Celebrating Valentines Day

Every monthly box from Mother Goose Time includes a bonus celebration kit.  This month the kit was for valentines day, and the girls had a blast.  They made love bug headbands.

We read a story with story telling pieces that the girls were able to use to bring it more to life and make it interactive.  

I hid half of the heart shaped letter puzzles around the house.  The girls would find pieces and then come back and make a match.  They always love playing games where they have to find things that have been hidden.  This game also helped with recognizing upper and lower case letters.

Instead of making paper valentines, the girls made some out of clay and play-doh.  After they dried they got to paint them. 

They played a healthy heart game.  They would roll a ball, or in our case a stuffed animal, onto the board and then complete whatever exercise it landed on.  They thought this was great fun and played many times.

We finished up with some related holiday books.

Cleaning and Safety in the Kitchen

Last week with Mother Goose Time we finished up the food groups with protein.  Today we moved on to cleaning and safety in the kitchen.  During circle time I would call out a color and the girls would go around the house and "wash" things that were that color.  

We talked about how it's important to wash your hands before you eat or prepare food.  The girls used a spray bottle to wash away germ letters.  I would call out a letter for Addie and she would spray it.  For Elli I would call out a color.  After they sprayed it I would move it aside until they got rid of all the germs, then we started all over again.  I also wrote words on a chalk board that they took turns spraying and cleaning.  

The girls also made their own clean hand door hangers.  We hung them in the bathroom as a reminder to wash your hands. 

We talked about how to safely handle knives.  The girls got to practice what they learned by cutting up their own snacks.  We also talked about other things that could hurt you in the kitchen, such as the oven, blender, scissors, etc.  The girls like to help cook so we've been over kitchen safety many times, but it's always good to remind them what could be dangerous if not used properly.

The girls played oven mitt marathon.  I put one of each vegetable counter in a separate bowl on the table, the rest were dumped in a pan.  The girls had to wear an oven mitt and then run around the table, scooping out the vegetables and putting them in the corresponding bowls.  They had a lot of fun with this game, but I had a terrible time getting pictures of it since they were moving so much. Tomorrow we move on to measuring and pouring.

Dairy

This week we've been learning about the food groups.  Today we learned about dairy.  Every month Mother Goose Time sends a new theme poster with seek and find glasses.  The girls always love finding the items on the glasses and then completing the activities that go with it. 

The girls had an absolute blast pretending to milk a cow.  I poked holes in the provided vinyl glove and filled it with water for the girls to squirt.  The glove was filled up so many times;  they  thought it was so much fun that they just didn't want to move on to another activity.  

We learned that cows have 4 stomachs.  The girls each made their own cow craft.  Elli's turned out a little crazy.  Since she's only 2 I think the process of making art is more important than the finished product.  She's having fun developing fine motor skills, which at this point is more important than her being able to follow step by step instructions.  Addie works more on her finished product.  She is able to follow directions without getting upset and frustrated, because she has developed her fine motor skills enough to figure it out.

The girls further developed their fine motor skills by punching holes in "cheese" and lacing yarn through them.

We read some books from the library.

After reading how milk becomes ice cream, we made our own.  The girls thought this was so much fun, and it was their favorite part of the lesson.  They've already asked to make ice cream numerous times since we did it the first time.

Fruits and Vegetables

This months Mother Goose Time theme is food and fitness.  Day 2 was spent learning about vegetables.  

Elli completed the cover of her my little journal.  She traced around the vegetable manipulatives from this months box and we talked about the different shapes.

Elli used the foam die to figure out how many times to scrub each food. I told her about bacteria and how it is important to clean what you eat.

 She picked out the vegetables she wanted to eat and helped make her own salad.

We talked about what plants need in order to grow.  Elli wet a cotton ball, added a bean seed, and put it in a bag.  She completed day 1 on the provided observation chart; we will check on it throughout the month and record what we see.  We went on a hunt for a good sunny spot to hang the bean.  Elli picked the kitchen window.  When Addie got home from school she added another bean bag to the window.

