The Snowball Effect

First, a bit of history…

I have four large outdoor lounger cushions. I bought them many years ago at an end-of-season clearance sale – the discounted price meant I got all four of them for less than the cost of just one toddler cot so I couldn’t resist. I briefly used them for napping children – they are thicker, wider and longer than other nap mats. They are very comfortable but also very heavy and cumbersome to set up and put away for daily naptime and take up a lot of space so I ended up getting more cots for naps indoors.

The fabric on the lounger cushions is intended for outdoor use so that is where we used them most – for napping or relaxing in tents or on the deck etc. When not in use they were stored in bags in the big shed. During the Vacation 2019 renovation, ‘Frankenshed’ was disassembled and the new toy storage shed was too small to store the large cushions so they were brought back inside and again stored with the other cots and bedding.

The small room off the main playroom is used for napping infants and storage of cots, bedding, books, and bulky items I don’t want to haul down to the basement storage area. This area is still sometimes referred to as the ‘Nature Area’ because I left the trees in there from when this used to be a play area – written about in the Nature Area and the Quiet Space posts.

Now, this is when the snowball began to form…

I recently wanted to use the big cushions for a toddler activity, but found it was very inconvenient to get them off the shelves behind the tree branches. I decided that on the upcoming long weekend I should move the trees into the main playroom. Afterall, though it did look nice having the tree branches forming a canopy over the cribs, it would be wonderful if the trees were in the playroom where everyone could enjoy them.

So, I started looking for the best place to mount the trees in the playroom…and decided that I would first need to move the toy food counter…which then meant I would need to change the block storage area. *sigh* The list of necessary changes continued to grow and after thirty plus hours of demo, rearranging, building and organizing the playroom has been mostly ‘prepped’ for the arrival of the trees but, even with a three-day weekend, there wasn’t enough time to actually move the trees.

I am pleased with the new arrangement – so far – and the children seemed to like it too. All of the children in the current group have only ever seen the trees as decorations in the nap area – never as part of the play space. They are familiar with having other things in the play environment change but probably don’t realize these trees can be relocated. I am certain they will be excited when I manage to complete the project – and with the cushion activity too whenever I get around to that.

There are still a few more little tasks to complete before the trees get moved but hopefully that will be done this weekend. The snowball forming now it the growing list of paperwork that I should be doing 🙂

Summer Recap

Every year, I take my summer vacation at the beginning of July so I can complete some big projects to prepare for all our summer activities. I don’t like to travel so going places is never on my vacation agenda. Relaxing is something I find difficult – maybe even stressful – I like to be busy. There are some types of ‘busy’ that I enjoy more than others and my summer projects are high up on my list.

Spring 2022 was so late, so wet, so…. depressing that it was really hard to get excited about summer projects. In fact, it was mid-June already when my husband asked, “What are your summer projects this year?” and I realized that I hadn’t even started making my list. Of course, there were things I wanted to do but nothing that I considered a BIG summer project – just a bunch of little things that I would normally plan as weekend projects.

The most obvious project to put on the summer list was the climbing wall – which I had purchased the supplies for last fall and planned to build as soon as the snow melted and have ready for when the school-age children were here for Spring Break – but it was still ‘winter’ when school was out for spring break. The climbing wall was probably the most noticeable vacation project and very popular with the children all summer.

The second most noticeable project was the roof over the corner house – and I don’t even have a picture of it. Creating the corner house to replace the tipi was one of my 2021 vacation projects that I didn’t have time to complete the way I initially envisioned. I had simply made a temporary lean-to type of roof last year. This year I designed and built a better roof and moved all the bus benches into the corner house. It was a very popular sit spot all summer – I can’t fathom why I didn’t manage to get a picture of it. *sigh*

I also didn’t any pictures of the new layout of stumps, logs, and steppingstones in the mulch area or the enlarged ‘river’ area. I spent three whole days rearranging the pathways to align with the bridges and entrances to the building and digging areas. It was a very labour intensive project but not something particularly noticeable if you hadn’t spent a lot of time in the yard.

The children and I found the new pathways to be much more functional – as did this little visitor to my yard – caught on my surveillance camera, he/she followed the new curvy path perfectly all the way from the back gate to the side yard. LOL

I expanded the ‘river’ area to make space for a new dedicated area for water play. I added a hand pump so the children could get water for creating concoctions. There was a delay in getting this area ready for use. The hand pump I originally chose did not function properly and was eventually replaced with this bilge pump.

