Snow Day Fun

You can feel the excitement about the possibility of a snow day tomorrow. The staff here at CCN gathered some fun ideas to make the day tons of fun!

Outdoor Activities:
1. Snow painting – spray bottles and water mixed with food coloring. Create designs on the ground, or color any snow sculptures.
2. Catch snowflakes on colored paper
3. Fox and geese – create a path of many loops in the snow. One person is the fox, and chases the others –geese- to tag them.
4. Make faces on tree trunks with snowballs.
5. Make Snow Cream! Click here for the recipe
6. Bundle up and head outside to sled, make snowmen, snow angels and shovel snow caves. Have hot chocolate and cookies when you come back in!
7. Take a walk and look, listen and feel the snow, then write a story about or journal the experience
8. Go on an icicle hunt

Indoor Activities:
1. Bake cookies, or other goodies… make extras for the neighbors.
2. Make gingerbread houses with graham crackers and icing.
3. Make toothpick & marshmallow houses, villages and people!
4. Read “The Mitten,” by Jan Brett at story time w/ children cuddled under their favorite blanket
5. Make “Snow Dough” (Add silver glitter to home-made play dough) and make snow men inside
6. Make “Snow Paint” (Ivory Snow soap flakes, a little tempera paint, and enough water to make the consistency you want) and paint on dark paper
7. Fill the water table with snow
8. Make home-made warm cocoa

Family Fun also has some great ideas:
Snow Day Party and
Snow Games

We hope you stay safe and enjoy the snow!

Thank You, Lenawee's CHILD!

Our CCN Lenawee County office has a kid-friendly lobby! Lenawee’s CHILD has graciously filled a corner of the MSU Extension Office with books, puzzles, manipulatives, toys, a giant peg board, and more! It’s a perfect way for our CCN clients to spend time with their kids while Brooke works on their referral. And a great place for Brooke to take a break! :o) Thank you to Lenawee’s CHILD for making it happen!

Washtenaw County AEYC Training

Washtenaw County Association for the Education of Young Children and Learning from the Heart Presents “Smart Moves: An Introduction to Brain Gym®”

Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 6:00 to 7:45 p.m.

Adventure Center, 2111 Golfside Road (near St. Joe’s hospital), Ypsilanti, MI

This class is a fun, informative introduction to movement-based learning. You will learn movements that you can use in the very next day to help you (and your children) feel calmer and make teaching (and learning) more effortless.

Brain Gym® is a program of easy physical movements that synchronize body and mind to optimize how we learn and perform in all areas of our lives. The movements are easy to do and enjoyable for adults, children, and seniors, and they bring about rapid and lasting changes in fundamental abilities, including: focus, organization, comprehension, physical coordination, social and communication skills, memory, attentiveness, and more.

Brain Gym began as a breakthrough for overcoming learning disabilities, but soon expanded into a program for drawing out potential at every level of skill and achievement.

The instructor, Katy Held, is a licensed Brain Gym® consultant/instructor. She took her first Brain Gym course in 2001 to help her son, who has a disability. She soon realized that this was what she wanted to do when she grew up – teach Brain Gym! Since then, she has taken over 700 hours of training in Brain Gym and Educational Kinesiology. She became licensed to teach Brain Gym in October 2004, and loves to share this great work with kids of all ages.

Web Site: http://www.braingym.org
Brain Gym® is a registered trademark of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation, Ventura, CA.

Brain Gym® will be from 6:45-7:45 p.m. & a Make-it/Take-it project will be from 6:15- 7:45 p.m.

PLEASE REGISTER TO ATTEND THIS EVENT AT: mariambreed@sbcglobal.net
FREE for WCAEYC members, $10.00 for non-members

Abusive Head Trauma, Safe Sleep & Blood Borne Pathogens Training

Update! We've added the Blood Borne Pathogens training to the Abusive Head Trauma & Beyond Back to Sleep training on November 24th!

When: November 24th, 2008 from 6:30-9:00 p.m.
Where: Human Services Bldg. in Lenawee located at 1040 South Winter St. in Adrian.
Registration Fee: $25.00 per person

Call Candy at 800-777-2861 to register!


Make Some Pumpkin Pudding today!
What you'll need:
1 cup vanilla pudding per child
2 tsp. Libby's easy pumpkin pie mix per child
A bowl & spoon

The process:
Allow the children to measure and place one cup of vanilla pudding in their individual bowls. Next, measure out 2 tsp. pie mix with each child. Allow the children to mix the vanilla pudding and the pie mix together for a delicious treat!

