Who needs Power?

So this past weekend we ended up with one nasty storm come through our area of the province.  It consisted on extremely high winds, started with rain and continued onto SNOW and way to much of it.  Along with all this joyful weather came a power outage due to knocked down power polls.  This wasn't just a short lived outage either, for the area we lived in it was a dreadful 63 hours.  Ya, that's right 63 hours without power, heat, and water (here in small towns if you don't have power you don't water seems how the pumps can't run).  So lets just say it was a really long weekend for the kids and I, as the husband was stranded in the city due to the weather here (of course he had power, water, and heat.  There was no sight of the storm there besides some extra wind). 

So as the first day moved on and there was no sight of power coming back on anytime soon, I had to try and figure out how to keep my kids warm and entertained at the same time.  Now that's one large task as kids now a days don't know how to live without that power.  NO.... t.v., video games, music, computer, etc.  And of course we couldn't go down to the play room in our basement to play because along with the fun weather and power outage meant we had a soaking wet basement cause out sump pumps were unable to run. 

So mommy (me) was on a mission to entertain this little ones as much as I could.  We did everything from reading about a million books to coloring about 10 million pictures (OK I know that was extreme numbers but after the first 8 hours of doing it, one really does get tired of it, no matter how much you enjoy them).  So as i lay there while we have quiet time, I was trying to figure out what w should once they all wake up again.  Here is what the following day and a half consisted of:

• Many rounds of hide and go seek
• Building a large fort out of blankets and pillows
• Playing catch the bad guy and put them in jail (of course our jail was under the blanket, so one could stay warm)
• Ring around the Rosie
• Duck duck goose (not to easy to play with only 3 people!)
• Building towers out of Lego
• Practicing our printing and sight words (my oldest is in grade 1)
•  Watching the vehicle get stuck at the corner of our street, we even had a large semi get stuck, the kids thought that was crazy, how a big vehicle like that could get stuck
• Of course more coloring and reading happened too!

As for food, it was so hard to have my daughter understand that we can't "cook" Kraft Dinner because you need power to run the stove.  So we all lived on sandwiches, carrots, pudding and granola bars for the time our power was out.  We did luck out and the husband brought home a pizza from the city for us.  No it wasn't hot by the time he got home, but it did taste yummy after eating sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and supper the day before and the first part of the following day!

None the less, it might have been a long cold weekend for us.  We were able to learn and teach the kids, on should never take for granted what we have cause many people in this world have to live the way we did for those 63 hours all the time.  It was a joy to have so much fun with the kids, but we were glad to have power back on in the end. 

How to play Ring around the Rosie

What you need: All you need for this game is a group of children. This game can be played both indoors and outdoors.

How to play: The children join hands in a circle and walk around the circle singing, "Ring around the Rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down." When the word "down" is sung, children must stop walking and sit down.

The rules: Don't sit down until the end of the song.

How to win: The last person standing is out of the game, and the game continues until one person remains.

How to play Duck, Duck, Goose

Objective:The objective of Duck Duck Goose is for the person who is the ‘Picker’ to take the place of a player sitting in the circle.

Game Layout:Players sit in a circle facing inwards while one player, the picker, walks around the circle and touches each of the sitting players in turn, calling them either a ‘Duck’ or a ‘Goose’.

Game Description:Then the Goose is named, the Goose must get up and chase the Picker back to where they were seated. If the Picker gets to the spot and sits down before the Goose can catch them, then the Goose becomes the new Picker and the game continues. If the Goose manages to tag the Picker before the Picker can sit down, then the Goose may sit down again and the Picker resumes walking around the circle declaring Ducks and Geese.

Rules:The Goose must get up and chase the Picker. In a normal game the Picker and the Goose must run in the same direction around the circle.

Many variations of Duck Duck Goose can be played. For example, ‘Duck’Duck Grey Duck’ is a variation where the Grey Duck replaces the Goose, and other Ducks are described by an adjective, eg
Rag Tag is a very similar game, but instead of calling out Ducks and Geese, the Picker drops a rag or cloth behind one child, who must pick it up and try to Tag the picker. Duck Duck Goose can be played in numerous variations by replacing the words, eg Ninja Ninja Pirate, Elf Elf Santa etc. This can be done to suit a theme at parties and other events.

