Earth Day

Every monthly box from Mother Goose Time includes a bonus celebration pack.  This months pack included a complete lesson plan for Earth Day.  We were visiting family out of state on Earth Day, so I just brought the bag along with us.  Mother Goose Time makes it easy to just grab and go.

For circle time we recited a story about earth worms.  The girls used the included story telling set to retell the story.  This led to a discussion about composting and garbage versus recyclable.  

 As usual, the art project was the girls favorite part of the day.  They painted a paper plate blue and green and then used it to stamp a piece of white paper by pressing it down and spinning it slowly.  After it dried I cut them out in circles and the girls glued them to black paper that they had decorated with stars.  

The girls made an Earth Day snack.  I added blue food coloring to some cream cheese which was spread on rice cakes.  Broccoli was added to finish it off.  Elli didn't like the cream cheese, but Addie loved the snack to much that she ate hers and Ellis', and asked to make them again.

With only 2 kids there weren't really enough people to play Dirt, Dirt, Tree.  The girls did have fun playing Save the Earth though.  They had to work together to keep a ball "Earth" on a blanket while shaking it and moving it around.  They had a lot of fun with this game, and we added up adding another ball for the moon to make it a little big harder. 

Dancing With Bees & Butterflies

The Dance n' Beats is Elli's favorite add on with Mother Goose Time.  It comes with a DVD of choreographed dances to the songs from the monthly CD and a guide book with a different activity for each song, such as a craft, game, writing prompt, etc.

Just pop the DVD in and you're ready to go.

Dancing is a great way to get your kids up and moving.  They're having fun exercising and increasing their gross motor skills.

After they're burned off all that extra energy, they can sit down and work on a craft from the included book.

God Asks Me to Pray

The girls both love using Mother Goose Time.  They make add ons that you can get to enhance and supplement the curriculum.  Addie asked to learn more about God, so the Experience God add on has been a great help.  Each month comes with a lesson plan book split into 4 lessons.  There are also story telling sets, a memory verse, and craft packs for each child.  This month featured the Easter story, and was about forgiveness and prayer.  We did the Easter story and suggested activities last month for Easter, but saved the crafts for this month.  

 The girls learned what prayers of petition and intercession meant.  They made their own prayer baskets, and wrote people or things they wanted to pray for on the back of their bees.  

The girls learned more about what sins and forgiveness mean.  They were supposed to make magnifying glasses to symbolize seeking forgiveness, but decided they wanted to use the included materials to make bracelets instead.

We talked about how Jesus died for our sins and then rose again from the dead.  The girls made butterflies, praise for new life.

Hornets

 We finished up our second week with Mother Goose Time by learning about hornets.  During circle time the girls used the attribute blocks to create a black and yellow pattern.  Since we're working on the number 16, they worked together to count the pattern out to 16 pieces.

We looked at the daily topic poster and talked about the parts of a hornet.  Then we sang Head, Thorax, Abdomen.

The girls used the sight word pointers to look through books and find matching words.

The girls LOVED playing apoidea matching.  I hung 8 different bee and wasp cards around the room.  The girls would pick a card from a pile and then buzz to the matching apoidea hanging on the wall.  They played this quite a few times.

The girls did some more work with the attribute blocks.  They sorted them by size, thickness, shape and color.  

The girls finished up the day by making their own hornet's nest.  They used a real nest we had and also the picture that was included as models to make their own nests out of paper bags and crepe paper.  Next week we move on to metamorphosis and butterflies.

Honeybees and Carpenter Bees

Every month I can count on Mother Goose Time to provide activities and lessons that are not only fun and engaging, but also teach things like math, literacy, science, and the arts.  The past 2 days we learned about honeybees and carpenter bees.   

 Elli worked on patterning, and recognizing hexagons.

 She also worked on basic addition by picking 2 numbers and then adding them together into the honey jar.

 One of the numbers of the month is 15.  We used the hands on number and also the number card to work on letter recognition.  If Elli rolled a 1 she used the 1 from the number 15 to sting me. 

 She also worked on the number 15 page in her my little journal.

She had fun stamping 15 bees on to the my little journal page.

Every month there is a different friendly bee introduced.  I like that in addition to the educational aspects, Mother Goose Time also incorporates character builders.  This month we're learning about forgiveness.  Elli was able to earn her forgiveness bee badge.

 We read Where's The Honey?  Elli used the story telling pieces to retell the story.  She also put the pieces in size order.  She was even able to correctly answer the comprehension questions at the end of the story.  I'm always surprised by the amount of information she is able to retain.  These questions show me she understands a lot more than I think she does.

Every month also comes with an I Can Read Book.  These are simple stories with basic sight words.  They're good at helping Elli with letter recognition.

I always try to find books related to the monthly theme at our library.  There is always a supplemental book list, but we have a small library that rarely carries the suggested books.

This month included a box of wax sticks.  Elli used them to make letters and also flowers and bees.  We talked about how bees work together to build a honeycomb and then we worked together to make one out of the wax sticks.

Elli had a lot of fun with flower nectar painting.  We filled a souffle cup flower with paint.  She pretended to be a bee sucking up nectar and depositing it into her honeycomb.

We talked about how bees make honey.  Elli got to taste some, but couldn't decide if she liked it or not.

We used the story telling sequence cards to explain the process in more detail.

We talked about how carpenter bees make holes in wood and make tunnels for their eggs.  Elli made play-dough into a log and used a straw to make holes in it.  She used rice as the eggs, and planted one in each hole.  She's been having so much fun this week.

Bumblebees

This week with Mother Goose Time we're learning about different kinds of bees and wasps.  Day 7 was all about bumblebees.  During circle time we used the hands on letter B and worked on coming up with words that started with that sound.  Elli also pretended to be a bee and flew to different things in the house that were blue.

Elli made her own letter B bee craft.  She asked me to cut the parts of the bee out for her, and then she glued them all on.  She also decided her bee needed a nose, and she found a pom pom in our craft box that she thought worked perfectly.  Her bee is now hanging on the fridge.

Bumblebees can sting many times.  Elli made bees out of play-dough and gave them toothpick stingers.  She used them to sting her stuffed animals.

 Elli had so much fun playing how many stings.  She would spin the included spinner and then stick the same number of red sticker "stings" on her body.  Then we would count them all.  We talked about how bees sting when they feel threatened and it's best to leave them alone.

 Elli used a pom pom and pretended it was a pet bumblebee.  I asked her how she would take care of a pet bee, and she said she would put it in her cradle and cover it with blankets.  We read the rhyme time poster and talked about which words rhymed.

There was a science activity for today, but unfortunately I didn't have cornmeal so we didn't get to do it.  Elli decided she wanted to paint some bee and butterfly stamps we have as an alternative.  She loves art, and especially painting.  Elli picked out the paper and type of paint she wanted to use; she was able to make her own choices.  She worked on color identification.  She also was able to see that mixing red and blue made purple. Art projects are a great way to improve fine motor skills and hand eye coordination.  We also counted how many bugs she stamped on her paper when she was done, and compared the sizes.  Art is such a natural way for children to learn and develop.