EarlyON Child and Family Centre

Join Janet as she sings If I had a Windmill.

We don’t all have a pond in our backyards, but we certainly can find the next best thing! Here is a way to invite your children to create their own backyard pond by adding soil, water and various items from nature to a bin for some science/sensory fun! It also allows an opportunity to talk about how nature is changing with the seasons.

Join Darlene as she sings a worm song.

In Junior scientists we took vegetable and fruit scraps, broke the cells and released the pigments, to paint with. People have been using plant pigments for 1000’s of years, pigments help us know when fruit is ripe, and allows the plant to covert the suns energy into useful energy the plant needs to grow!

Our Family Fun activity was creating Sun Catchers using Tissue Paper placed on Mac tac or glued or taped on wax paper or clear lid. They turned out beautifully and we all had fun while doing them. Now let the Sun Shine In.

We are highlighting another one of our new virtual programs-Junior Scientists! For our program this week, we played with toilet paper and water. We discovered that the toilet paper was very absorbent, acting like a sponge to soak up the water. The kids could watch the toilet paper quickly change texture as the water moved through the dry paper. It then became mushy as they pressed and squeezed it watching the water run out. We were also able to create molds with it! We decided to try facial tissue to see if there was a difference. As you can see on the left side of the bin, the tissue did not turn to mush but rather stayed in strips. We have always known not to flush facial tissue down the toilet and this experiment showed us why!

Aurora Public Library Baby Café Thursdays Jan 21, Feb 18, March 18 11:00am 12:00pm Expecting and new parents are invited to attend interactive expert-facilitated virtual workshops. Each month will feature a different guest speaker and topic.... Thurs. Jan. 21: Rebecka Mayne, CPST-I, Safe Travels Car Seat Services Learn how car seats work, how to install them correctly, how to ensure your child is secured properly and ask any questions that you might have. Register at bit.ly/3iUd0EG See more

Rosie knows it’s not always easy to encourage outdoor play in the cold, for some children. Having fun activities to do outside is definitely beneficial. Often the snow on its own is enough, or the promise of a walk. Other times we need to get a bit more creative! How about an ‘ice sculpture’ scavenger hunt. Together you and your child can make molds of ice - playdough molds are good, or small containers or simply ice cubes. Colour the ice to make it easier to find and place outdoors to freeze. Once frozen, you can hide them around your outdoor space and next time your children go out, they can go on an ice sculpture scavenger hunt.

Another fun activity we did during our outdoor program. Frozen Treasures... Being outdoors on a beautiful day always provides an opportunity to view interesting plant life during the winter. We brought along little baggies to collect our natural material and placed them in a muffin tin along with twine, string and pipe cleaners to make a loop for hanging. We put them outdoors to freeze and popped them out to display. You could just as easily keep them in the baggie with string, freeze and cut the baggie away once frozen. You could also place in containers of various shapes and sizes to produce different results and effects.

Here are some snowman rhymes compiled by Darlene.

Fun times at our outdoor programs. Last week the families built snowmen and this week was a painting activity. For the painting activity at the park we spray painted the snow using a spray bottles filled with coloured liquids. You can use watered-down biodegradable children’s paint, food colouring or even put dried out markers in water to soak overnight. You can also reserve cooking liquids such as beets, carrots or broccoli and use them too!

Saturday’s Story Stretchers provided lots of activities around the book The Mitten by Jan Brett. We made a little animal cave with various materials (cotton balls, twigs, leaves, pine cones and big animal cave using a blanket and table where we could sleep with our animals. We created animal prints using several paint colours as well as a mixture of flour and water to make puffy prints with our various animals. Still space to register to attend this program. Email: [email protected].

Eligible families will receive a one-time payment of $200, or $250 per child with special learning needs to help with education expenses. Applications for students age 13 to grade 12 are now open to Feb. 8, 2021. Ontario.ca/SupportForLearners.

Keeping with the nutrition theme, Barb found a great resource on the York a region website. https://www.york.ca//a88062ac-04/Stress+and+Nutrition.PDF

Registration for January & February 2021 will begin Monday December 14th @ 9 am.

Heading out shopping, and have to take the children? Janet found some great ideas to add math activities to make it more fun and interactive. https://www.zerotothree.org//2225-got-math-20-tips-for-mak

Sarah & Marcus’ cafe. At our house, Marcus found some old cards (giftcards, point cards). He also found a little wallet. He decided that he wanted to pay for dinner with his new credit cards. But how could he pay for dinner? ... How would he know what the food cost? How would he know what food was available!? He decided we needed a menu! We put the items on, made pictures, labeled it and gave everything a price. After he ordered his dinner, we added up the money and he used his credit card to pay for his meal. The best part? Every meal came with a free glass of milk! What a deal See more

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Stephanie has heard parents asking for more information on infant sleep suggestions, so she found this Canadian resource. More info can also be found of The Region of York website under parenting resources. https://www.healthyparentshealthychildren.ca//safe-sleep-/

14 Things Children Need More of...

This is also from Barb- This goes along with the science of snowflakes. How to make a paper snowflake.

Barb & Snowflakes... Snowflakes are formed when a water vapour molecule covers a speck of dust in the clouds, then freezes. The water molecule changes its physical state, from a vapour to a solid and an ice crystal is formed. This single ice crystal attaches to other ice crystals in the clouds and forms snowflakes! Have a look! They all have 6 sides, but none have been found to be alike.

Barb figures when there’s a light dusting of snow, not enough for snowmen, why not play follow the leader? Leave tracks around the sidewalk or yard and follow each other!