Pizza!

I have never met a person who doesn't like pizza!  I like to serve my childcare and my family all homemade bread products (even noodles).  The thought of mixing the dough, letting it rise, rolling it out, and then baking it makes the thought of ordering pizza much more appealing.

I thought I would share you how to easily and conviently have pizza crush ready at any time!  My most favorite pizza crust recipe comes from  Tightwad Gazette II .  I mix up the recipe exactly how the way it says in the food processor EXCEPT I double it.  I take the dough out, divide it in half, and then guess what?  I put it in a small zip lock freezer bag and stick it in the freezer.  Then I repeat the process 4 more times so that I don't have to do it again until I've made 10 pizzas :)

When it is time for pizza, I pull one out, take it out of the bag put it on a plate and put a damp towel on it.  I put the plate in the microwave and cook for 5 minutes at 20 percent power.  I do this until the pizza crust is completely defrosted, making sure the towel stays damp.

It won't take as long if you set it out the meal before you are going to use it, but be sure to keep it covered with a damp towel or it will have dried out areas on it. 

Then you are ready to roll it out, put your favorite toppings on it, bake at 375 degrees until bubbly and cooked - 20 to 30 minutes.  Enjoy!

How's this for Lovely Spring Weather?

Spring Chicks

The last two years, we raised baby chicks in the spring.  Yeeha!!!   We aren't doing that this year!  But the toddlers in our childcare still did a chick related art project.  I love it!!

I'm Baaaccckkk

Sorry to be gone so long.  Life has a way of changing your plans!  We were at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and it has taken some time to get back into the groove!  I'm not back into the schedule yet, so I thought that I would just show you some of the things my preschool has been doing the past couple of weeks, and I will get back on schedule next Monday. 

Over half of our preschool has birthdays in March.  We've all gained a couple of pounds here!  What do you do for birthdays?  We've tried several different things, but we currently do what I did in grade school.  We just bring a treat for our classmates.  I would like to do something more amazing, but I have yet to find a good system to keep it organized.  I would love to hear some ideas!!

Here are a couple pictures of the birthdays this month.  The children always hand out their own treats.  They really seem to like that!!

Now, even our teachers and aides bring their own treats.  This one cracked me up!

Tomorrow, I'll show you some of our Easter activities.  Thanks for continuing to stop in.  Please follow us!!

Displaying Art

How is your artwork displayed?  We have several displays at any given time and thought we would share.  If you like my posts, please follow me!

The blue background here is painted on the wall, and then we just blue sticky art work on top of that.  Often times we will also put a description (translated by the child who made it) next to the art work.

We like things like this dream catcher hang from the ceiling so our babies have great things to look at.

Framed art work means that we value it.  We try to value every child's art work in a frame.  Dating it and helping them sign if they can't sign themselves add to the importance of a piece of art.

This is in our entry room.  It tends to be seasonal, and they are usually my most favorite art works.

This wall is dedicated to what we are learning about in preschool.
Infant art display

 3-D art and another framed piece.

Learning art display

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcoming art that shows what we are learning about.

Some of our most favorite pieces seem to hang around forever.  This chicken was one of our projects from 2 years ago.  All of the rest shown are current.  I hope you have enjoyed our art displays, but I would really like to know your creative ways of displaying art.  Write to me!!

Chickens for a Project?!?

We are always striving to be more green, environmentally conscious, eco friendly as a business teaching children.  That is pretty hard for me, because it really was NOT how I was raised, but we do make an effort, and I think we do pretty well.

A couple of years ago, our town changed the ordinances to say that we could have up to six chickens in our yard.  Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  I took all of the preschool down to the courthouse to get our chicken license!

The whole project took over two months and included visitors, art projects, cooking with eggs, field trips to the court house and farm supply store, stories, raising and caring for the chickens, building a chicken coop, and then a couple months after we were finished, someone noticed an egg on the floor of the chicken coop!

 

 A couple of our art projects

Here are some picturs of our chickens growing up:

 We had visitors come in and show us their grown up chickens.  They also showed us how friendly they were and told us how to care for them.

This was the chicken coop that I picked out.  The chickens were getting a little big.  I had to move them out of preschool and into my garage, and I REALLY wanted them out of the garage, so we started building.

I really liked our chicken coop.  Especially after we put a metal roof on it.  It looked urban chic!  Hahaha, get it? Chic?

The best part of this project was all of the experiences the children had for over two years with these chickens.  They knew which one belonged to them.  They could even tell the differences in eggs.  The children would collect bugs to "sneak" to their chicken.  I hope we have such an engaging project again one day!