The trick here though is that getting water requires some communication as the pump is not near the spouts…

This area is still a work in progress – we hope to add more pipes, hoses and storage for other concoction making supplies. Of course, we are still collecting supplies too! It was a very popular play area this summer.

I also added a new painting panel. We’ve had several built-in plexiglass panels in the past and I have found that they get damaged in the winter. The framework I built for hanging this one is permanent but the panel itself is removable, so the space is still multipurpose, and the panel can be safely stored when not in use.

I love plexiglass for painting on – even better when you can access both sides – and with the garden as a backdrop the artwork is enhanced.

Well, that didn’t seem like a lot of dramatic changes to our learning environment. Certainly not any major transformations. Still, there were enough little projects to keep me busy on my ‘vacation’ and some new spaces for the children to explore this summer. In my next post I will highlight a few of our summer activities.

Changing

I’ve been neglecting my website – haven’t written a blog post in almost three months!

This pandemic has brought many changes. For me personally most of these changes have had very little negative impact. I don’t like crowds, concerts, festivals, sports, traveling etc so these limits/closures haven’t bothered me but I understand many people have been greatly impacted.

Line-ups for the grocery store and empty shelves were a bit of an annoyance but nothing I couldn’t adapt to. I’ve always been a borderline hoarder – I have three freezers and two pantries to store all the stuff I stock up on when things are on sale. Still, there were a few items that even I ran out of and had difficulty finding and the increased costs have been rough on my budget.

Luckily my hoarding tendencies apply to my bank account as well – I’ve been called a miser – so my lowered income level wasn’t a disaster. I could still feed my family and pay my bills. Yet honestly, when CERB was announced I did fantasize about what I could do with even a one month paid vacation. I haven’t had a paid vacation in….my entire life! It was just a fantasy though as I didn’t qualify for CERB.

I did have two months of low attendance – which means lower income for the same 11 hour work day. Same number of meals and activities to plan, same amount of supervision, just slightly less busy throughout the day – and that for me is a negative. I would have much preferred either the, sometimes hectic, excitement of having everyone here or having no children here and uninterrupted time to tackle some other projects.

However, knowing that I would have low attendance for an extended period of time did allow me to make some changes. I was able to close some play spaces temporarily – I still had to wait until the children were gone before I could do any of the rearranging, demolition, or construction but I didn’t have to finish the project before they returned. Even with some ‘off limits’ areas there was still enough play space available for the number of children attending.

Work on the loft was the big project I had originally planned to tackle on my summer vacation but instead I was able to break the project down into smaller phases which I could then complete over several weekends in April and May. The finished play space looks like this;

Open gate between main play room and art/dining area with new table (previous post) and reorganized shelves.

Rearranged housekeeping/store area under new loft.

Entrance to housekeeping/store area, side view of loft stairs, animal/nature shelves.

View inside housekeeping/store area and stairs to the loft.

Looking North in the new loft – two separate areas, one for block play, one for doll house

South view from loft block area into doll house area.

Wide view of West side of playroom including entire loft and entrance to quiet/relaxation space.

I’ve had all eight children here full days for the past three months – the longest I’ve ever had all my school-age spaces full. I decided not to close for a summer vacation this year because the need for summer care was so high and I had already finished my summer projects. It has been an amazing summer – we’ve really enjoyed the new spaces during the limited time we’ve used them.

Really, 6:30 – 8:30 AM is our longest indoor play period. Otherwise the majority of our day has been spent outside. In fact, the reason I haven’t been writing is mostly due to long periods outside, away from my computer – trying not to obsess about what the government has done to childcare in Manitoba.

Spending plenty of time outside is nothing new for us – if the pandemic had restricted our outdoor time we would definitely have struggled – even with our new indoor play spaces. September will bring more changes. The school-age children will be leaving again – we will miss having them here all day. We hope they will still get to spend plenty of time outside – even in the winter. We may not be outside all day in the winter but we will still be outside several hours every day – and loving it.

Change isn’t always easy – sometimes it seems like an insurmountable challenge. We’ve faced it before and we’ll do it again. The unknown factors may be scary but we’ll figure it out.

Indoor Space

My list of summer renovation projects was two pages long – more than 3/4 of the items have already been completed 🙂 Revamping the outdoor space (see previous post) was the largest project.  Many of the indoor projects just involved sorting and reorganizing stuff but that takes time.

