Kid Friendly Meals

I'm opening my home daycare next week and I've been working on the menus! I enrolled in the CACFP food program, and have been trying to come up with a list of kid friendly meals to serve. I'll start with a list of what I came up with, add pictures as I make the meals, and also add other ideas later on. What are some of your favorite meals to serve?

BREAKFASTS
1. Cereals with fresh fruit
- Wheaties
- Multi Grain Cheerios
- Raisin Bran
- Mini Wheats
- Life Cereal
- Cheerios
- Puffin cereal
- Kix
- Corn Chex

2. French toast with fruit cocktail, milk
3. English muffin with a banana, milk
4. Pancakes with orange slices, milk
5. Oatmeal with raisins, milk
6. Bagel with honeydew melon, milk
7. French toast sticks with applesauce, milk
8. Toast with blueberries, milk
9. Biscuits with canteloupe, milk
10. Waffles with raspberries, milk
11. Whole grain muffin with mango, milk
12. Mini pancakes with watermelon, milk


LUNCH
1. Grilled cheese, tomato soup, grapes, milk
2. Chicken tetrazzini, peas, peaches, milk
3. Sweet and sour meatballs, green beans, pineapple, rice, milk
4. Beef tacos, corn, fruit cocktail, milk
5. Sloppy joe sandwich, sweet potato fried, mixed fruit , milk
6. Mac n cheese, salad, fruit cocktail, milk
7. Chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, sliced peaches, milk
8. Turkey and cheese sandwich with spinach, grapes, milk
9. English muffin pizza, corn, oranges, milk
10. Chicken and cheese quesadilla, mixed veggies, apple slices, milk
11. Bosco sticks, broccoli, oranges, milk
12. Chicken salad sandwich, salad, grapes, milk
13. Chicken alfredo, cauliflower, banana, milk
14. Turkey chili with veggies, cucumber slices, roll, milk
15. Salami sandwich, carrots, strawberries, milk
16. Pasta salad with ham, peas, fruit cocktail, milk
17. Chicken Parmesan, green beans, banana, roll, milk
18. Turkey spaghetti, green beans, grapes, milk
19. Fish sticks, mixed veggies, apple slices, bread slice, milk
20. Ravioli, string cheese, corn, strawberries, milk

SNACKS
1. Crackers, applesauce
2. Greek yogurt, granola
3. Carrots with ranch, milk
4. Celery with peanut butter
5. Ritz crackers, milk
6. Tomatoes, crackers
7. Broccoli and ranch, milk
8. Rice cake with cheese cubes
9. Club crackers, milk
10. Sliced peppers, hummus
11. Pita bread, applesauce
12. Animal crackers, milk
13. Carrot sticks, hummus
14. Soft pretzel with cheese dip, milk
15. Cottage cheese and peaches
16. Apple slices, cheese stick
17. Muffin, milk
18. Graham crackers, peanut butter
19. Cucumber slices, milk
20. Tortilla chips, salsa

Job Chart

This is the job chart I made. I bought the posterboard from Dollar Tree, 2/$1 and used half a sheet. The letters are also from Dollar Tree in the teacher section, although I could have made them on the Silhouette! I found the clipart online after a long search, and added the text. I printed and cut out to fit onto colorful pockets that I bought from the local Lakeshore Learning store, where I also laminated my job chart. Lastly, I used an exacto knife to splice the pockets open, and insert a popsicle stick. I will laminte the kids pictures and hot glue those to the sticks next. TA- DA!

More bulletin board ideas!

This is the 2nd post of my bulletin boards!! You can find the first one by clicking HERE.

Birthday board... one birthday so I had parents write "Happy birthday!" in their language :) Idea from HERE.

Our summer camp promotion board that I made.

Not a bulletin board, but I made a Disney themed door and I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I hand drew and cut out ALL of the little characters. I still need to trace them and make files on my SIL so I cam make these again with a new group of kiddos!! ♥♥♥ PS it was hard matching all my kids to a character, but they are PERFECT.

I've done this before, but this one has tissue paper as a rainbow instead of a paper chain.

A lame birthday board I made lol.

And this is probably the worst birthday board I have ever done!

Not a bulletin board. But I had parents write on balloons for our owners birthday and surprise decorated her door. (And made her cry!)

My birthday board!! Inspiration from the picture below of her door!! Love! Click it to visit her blog!

And the banner is free from HERE. Check them out on Pinterest and Facebook too :) Tons of adorable things!

Transition Classroom

It's been years since I've posted here hah! But I wanted to post pictures of my classrooms that I've set up since then. That is one of my favorite parts about teaching... rearranging and decorating the room :)

This is a nursery and toddler classroom. It is separated by a half wall and functions as two separate rooms.

The blue side is the nursery.

The pink side is for toddlers.

Next up is the transition room. Ages 2 to 3.

It originally was the preschool/ Pre-K room. All those kids in one huge room, very unorganized and chaotic. When I moved in, I only utilized half the room.

The picture above is my pride and joy :) I loved the set up, I loved how my schedule flowed from one part of the day to the next, I love how organized and easy everything was.

Moving in! I had sooooo much work to do.

The pictures will show different things in different places because I like moving things around and switching stuff, a lot. Above you see my block area, and music area. I ended up putting a smaller table in the center to divide it up and allow for better play space. The white bookshelf is some of MY teacher books. The kids and other staff were pretty good about leaving my stuff alone.

Next is my tile area, which is art, sensory, science (not pictured) and meals. I also have the classroom pets there too!

I'm in LOVE with my kitchen area!! I found my kitchen set on Craigslist for only $100!! I added all kinds of "real" food items and dishes and that really set the mood. I also kept different kinds of shopping bags, make up bags, etc. for more real life items. The kids loved this area too. 

My portfolios were kept on a small shelf above the library. The white bins are from ikea!

Here are some other views of the room from various points of our journey.

The back of the classroom that we didn't use. It was mainly used as storage.

Fall Tree Art Projects

Here are some pictures of projects I did at my old center. 

I painted a tree on the window and put the kids names on leaves

BTS apple trees with markers and collage materials

Group project apple tree

Creative art... nature wreaths on paper plates on a tree

More leaf collage work

Gingerbread Men!

One of my favorite December projects is making gingerbread men! I've done it in the past and everybody who came into my room commented on how good it smelled :) This year, the recipe I used didn't turn out so well! I used a basic cinnamon and applesauce recipe, but it turned out too sticky! I had to add some Elmer's glue to the mix to help hold it together some.

It turned out to be a cheap project... all I had to buy was the applesauce (and I have leftovers, yummmm) and I had the cinnamon from the last time I did the project!

First add your applesauce.

Then add in the cinnamon.

Then stir! All the tots took turns stirring... they LOVED helping!

After it was all stirred together, I balled it up then rolled it out flat.

I provided a couple cookie cutters for the tots to choose from...

And they had lots of fun cookie cuttering!

Now this is where my project took a turn for the worse! Oh no! Since the dough wasn't the right consistency, we had to end our project here (for now). My assistant worked some magic and was able to do the decorating part later on, which you can read about HERE.

So whether you make the dough as a sensory play dough activity like I did, or if you want to turn it into decorating gingerbread men like Kayla did, it is still a very good smelling, fun, awesome project to do this time of year!

You can use buttons, bells and so much more! 

Happy decorating!!