Getting Ready to celebrate Dr. Suess's Birthday on March 2

Celebrating Dr. Suess's Birthday:
by Glenda Propst , Regarding Nannies Development Team

March 2 would have been Dr. Suess’s 106^th birthday.

His books are timeless and much loved by children of all ages so leading up to his birthday we wanted to share with you some fun activities you can do to go along with his books

Since today is Wednesday: Read the book Wacky Wednesday. You can do some wacky things today or you can plan to do them another Wacky Wednesday. Here are a few wacky ideas:
Wear your clothes backwards

Wear your pajamas all day

Where 2 different shoes, or 2 different socks

Wear a polka dot shirt and striped pants.

Have breakfast for lunch

Walk backwards

Choose a word you can’t say and substitute “beep” for it.

For example, if the word is drink, you would say may a have something to “beep”

There are all kinds of fun things you can do with Wacky Wednesday and Wacky Wednesday can really be any day of the week!

Read the foot book and let the kids paint with their feet, or let them create their own footbook.

Green Eggs and Ham:

Before breakfast read Green Eggs and Ham then show the children you only add food coloring to the food and then prepare the food. Talk about how the food tastes. Is it any different because of the coloring? Would you like to have green eggs from now on?

Take turns to see how many words you can rhyme.

* Create some new animals by "crossing" two--What would you get if you crossed and alligator with a giraffe?Would it be an alliraffe or a girgator? What would it look like? Can you draw it?

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The Cat in the Hat

* Discuss the house rules. What are the children allowed to do or not to do especially when they are not at home with their parents.

Talk about safety?
Talk about what to do if a stranger really does come to the door.
Do all your charges know their addresses in case an emergency occurs?

There are lots of places online for more ideas of how to celebrate the books of Dr. Suess.

You might want to check out www.suessville.com

and http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/marchholidays/l/blmar2nd.htm

Some of the ideas from this post came from the Worldwidenannies Yahoogroup.

We would love for you to share with us how you plan to celebrate!

Creative Nanny: Olympic Fun

Olympic Fun
by Alice Shaffer

Many nannies, charges and families have been watching the Olympics since Friday February 12 with the Opening Ceremonies.

• Have you ever thought of what there are 5 rings?
• How many "areas" the Winter Olympics take place on?
• How to be on your "own" luge, bobsled and skates?

I found this awesome blog called Country Fun. The post for Tuesday February 16 is all about the Olympics!

They talk about the above questions, share a coloring page site that has Olympic coloring pages, an activity to do that involves color sorting, counting, and making your own Olympic Rings. They even made their own medals and found the various countries on a world map. This is such a great educational post that will have you and your charges busy for the remaining days of the Olympics!

Don't forget that NBC Olympics has various playbacks of all the events so that you can go and watch them to see if your luge and mogul abilities are Olympic level!


To read this blog post please visit : Olympics

Nanny Gael Ann's Paper Garland for year round decorations.

Here is another fun Valentines Day Project from Nanny Gael Ann and as always her "Creative Assistant".
This is an idea that could be adapted for any time of the year. You could Shamrocks for St. Patricks Day with 3 hearts together and green paper. You could do eggs or flowers for Easter or Spring, leaves for Fall, Snowflakes for winter. If you do use one of our ideas we would love for you to share your pictures with us.
Here is a Smilebox that will show you Nanny Gael Ann's Paper Garland. You may have to scroll down the page a little bit to see the Smilebox.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Ground Hog Day

Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day.

This is always a fun day to share with the children in your life.

It's not too late to plan some of these fun activites.

Family Fun Magazine has a cute idea for Ground Hog Cupcakes.

Over at the Primary Games website, they have Groundhog activities, books and games and you can find even more Groundhog Day fun at the Perpetual School website.

And if you want to find out all you need to know about Groundhog Day just go to the official Ground Hog Day website

Decorated Purell Bottles by Nanny Gael Ann and her very creative assistant.

Decorated Purell Bottles by Nanny Gael Ann and her very creative assistant.