Of course there were some storage units that had to be re-built to fit in different locations but no ‘new’ pieces were necessary.  In fact, a horizontal storage unit became a vertical unit and the items in two other units were consolidated into one so we actually gained a fair amount of extra floor space – bonus!

Much of the work was done to areas that are off-limits to the children so they are completely unaware of the  changes but I am certainly pleased with the results.  When you’ve only got 1200 sq ft to work with and you want to make it usable for a dozen people every little bit helps.

I felt there were several issues with the arrangement of the playroom and I definitely wanted to address at least some of them.  First, this was the old storage space for the workshop tools and musical instruments;

The problem I had here is that the floor space allocated for constructive play and music activities was just 6o square feet. When most of the toys are stored on one shelf unit on the longest wall the play space becomes a very narrow rectangle.  I wanted to make two smaller storage spaces – one at each end of the long, narrow space which would result in a more usable almost square play space. So, the above corner now looks like this;

Just the tools, puzzles and stuffed animals are stored here now.  The musical instruments are stored separately on the other end of the play space;

There used to be a basket of old phones, remotes, and walkie talkies in the space under the cash register.  The children often dumped everything out of the basket when looking for a specific item but no one liked to pick up all the leftovers.  Now the items are stored like this instead;

This is my new view of the playroom from my desk if I was ever inclined to sit down to do any paperwork;

And this is as close as I can get to showing the entire playroom in one photo;

Housekeeping, dress-up, library and quiet corner on the left, entrance to nature area on far wall, blocks, tools and music on right side.

I’m not particularly fond of the way all the housekeeping toys are currently stored – some items are too high for the children to easily reach. I can’t complain if children climb when I’m the one who put things they are allowed to play with on a shelf that is too high.  Reorganizing that storage space is one of the not-yet-completed items on my list.  I am still not certain how to address all the issues there so until I’ve devised an acceptable plan it will have to stay as is.  Sigh.

Winter Yard

Last summer I rearranged the stumps in the yard to create a path to and over the rocks on the little hill/tunnel.

At that time I wasn’t thinking about winter but now that the snow is here we have been creating a BIG hill in the yard by piling all the snow inside the stump circle.

This picture was taken before the recent snowfall.  Yesterday we spent nearly two hours adding more snow to the pile so now the hill is much bigger 🙂 Watching the children play on this hill makes me dream of permanently filling that stump circle so we have a big hill in the summer too – but I would miss the inner stump circle and the tunnel too.

With all the snow piled up one side of the tunnel is now blocked so the ‘tunnel’ is actually a ‘cave’.

This cave is now a favourite – not so secret – hiding spot.

Found you!

Another favourite space is inside the tipi.  In summer it is nice to be able to see through the tipi and into the lane beyond the fence.

In the winter I pile snow behind the tipi and it becomes a wonderful place to sit when you want shelter from the wind.

We love our winter yard.

Play Room

It was back in July that I wrote about removing the loft from our play space.  At that time it looked like this;

I liked the way the block bin looked when it was placed diagonally across the room but it did not function well.  There was limited room in the block area and the angles were causing issues with my plans for replacing the old rubber floor tiles.

So, a few weeks ago I moved the block bin back towards the cozy couch.  This move makes the reading nook into a smaller, quieter area that is less prone to active play and heavy traffic flow.  It also provided a much larger space for block building adjacent to the workshop/music area.

Love the new flooring now too.

I added an another shelf between the back of the block bin and the dress-up clothes rack.  This adds stability, provides extra counter space for the housekeeping area and creates a ‘tunnel’ so the children crawl through to the cozy bench instead of running and jumping 😉

The larger, combined block/workshop/music space has also allowed me to incorporate the new-to-us/second hand ‘science table’ that was donated to our program – thanks Jamie!

I certainly had no intention of restricting the use of the table to only science activities.  With all the tools in the workshop area beside the table I thought it might make a good workbench. So far the children’s favourite use for the table is another tunnel – they much prefer to crawl under the table to get to the nature area instead of walking (running) around the table.  They also like to use the spaces in the table as tunnels for the toys;

Maybe it is the new room arrangement but dropping – and catching – objects through the pipes has been gaining popularity again too.

We’re loving all the new activity with the old stuff.

By Design

Many, many years ago I had a large plastic kitchen in the housekeeping area;

My biggest issues with this kitchen were that it was bulky, a horrid colour and it was unstable. It was so easily pushed/pulled over by small children leaning on it or trying to open the doors that I always had to have it strapped to a nearby wall or heavy object.  The thing that amused me was that the children often used the microwave as a washer – stuffing dress-up clothes inside the teeny tiny space to clean them.

