The final episode we use is The Magic School Bus Sees Stars (Season 4, Episode 7). The coordinating activity gives kids a chance to create a special constellation and see how the sun blocks out the stars we can see during daylight hours.

Do you celebrate Space Week with your kids? What kinds of activities do you do? Let me know!

Kids in the Kitchen - National Pizza Month

Choose any day in October to celebrate Pizza Festival Time Month. Pizza originated in Italy, but today is an international favorite.  Not only is pizza delicious, it's nutritious too.  A pizza made with meat and veggie toppings provides foods from each of the four major food groups.

Give your child a large circle cut from card board (or a pizza wheel) and let them paint on red "sauce" (tempera paint).  Next let them top their pizza with construction paper cut outs of their favorite toppings (red pepperoni circles, black olive ovals, yellow pineapple tidbits, green bell pepper rings, tan mushroom slices).  Let your child sprinkle on yellow cornmeal (from a shaker container) for cheese.

I Wish I Were a Pepperoni Pizza

Sung to: "The Oscar Myer Theme Song"

Oh, I wish I were a pepperoni pizza,

That is what I'd truly like to be.

For if I were a pepperoni pizza,

Everyone would be in love with me!

Additional Verses: Substitute other favorite pizza toppings.

Prepare a variety of pizza toppings.  Include tomato sauce (spaghetti sauce adds more flavor) and cheese plus any other toppings your children like (olives, mushrooms, cooked sausage, ham, pepperoni, etc.)  Have children place a hamburger bun or English muffin top or bottom on a paper towel and top with a little sauce, cheese and their favorite toppings.  Place on a cookie sheet and bake pizzas at 400 degrees until cheese melts.

Has your group celebrated National Pizza Month? Have you made pizzas from hamburger buns or English muffins? Let me know!