A Humbling Easter Week at Little Squirrels!

We’ve had such a fun and festive week here at Little Squirrels getting ready for Easter!

The kitchen got a little seasonal glow-up with some cheerful eggs and sweet Easter basket goodies sprinkled throughout. Just enough to spark some big smiles and imaginative play. Using tongs to transfer eggs into a egg carton, and making pretend Easter baskets. We moved our sensory bin next to the kitchen to add some fun to this! With a grassy Easter paradise, filled with colorful Easter grass and some other fun Easter basket items. The kids dove right in and stayed busy scooping, hiding, and pretending all sorts of springy scenes, and building Easter baskets. Safe to say it was a hit!

Outside, we kept the Easter excitement going with pretend egg hunts. The kids had the best time hiding the eggs for each other and then running around to find them over and over again. It was so sweet watching them take turns and giggle through it all.

Now that the snow is gone, and the days are getting a little bit warmer, we have been working hard to get the backyard at the new house cleaned up and turned into a fun outdoor space for the kids. It was a huge mess once the snow melted, and it’s been a lot of work. We’re still waiting on some pea gravel to be delivered before we can put up any of the taller play structures, but we did get one new playground set up for the littles that Chris put together over the weekend. While it ended up being much smaller than I expected, the kids had fun on it, and it will be perfect for the one-year-olds. I’m especially thankful for the beautiful weather we had this week, we honestly spent most of our time outside! With the climate here, I have a hard time justifying staying indoors for anything when we get a stretch of nice days. This week brought sunshine, no wind, and the warmer weather we’ve all been waiting for… except for that one random day of snow, what was that about?

For some new and exciting Art fun, I tried a “magic” watercolor egg painting project, where I drew designs in white crayon, and the idea was the kids would paint over them to reveal the designs like magic. It didn’t exactly work out the way I imagined (turns out white crayon is a little too sneaky!) but they still had fun painting and experimenting, and that’s what it’s all about!

One of our most memorable (and let’s be honest, chaotic) activities this week was dyeing Easter eggs using a mix of baking soda and food coloring. The idea was for the kids to paint their eggs, then use pipettes to squirt vinegar on top and watch the fizzy reaction. And while the science part was super cool and the eggs turned out absolutely beautiful, the journey to get there was… eventful. I had a one-year-old trying to eat the eggs, shell, paint, and all. One of the three-year-olds decided he wasn’t interested and instead entertained himself by chucking unpainted eggs on the floor breaking them. And to top it all off, another kiddo went to wash the paint off his hands, forgot to turn the water off, and accidentally flooded the bathroom. It was one of those moments where you just have to take it as a sign, this group is young, and we need to scale back a bit on planned activities for now. And that’s totally okay. They’re learning so much through play, movement, and just being little, and that’s exactly how it should be at this age.

This group of kiddos is one of my youngest yet, and that’s been such a fun (and humbling!) reminder to take a step back and really tune into what’s developmentally appropriate right now. After a few weeks of observation, and reflection, it has become abundantly clear that I needed to shift my approach a bit to better meet the needs of these little ones. So this week, I began incorporating some very simple Montessori-inspired activities tailored specifically for toddlers. Think lots of hands-on, practical life tasks and opportunities for independent exploration. We’ll still keep doing our favorite circle time songs and the fun seasonal activities the kids have been loving, but likely with a little less structure and frequency. At this age, sitting still to learn just isn’t where most of them are at, and that’s completely okay! One- and two-year-olds learn best through play, movement, and meaningful interactions with the world around them. My goal is to meet them where they are and create an environment that supports their growth in the most natural, joyful way possible.

We had such a fun week full of learning and laughter. Wishing all our families a joyful and relaxing Easter weekend filled with love, laughter, and maybe a few chocolate bunnies too!

Warmly,

Ms Sarah

May the world be filled with beautiful, peaceful little children.

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