In 2009 I replaced the plastic kitchen unit with wooden appliances built into the housekeeping area.

Along with the fridge and stove I also included a stacking washer/dryer and the dress-up clothes were conveniently located nearby;

I had designed this washer/dryer unit because the children had previously shown interest in doing laundry during their dramatic play activities.  They did use the new washer occasionally to wash clothes but the dryer was rarely used to dry clothing unless I suggested it.  Maybe it was because the children were not familiar with seeing a dryer stacked on top of a washer but from the day it was first introduced the children used this ‘dryer’ as a microwave oven.

When the playroom was rearranged a couple years later I created a separate dress-up area and moved the washer/dryer away from the kitchen area and placed it in the new space.  The children diligently continued to bring their food from the kitchen all the way to the ‘microwave’ in the far corner of the play room.

During my most recent playroom renovation I was unable to find a good location to put the washer/dryer unit.  I wasn’t concerned about eliminating it since the children rarely used it.  However, I did disassemble it and reuse some of its pieces.  The ‘dryer’ door was added to a shelf in the housekeeping area to create a new ‘microwave’.

The children were thrilled.  For weeks now they have been using this new ‘microwave’.  Occasionally they cook food in it but mostly they think it makes a great garage for parking the cars which they bring here from way over from the far side of the room.

Maybe I should design a garage – I’m curious to see what that could become 🙂

Loftless

Only one more day before my ‘vacation’ begins and of course I have some big projects planned.  I am usually very busy during my vacation and often go for several days without turning my computer on even to check email therefore it is highly unlikely that I will be writing any blog posts. So, before I get too busy to write I wanted to briefly tell you about a ‘little’ project that has been keeping me busy for the last few weekends.

You may remember back in December I wrote about the various lofts we have had in our play space over the past ten years.  In that post I explained that we were no longer using the loft as part of our play space but would instead use that space for additional storage.

Admittedly it was a very convenient spot to store cots, bedding, books, toys, and other bulky items.  In fact, it may have been too convenient to store things in the loft.  As more and more things got tossed into the loft it was becoming apparent that getting anything out of the loft was going to be a major ordeal.  So, although it was not on my list of ‘fun weekend projects’ I resigned myself to the task of cleaning out and reorganizing the loft storage space.

Then there was another interesting development.  My oldest still-living-at-home son decided to move into his own apartment and took a bunch of his stuff leaving empty space.  So, I reorganized the basement toy storage area along with the loft storage area and when I was done there was nothing left to store in the loft!

An empty loft doesn’t really use up any floor space but it is an awfully big item in a small room and if it is not needed why not take it down.  Now, taking it down is not a simple project when there are other items in the room that are attached to the loft.  Once I had decided that the loft was going my first step was to make a plan for how to rearrange the items that were going to be remaining.  Things like the block bin which was constructed between the upright supports for the loft – it was going to have to be rebuilt as a freestanding unit.

It was a somewhat slow process that was done in small phases over several weekends.  The playroom went from this ‘using the loft for storage’ space;

to this temporary arrangement with an almost empty, partially dismantled loft;

And it is now a completely loft free zone;

Here is another view of the new loftless space;

There is still a lot of finish work yet to be done and I have to decide what to do about the flooring – that was going to be a separate blog post but this renovation forced me to remove the old mats earlier than planned and I still don’t know what I’m going to replace them with.  For now we’ll just have to make due with what we have because I have bigger things planned for my vacation. 🙂

The Window

When I first opened my childcare home I had used the dining room of my home as the main play space.  In 2009 I rearranged the spaces so the living room became the new and improved play space.  This renovation gave the children access to the North-facing front window of my home and a whole new world of things to observe. Watching neighbourhood events like cutting down the old tree became a favourite activity.

The play space by the window is our indoor ‘nature’ area – here you can read more about the evolution of our nature space.  Due to the placement of the shelves containing our mini nature scenes some of the toddlers were not tall enough to see out the window so I had created a wooden stool which looked like a stone bridge over the imitation river;

Over the past few months the bridge has caused some issues.  The toddlers who are tall enough to see out the window still like to stand on the bridge.  Those who are too short to see out become upset – there has been a lot of pushing and jostling for the premium spot.  The bridge can accommodate three cooperative toddlers but not all toddlers are cooperative and I have more than three.

