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Sometimes I feel that the daycare's wintertime motto should be "if life sends you snow, play in it!" and today was no exception. With a few inches of fresh powder under our boots, we had even more fun when we went out into the white wilderness of the back yard!
We began our day with our new February circle time rhymes. One of them is an all-time favorite of mine because the children learn it quickly and it is just so sweet when the children burst out with it. I may be dating myself, but I first learned this song as a child on the Sharon, Lois, and Brahm's Elephant Show television show- we call it "Skinamarink" and it goes like this:
Skinamarink-y dink-y dink,
Skinamarink-y doo,
I love you!
Skinamarink-y dink-y dink,
Skinamarink-y doo,
I love you!
I love you in the morning
And in the afternoon,
I love you in the evening
Underneath the moon!
(kiss!)
Skinamarink-y dink-y dink,
Skinamarink-y doo,
I loooooove you!!!
Needless to say, we all have a great time making the motions along with this cute song!
After circle time and weather, we ate a quick morning snack and headed right outside to pay in all the snow. Even the littles have come to love trying to navigate in the snow and they come over eagerly once they see me begin to take out everyone's snow gear. It takes about a half an hour to make sure everyone is bundled up with extra socks, scarves, hats, mittens, and all, but it's definitely worth it to dress for the weather because it allows the kids to really dig in and have fun.
Today we dug in quite literally! A large snow drift that had piled up against the fence at the rear of the yard turned out to be perfect for making a snow fort.
Together we built an improved version of yesterday's sled run, and I shoveled some extra walking paths for the littles. They waited patiently in a drift while they waited for the sled run to be done, then they took a few rides down with me.
The big kids enjoyed trying to pull the littles around in the sled and had some degrees of success.
When they weren't sledding, exploring, or hiding out in the forts, they liked pretending to be "stuck" in the snow drifts and having me come to rescue them.
By the time we came in, the children were all very hungry and tired. The children were in such a deep sleep that I had to wake most of them. Each of the children got some time on my lap while I read to them. The older children listened to Happy Valentine's Day, Little Critter by Mercer Mayer and the littles listened to some books of words.
All in all, it was another great day of snow play! Hooray!
See you tomorrow!