As we took another look at our family's shifting (can you say upside down?) demographics we have made the startling discovery about those coming to the reunion. There will be:
53 adults
16 teens
9 ages 8-11
17 ages 4-7
19 ages 18m - 3
14 under 18 mos
Yes, that's...
...59 children age 11 and under
...43 children of Primary age and
...33 children in diapers!!
We're not worried about having enough food, but will there be enough room in the dumpster for all the diapers?! :)
It means we're going to need everyone's help in assisting young parents, keeping an eye on little ones so they don't wander off and taking a turn with the children's classes on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons.
You'll remember in an earlier posting that we assigned different family members to serve as "coordinators" for three different children's classes:
- 18m-3 years of age (19 total)
- 4-7 years of age (17 total)
- 8-11 years of age (9 total)
The important thing is that we need to give some direction to the "coordinators" who are already assigned.
As coordinators of children's classes we ask that you come prepared with ideas and/or materials on how you're going to keep your children's group occupied and having fun. We will assign other adults to help you, but you are responsible to plan what your group will do during your assigned 45-minute period.
Some ideas of what you can do might include:
- Story time
- Singing
- Outdoor games (lots of lawn area)
- Coloring or crafts
- etc.
[EDITOR'S UPDATE: We're already starting to get some great comments from young mothers. Please visit the Comments section of this blog entry. Thank you, Moms, keep'em coming and please help your husbands come prepared!]
And please watch for more assignments on tomorrow's blog posting.
6 comments:
Ideas for kids groups:
* Bubbles! All nursery kids love to try and catch them and Corrine's age group (3) loves to blow them- a homemade mix and wire they can shape into blowers would keep them plenty entertained
* Homemade Watercolor Paint is a big hit also- it makes GREAT vibrant colors and is totally washable. Mix together: 1 teaspoon water, 1 teaspoon dishwashing liquid, 1/2 teaspoon food coloring. This would be lots of fun on large pieces of cardboard, butcher paper, even small papers.
* A nature hike finding various leaves & shapes in nature/ do leaf rubbings with some of what you find
* Water balloon volleyball would be fun for older kids on a hot day
* make & decorate prince/princess crowns from cardstock/cardboard or pirate hats out of newspaper
* Anyone have a parchute? Parachute games were some of my favorite in elementary school!
* Favorite kid songs: the wheels on the bus, old macdonald, the farmer and the dell, twinkle twinkle little star, head shoulders knees and toes, once there was a snowman, the wise man & the foolish man, itsy bitsy spider, popcorn popping on the apricot tree- basically anything with actions is a hit
* play dough is always very fun- I think I even have a recipe for peanut butter play dough so that they can eat it too
* What about letting them help make their own snack- ants on a log would be fun & easy and you could have something like fish crackers along with raisins to let them add to the celery for the younger kids. Maybe the older kids would do ok with s'mores, or even helping to make a dutch oven cobbler or baked/stuffed apples or something they could start in the first class and eat in one of the later hours.
* Potato stamps- let them cut shapes into half potatoes and use paint to make great designs on paper
* Design an obstacle course (or let them help design it) and time them in teams or individuals going through it- change up the course several times- kids love crawling over and under stuff (even if it's chairs or people!)
Just a few ideas. What a new challenge this is!
WOW - Annaliese, you are incredible. But of course, what else did I expect....daughter like mother j/k!
Annaliese, those are some GREAT ideas. Here are a few more I thought of.
I'm going to bring along my puppets to put together a little puppet show. Others are welcome to use them.
Here are a few other ideas I've thought of:
*Bring yarn and fruit loops to make necklaces.
*Read Dr. Suess' "Bartholemew of Oobleck" and have the kids make their own oobleck (slime.) This is a big hit in our house. (You can find good recipes for oobleck on the internet.)
*Make tin foil sculptures of dinosaurs, airplanes, etc. I don't know how accessible the river is (or how fast moving), but the older kids could build tin foil boats and race them down the river.
*Have the kids create their own storybooks and illustrate them.
*You can do a million things with Plaster of Paris. Pour it over shells and you have fossils. Or add water, mix in some toy dinosaurs and shells, let it harden, and the kids can excavate like archeologists.
*There's always the tried-and-true, which don't require lugging along a bunch of stuff: freeze tag, TV tag, Red Rover, Duck, Duck, Goose, Ring Around the Rosie,or even Limbo, if you can find a good stick and some fun music.
Should be fun!
No need to worry about diapers...little Myreel only goes through 20/day so we should be fine :)
Hey Tiffany (and everyone else!),
Looks like we are teaching the 18 mo to 3 year olds together! Puppets sound great. Do you have a puppet show that kids that young would enjoy? The yarn and cereal rings is a great idea....I'll bring stuff for that. I was thinking we could split the 18!!! (gulp!!!) kids up into three groups since there will be three adults there, each of us can supervise 6 of them, and maybe they could rotate between three or four different activities -- puppets, necklace making, ring around the rosiese/singing time/dancing time, and pudding painting. I have supplies for all of those but the puppets. Thanks for bringing those!!
See you soon!
Michelle
Does anyone plan on taking a CD player to the reunion? If so, would it be available for me to use with my class on Tuesday at 3:30? ...Brenley
Post a Comment