As much as I like the design of the bridge I’ve been working on a plan to eliminate the need to use it to see out the window.  Two weeks ago I completed another small renovation so the shelves are no longer blocking the lower portion of the window.  The North wall now looks like this;

The shelves have been moved to the East and West walls;

Access to the full six foot window ledge is now level.  Most of the toddlers are thrilled.  Some are still adapting to the loss of their ‘power position’.

The Loft Evolution

It was back in 2005 that the first lofts were added to our play space. These lofts were only one foot off the ground so that we could store toy bins under them and still have useable play space. The ‘puppet loft’ provided storage for blocks as well as a stage for puppet shows;

Inside there was also a cozy bench to sit and read or relax;

On the other side of the room was the original nature loft which provided a nature-themed play area with storage for dress-up clothes below;

At the end of 2008 when we relocated the playroom to the front half of the house the old lofts were disassembled. The new play space only had one loft – a larger nature loft with two levels play space. It was slightly higher than the original lofts but still low enough that all children enrolled at that time could use both upper and lower play spaces. I wrote about it and our other nature spaces here;

It was only a year later that the nature loft was replaced by library loft. This fourth loft was nearly four feet off the ground and the entrance was gated to prevent toddlers from climbing/falling on the stairs. This loft was intended as a quiet space for the older children to go read or relax – it was not a ‘play’ space.

The space below this loft was used as the block area. The floor of the loft created a lower ceiling in the block area which limited traffic through the construction zone. Both the block area below and the quiet area above were popular play spaces for many years.

In fact, these areas were so popular that last year we moved the staircase and expanded the loft. The expansion made both the block area and the library loft larger and more comfortable for several children to use at the same time. We loved it. You can read more about that renovation here.

However, over the last six months, although the block area continued to be a popular play area, the library loft was rarely used. At first I assumed this was because it was summer and we were spending most of our time outdoors. However, in the fall when the older children returned to school the library loft received even less use – sometimes no children ventured up there for a week or more!

Most of the children in my preschool group are too young to traverse the stairs or read independently. For story times I always brought books down to read to the group. I started to feel the loft was wasted space – so of course that got me thinking about renovating again. Was there a better use for this upper loft space? Was there a way to make the library more interesting/accessible? I started making a list of all the things in our space that caused me angst.

1. the loft stairs block part of the entrance to the nature area and create traffic flow issues
2. to enter the block area you have to go through the kitchen play space which is always crowded with people and toys – more traffic issues.
3. the block bin is too deep – some toddlers have trouble reaching all the blocks without climbing in the bin (discouraged – safety concern)
4. the block bin crowds the music/dance space – all the children LOVE to sing and dance – a larger music area would be appreciated
5. there is no good place to put the new cash register – I bought it months ago but haven’t put it out for play.
6. We need a divider on the back of the kitchen area counter – the children get frustrated when their toys keep falling behind the counter.
7. My filing cabinet is in the storage side of the nature area – two rooms away from my desk – my excuse to NEVER do paperwork – also means there a huge ‘to be filed’ pile on my desk.
8. the cribs are usable for napping infants when children are playing in the play room but not when other children are eating lunch or doing crafts/table activities
9. non nappers can use nature area at nap time but have few toys available and must navigate around cots to enter/leave play area – disturbs napping children
10. reading and crafts are perfect quiet time activities but library and indoor craft areas are not currently useable at nap time – lighting is an issue in both areas due to children napping nearby.
11. We don’t have a good indoor space for group sensory bin/messy activities.

If I was going to renovate to make better use of the loft space then I wanted to address as many of these issues as possible at the same time. I briefly entertained the idea of using the loft as a nap area – both the compact cribs would fit up there with space between. After more thought I decided that the biggest issue was the loft stairs – they took up so much valuable space. So…two weeks ago I removed them and changed a few other things too.

Now;

• the cribs are in the nature area
• the music area is larger
• the kitchen area is self contained with no ‘thru traffic’
• there is a ‘store’ area
• the library is portable
• both library and craft areas are useable during nap time
• there are many more quiet time toys available
  and….
• the loft is used for storage.

Since I am the only one who needs to go into the loft there is no need for a bulky stair case – I just use my step stool. Yes, this is the first time in nearly 10 years that we haven’t had a lofted play space but so far there haven’t been any complaints. Besides, you never know for sure, there might be another loft in our future….