I hid the vegetable counters around Elli's bedroom.  She had so much fun hunting for them, that she had me hide them all 2 more times before I told her we needed to move on to the rest of the lesson.  Elli worked with the counting cards and we also worked on grouping the vegetables by color.

 Since day 2 was vegetables, it only makes sense for day 3 to be fruits.  

Elli loved the pokey ball that came with today's bag.  We rolled it back and forth to each other until she was ready to move on.  Then she used the same ball to stamp seeds onto her strawberry.  She pretended to eat it when she was done.

The color of the month, red, was introduced.  Elli went on a color hunt around the house and "painted" anything she found that was red.  After she was satisfied that she had painted everything, she cut out foods from grocery adds.  After she had a pile she sorted out the red ones.

We talked about the different parts of an orange.  Elli helped peel it and even squeezed it into a cup to make orange juice.  She used some of the juice to practice tracing the letter J.

Elli loved the last game we played.  I put green and red foam hearts under a blanket.  She would roll a dice and then crawl under and find the correct number of ripe red "strawberries" and then pick them and put them in her fruit basket.  She played this game many, many times.

We worked a little more with colors using a sorting pie that we had already.  We will be finishing up the week with dairy and protein.

A Day With Mother Goose Time: Routines

 Mother Goose Time makes it so easy to stay organized.  Every month they send a planning journal that has the whole month mapped out. 

Plus there is a more detailed page that breaks your whole day down, as well as blank pages to write your own ideas and plans.

We don't follow a set schedule in our house, but we do have a routine.  We usually start our Mother Goose Time lesson for the day between 9-10am.  On Tuesdays Addie gets home from school early, so we wait for her since she loves joining Elli with the lessons. Sometimes I also save certain activities that I know Addie will love, or that I know will work better with 2 kids until when she gets home. Regardless of  the time we start, we always do circle time first.  We pick the day of the month and the weather.  We also look at the topic of the day and discuss what we know about it. There is also always a concept intro idea that covers the different letters/numbers/shape/color of the month.  On this particular day the heart was introduced, so Elli practiced tracing hearts in a try of oats.  We also sing an opening song, or sometimes a rhyme, before starting the lesson.

If there is any project that requires painting, we do that first so it has time to dry.  Usually, after everything else is finished except closing time, we return to the painted projects and finish them up.  On day one for February the topic was grains.  Elli finger painted her sandwich pieces and once they dried she glued oats on them.  She didn't want to add any cheese, lettuce, etc. 

 Each day with Mother Goose Time includes 4 activities, which have multiple parts.  We started with discuss:  What letter do you have in your name?  Then we moved on to explore: Set out corn kernels (we used oats) and paper.  Observe as children make corn kernel designs on paper.  How else do children investigate and play with corn?  We finished up with play:  Give each child a name tag and help him write his name.  Encourage each child to use the corn kernels to make the first letter in his name.  What other letters can he make with corn?  There is also an assess and reflect section that allows teachers to take note of a child's progress or what they may need extra help with.

One of the reasons we have a routine and not a schedule, is because it allows Elli time to really get into the activities she likes.  She also can take as long as she wants on the art projects.  She knows the order we do things in, but is free to take as long as she wants to finish.

Elli had so much fun with the grain discovery activity.  She measured and poured different grains and mixed them together.  She also practiced holding rice in her hand and squeezing it.  She especially enjoyed eating the raw noddles.  

We used the same 3 types of grains to weigh and see which one was the heaviest.  Elli helped make a balancing scale and I showed her how to work it.   We've left this up and it has been used throughout the week to weigh other items against one another.  Addie has also been using it.

 After all the activities are done we do closing time and this is also when Elli does the dance n' beats DVD.

After closing time we read some related books, which I realize is out of order, but it's what works for us.

We waited for Addie to get home to make bread, because I knew she'd want to help.  The girls loved measuring the ingredients and kneading the dough for me.  They also loved the french bread and ate it for an after dinner snack.  They thought this was especially great since they don't normally get food after dinner, but it took a longtime to make so it wasn't done in time for dinner.