Enrichment

Since I am not teaching full-time (or, as I like to say, I am underemployed right now), I have been desparately looking for other ways to bring in money for food, bills, OMG - do we have enough for the mortgage? extras.  Coincidentally a friend was looking for an alternative to the after-school kindergarten program her boys were attending.  Yay - I had a new part-time job!

Being a kindergarten teacher has always been my dream job, so I LOVE that I get to work with these two kindergarten-aged boys three times a week.  And my new BFF (Pinterest) has made finding fun things to do with the boys (not to be confused with MY boys) much easier.

Here are some of the activities I plan to do this week:

Make Rock Candy!

The way the Rock Candy looked on the windowsill
in the Gluestick blog - hope ours looks that good!

I mean, c'mon, how beautiful is that?!!

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Go on a scavenger hunt, inspired by this post at THAT'S SO CUEGLY, who actually listed seventy-five really great things to do with kids.

Now I just have to make my own scavenger hunt paper.  Hmmm....should I just keep it generic, or make one specific to this neighborhood?  Decisions, decisions.

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Fizzy Balloons - I discovered The Kitchen Pantry Scientist's amazing Blog last week, filled with fabulous experiments to do with kids.

The Kitchen Pantry Scientist's kids doing the Fizzy Balloon experiment.

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Paint like Jackson Pollock - I also discovered 52 Brand New last week.  The title refers to the author's goal to try 52 brand new experiences with her kids this year.  VERY inspiring! 

The Pollock-inspired painting the kids on 52 Brand New created.

I am picturing two boys covered from head to toe in paint.  It's one thing when it's my own kids and I can just send them right upstairs for a shower, but I can't really do that with two kids who aren't mine.  Wonder how we could accomplish this without becoming works of arts ourselves.  Maybe if I give both boys long smocks (old t-shirts of DH's)?

I promise to write another post describing how each of these activities went - and hopefully my pictures will look as good as the ones I included in this post!