Some questions to ask and discuss while working together:
What do you think will happen when we mix these two ingredients together?
Where do you think the pumpkin pie mix came from?

ECDA & WCAEYC Joint Luncheon

The Early Childhood Directors Association and the Washtenaw County Association for the Education of Young Children invite you to attend....

Zing! Train presented by Joanie Mallory, Zingerman's

When: October 22, 2008 11:15 a.m.- 3:00 p.m.

Where: Washtenaw Country Club
2955 Packard Rd. Ypsilanti, MI 48197
*note the new location

Cost: $25.00

For more information, email me to have a flyer emailed to you or call Kathy or Shannon at 734-475-3922

Have a great day!

Briarwood Mall Evening of Giving

The Briarwood Mall is hosting an evening of giving on Sunday, Nov. 23. Child Care Network is a participating non-profit.

Shoppers purchase a $10 ticket for an evening of fun, giveaways and special shopping deals from 6:30 to 10 pm
For each ticket sold by CCN, we receive $7 and $3 goes to the Simon Youth Foundation.

We hope you will help support CCN and purchase tickets for you and your friends to get in a little holiday shopping! For a list of store offers email me !

Tickets can be purchased through the CCN main office. Cash, check or credit card accepted.

Thank you!

Question Answered!

We received a comment from someone who had a question, unfortunately the comment was anonymous so I wasn't able to respond directly. However, it was a great question so we thought we'd answer it here.

Q. Do you have any information about training for after care staff in a childcare center? Someplace to learn songs and games for preschoolers?

A. When our trainers are developing training curriculum, they aim to make them applicable to all age groups and child care professionals.

We do offer trainings specific to age groups, such as the Infant/Toddler training and the School Age Activities training that was done in the past months.

Child Care Network also has a great lending library that we’ve recently stocked full of great new books for child care professionals. The library will re-open on October 6th, we hope you’ll stop by and visit!

Washtenaw County ECDA

Washtenaw Couty Early Childhood Directors Association presents

Karen Morrison

Topic: Physical Environments

September 24, 2008

***NOTE LOCATION CHANGE***
Washtenaw Country Club
2955 Packard Rd.
Ypsilanti, MI

11:15–12:00 Social/Lunch
12:00–12:15 Announcements
12:15–2:00 Speaker

All lunch choices will be $12.00
(Price includes drink and gratuity)

Membership Payment Accepted at Meetings

Please pay by personal check made out to ECDA

Questions? Contact Genevieve Thompson 734.944.1709

***Watch for your October Joint Luncheon Registration***

Creative Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers

Kaplan is bringing the Creative Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers training to Ann Arbor!
The training is taking place on October 27th & 28th, click here to find out all the details.

The CCN Fall Training Schedule

Available on the CCN Website now.

See you in class!

Free Parent/Child Activities

Are you looking for great resources and information to share with your parents?
Check out these free resources from Washington Learning Systems. They are available in English and Spanish.

Have a great day!

SAVE THE DATE! BBC 2009

April 18, 2009

The Annual Building on Behalf of Children conference has been scheduled complete with a new format!

More information coming soon.

Flexible Workplace…Yes You Can!

Are you a Program Administrator? A great learning opportunity is available…

Flexible Workplace…Yes You Can!

Do you think it’s impossible to offer a flexible workplace because you are a child care program? Not true! Come and hear how 3 child care centers have implemented successful flex options for their employees.

August 21st from 1-2:30 p.m.
Child Care Network
2385 S. Huron Pkwy. Suite 1N
Ann Arbor, MI 48108

Please RSVP to Kathleen Burchi at 734-975-1840 or Email her!

**Training Opportunity**

Abusive Head Trauma & Beyond Back to Sleep Training
When: August 20, 2008 from 11:30 am- 1:00 pm
Where: Child Care Network
2385 South Huron Parkway Suite 1N
Ann Arbor, MI. 48104
Cost: $10.00
Registration: You must pre-register. To pay with Visa or MasterCard, call Candy at 734-975-1840 or visit our website to print and mail the form with check or moneyorder.

Have a wonderful day!

Candy

Welcome to our Blog!

I am so excited to announce that we are blogging! We hope to use this blog as a tool to keep you up-to-date on the latest training opportunities as well as other things happening at CCN.

We hope you will bookmark this blog and visit often.

Candy
Professional Development Support