Play dough, crayons, sand oh, my!

Caroline, Joey, Madison, Shay and Ryan have been up to their ears in all sorts of art activities these past few weeks. We picked up these great window crayons from Wal-Mart and the children just love them! The windows clean up easily with a quick spray from the hose, which makes it extra nice. The play dough and sand are big hits, of course, even after the repeated "tasting" - it's all non-toxic so no worries there. :)

Color Time

Joey, Madison and Shay really loved Color Time today! We covered the toddler table with scrap paper and let them each use a special color-wheel crayon. These crayons are super easy for tiny hands to hold and since they have several colors on each wheel we don't end up with piles of crayons all over the floor to clean up. Truly a win-win. :)

Here's a video of how we teach the colors. When children are first learning colors it's important to NOT ask them, "What color is this?" They obviously don't know that yet and these types of questions can lead to disinterest or frustration. We gather solid-colored objects to represent each color, then tell them the color for each object and ask if they can find something else with this same color. this helps them learn associations and that colors can be found in many shapes and sizes and items.

Joey's 2nd Birthday!

Joey turned 2 years old today! We love having Joey here at Baby MacBean! He is so energetic and is usually the first one to discover something new, and when he does he just can't wait to share it with everyone else. He loves kicking and throwing balls, sliding down slides and running around as fast as he can!

Happy Birthday, Joey!

Madison's 2nd Birthday!

Madison is 2 years old today! She had a little birthday party here at Baby MacBean where she could share her cake with all her little friends. Madison brings so much happiness and fun to our days and all the kids here just love to be around her. She's full of energy and loves to show us things she can do herself. She's just growing up so fast! Glad we get to be part of her growing experience.

Happy Birthday, Madison!! 

We started with a trial-run to practice blowing out the candle...

 

Then moved on to the main event - BIRTHDAY CAKE! YUM!