Strategy, Skills and Tactics

The key to Duck Duck Goose is being alert and getting up quickly after being called the Goose, and running quickly. If playing the variation Duck Duck Grey Duck, then the adjectives can be used to trick the other players into thinking that you are calling Grey duck, eg ‘Gr…oovy Duck’, which will slow down their reaction time. In Duck Duck Animal, choosing the animal carefully can also give the Picker an advantage. Choosing an awkward movement style when picking a fast runner can be an advantage.

Chicken Week Days 2 and 3

Sorry I didn't get yesterday craft posted, I ran out of time before my day came to an end!  So I will make both yesterdays and today's in one post. 

So we have done a few more crafts along with reading some chicken/duck stories and coloring another picture.

For the next stage in the chickens life we colored:

Chickens in a nest can be found at www.coloring.ws

As for crafts we made chicks that hatch and form chicken pictures.

Chicks that Hatch

What you need:

Plastic Eggs (you can usually find these around Easter time in stores, they open up and you can fill them with candy or little gifts)
Large yellow pom poms (two for each child)
googly eyes
orange foam or construction paper
white glue

What to do:

1. Place a decent amount of white glue in the bottom portion of the egg
2. Stick a yellow pom pom into it
3. Then glue the second pom pom on top of the first one
4. Glue your eyes and beak on to the top pom pom 

Once they are dry you can then show the children how the egg hatches!!  My little ones had fun showing me how they can hatch their eggs all by themselves.

Foam Chickens

What you need:
Yellow foam
Red Foam
Orange Foam
Googly Eyes
Glue
Scissors
pencil

What you do:

1. Draw the shape of a large egg for the body of yellow foam
2. Draw the shape of two wings on yellow foam
3. Draw feet and beaks on the orange foam
4. Draw the head piece of a chicken on the red foam
5. Let the children cut the shapes out (if they aren't old enough to cut you might have to do this part too!)
6. Glue pieces together to make the chicken 
7. Add eyes 

Reading:

I had the older children look through the book shelf to see if they could pick out the chicken books.
Here's what they came back with.... (I know they are not about chickens but they were pretty darn close, so we read them anyways). 

Book 1:
The Ugly Duckling
From the Series "Baby Bear's Read Along"

Book 2:
Duck Duck Moose
Written by Dave Horowitz

I tried to explain to the children the difference between ducks and chickens, now I am not to sure if the younger one know the difference yet or not......  But I am still happy they found "bird" books by themselves.


Take a look at additional pictures at: Ducky's Photos

Chicken Week Day 1

So with the older kids back into school this week, the younger ones and I at Ducky's have started our new themed weeks.  As mentioned in a previous post, I was finding the Lettered weeks to be a little hard for some of the children, they are mostly between 2 and 3 years of age. I decided to start with farm animals and see how it will go from there.

Today we did the following:

While I was getting out craft project ready I had the children colour 2 pictures.
1: just an egg ( Egg found at Family Crafts on About.com)

2: a picture of a chick that has just hatched (chick in egg can be found on DTLK's chick colouring pages)

These pages will be kept and at the end of the week with will make a little booklet of the stages of growth for a chicken.
Once our coloring was finished we started into today's craft.  We made chickens out of baby food jars.  Who thought, hey???  And I must say we will be using this method a few times over the next couple of weeks while we work on our farm animals.

What you need:

• Baby Food Jars
• Craft foam in orange (or you can use scrap construction paper)
• Tacky Glue or glue gun (I would recommend that you use one of these, we used white glue and it wasn't the easiest!)
• pompoms in the color yellow
• yellow feathers
• wiggle eyes
• scissors

Directions:

Clean baby food jar. Remove label. Fill with pompoms to make the body of the chicken. Put the lid on and turn it upside down. Glue on wiggle eyes. Cut  beak and feet out of foam and glue in place. Glue 4 to 6 yellow feathers to the back side of your jar sticking up to make its tail.

We also listen to the story Chicken Little today.  As sad as it is, I have what seems like a million and one books in my house and I do not have Chicken Little!  So I found one on the computer and we watched it.  The kids really enjoyed watching it, as for the fact that they know the computer is off limits here, so when they do get to use it a bit, its sure a treat for them.

Author: Christianne C. Jones

Feel free to check out more pictures at Ducky's Photos of today's craft !