These make great gifts for parents, grandparents, teachers, friends & co-workers.

Just start with a bottle of hand sanitizer. I got mine with the handy red tops for less than a dollar each at a local discount store called Christmas Tree Shop. Then remove the labels on the front and back. This is probably the hardest part of this project. I found that the front label peels off nicely but the back ones take some soaking and a little rubbing with some kind of solvent. I like a product called Goo Gone.

With a trip to your favorite craft store or a look in your crafting supply stash round up some fun Valentine's Day stickers and scrapbook paper. Grab a roll of double sticky tape and some ribbon for the top(s) you are ready to get started.

To make each bottle a little different (for three preschool teacher in the same classroom)using regular scrapbook paper I cut out, free- hand, a heart shape for bottle, a rounded corner rectangle to fit the front of the second bottle and a strip of paper about 2 inches wide that fit all the way around the last bottle. I used the word processing program on my computer to print out Valentine messages and a "from ___ " note for the back of each bottle. I chose a fancy font and printed in red and purple to coordinate with the scrapbook paper and attached with double sticky tape. You might have to experiment a little with the font and font size to see what looks best on the size and shape of your bottle. You can skip the scrapbook paper part if you wish, they look just as cute with all stickers.

Now for the super fun part attaching the stickers! Kids of all ages can help with this part.

With a little curly ribbon or a bow tied around the top you have a cute and practical handmade gift to give someone special on Valentine's Day! Personalized hand sanitizer bottles work great for other occasions too. Examples: Snowflake design for our kitchen counter and a smiley face design given as a get well gift.

Since we wanted you all to have the time to make these great projects we are giving two project ideas today and another one next week so that you can make lots of great creative projects for Valentines Day.

Here is your bonus project today!

Make a Smilebox greeting

New Uses for Old CDs

Have you ever wondered what you could do with old CDs that might be useful or creative?
Kellie from the Regarding Nannies team asked me if I could find some ideas for what to do with old CDs.
Last year I went to the Mastadon Art and Science Fair (which is by the way the largest combined art and science fair in the nation, so if you live in the St. Louis area, you definitely don't want to miss it) and we did a fun project where we took Sharpies and decorated our CDs with beautiful designs. Then we took the tab from a pull top can and inserted it into the middle hole, it fit perfectly and thin you had a spinning top that made a beautiful pattern out of your art as it was spinning. You could make several of these and have races or contests to see whose top spins the longest.

We also took old CDS, strung them with fishing line and hung them from the gutters of our house to keep the birds from flying into our atrium windows.

I found the following sites that offer more creative ideas for recylcling used CDs.
The last one that shows the video on how to make the hover craft is my favorite!
If you have additional ideas on how to recycle used CDs please feel free to add them in the comments section.
This blog has a lot of great ideas!
http://craft1234u.blogspot.com/2009/01/recycle-old-cd-or-dvd.html

Here are some more you might want to check out.

http://www.make-stuff.com/recycling/cd.html

http://www.circleoflife.org/resource_details.php?id=3

http://www.familycorner.com/family/kids/crafts/cd_crafts.shtml

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/360980/make_a_mini_hovercraft/

Snowperson in a Jar by Nanny Gael Ann

I am excited to tell you that Nanny Gael Ann has agreed to share one of her wonderful craft ideas with us on a monthly basis in 2010. Her craft for January is simple and fun and guaranteed to put a smile on anyone's face.

Snowperson in a Jar

You will need:
empty clear plastic jar with a lid (we used an old large peanut butter jar)

stuffing (or cotton balls)

4 buttons (2 small (eye size) buttons & 2 slightly larger for body)

small piece of orange craft foam cut into a carrot shape

1 brown pipecleaner cut in half and shaped like arms (real twigs would work too)

bow for hat


Directions:
Loosely fill the jar with stuffing and then slide the buttons, nose and pipecleaners right along the inside of the jar. When arranged to your liking add more stuffing to insure all the pieces stay in place. Finally, screw on the lid and add the bow for a hat. Now you have some winter fun that won't melt away!