Developing Motor Skills With Mother Goose Time

A lot of the activities that Mother Goose Time uses are designed to get kids up and moving.  Incorporating gross motor skills into activities that teach letters and numbers helps reinforce the concepts.  Kids learn through playing, and that's just the theory the lesson plans are designed around.

What better way to practice counting than with turkey bowling.

Running to specific colors and shapes makes learning fun.

There are so many art projects to do every month, and it's a great way for kids to increase their fine motor skills while having fun.  Another tool that comes in every monthly box is the my little journal, which reinforces writing.

Drawing in shaving cream is always a hit.

One of the monthly crafts had the girls lacing and tying.

Sculpting with play doh is a great way to work on fine motor skills.

Painting, gluing, coloring, and cutting...just a normal day with Mother Goose Time.

Trucks

Today's lesson with Mother Goose Time was about trucks.

Elli started off by making a truck and then driving it around her bedroom and finding things that would fit inside it.

Elli also used her truck to drive around her room and pick up different picture cards. Once she found them all she delivered them to the corresponding letter houses.

Elli made different ramps and tried rolling different wheeled items down them.  She worked to figure out what ones went the farthest.  

We read The Little Blue Truck multiple times; Elli loves this book.  She also completed her transportation puzzle.

I made a triangle on the floor that Elli worked on packing with as many stuffed animals as she could fit.  She also filled cardboard boxes with different items and pretended they were trucks.

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Cars

This week with Mother Goose Time we learned about land transportation.  We started off the week learning about cars.  There was a letter matching game, but Elli doesn't know upper and lower case letters yet so she worked on matching colors instead.  

We talked about how corn can be used to create fuel for cars.  Elli made her own clean fuel car and had fun driving it around the house.

We worked on shapes and colors some more with a car parking game.  I would call out a color and shape, and then Elli would find the right car and park it in the garage.  We also worked on reading numbers and counting.  So many ways to learn with such a simple game.  

Elli also made her own parking garage out of blocks and parked her toy cars.  

Elli worked on the C page of her my little journal.  She tried to trace the letter c on the pages and then made finger print road lines in the letter C's.

We saved the best for last.  After Addie got home we made a car wash with streamers.  The kids pretended to be cars moving through the wash.  They had so much fun playing this and have already asked to do it again.  Tomorrow we learn about trucks.

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Service Stations

Today with Mother Goose Time we learned about service stations. Today Elli got to look at the monthly theme poster a little more closely with the look and find glasses.  She loves using these and gets very excited when she finds the correct picture.  On the back of each magnifier there are short activities to do, which makes it extra fun.

There was a cute tool-box/cat carrier craft that Elli made today.  She was so happy to have somewhere to hold her stuffed cat that she never actually got around to putting the play tools in it. She carried it around all day and even slept with it when she went to bed.

We used the hands on letter C and came up with words that start with C.  Then Elli put toy cars in sand and got them dirty, and then washed them in a bin of soapy water.

We talked about how cars need gas to run and Elli worked on sucking up water and transferring it to different containers.  We were supposed to play a game outside with water, but it was too cold for that.

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Bridges

Elli had so much fun learning about bridges.  Even after we were doe with everything she kept asking to do more, which is actually pretty typical after we finish Mother Goose Time for the day.

Since we were learning about bridges, it was only fitting that our circle time song was London Bridge.  Elli practiced walking under our makeshift bridge while we were singing.

 The hands down favorite activity of the day was making bridges with colored cornstarch noodles.  Elli had so much fun with these.  All you have to do is add a tiny bit of water and they will stick.  She spent quite a while making her bridge and then used the train and plane manipulatives with it. When Addie came home and saw it she had to make one as well.  The girls loved these so much that I  found them on amazon.  They are called PlayMais.

Elli worked on counting to five using the manipulatives.  She also used boxes and cans from the kitchen to make a bridge with the counting card.

I showed Elli how bridges can be built different ways and how they are made determines how much weight they can hold.  We made replica bridges and tested them out.  She also had fun making bridges with her blocks and using the manipulatives to play with them.

Elli practiced her fine motor skills by drawing her version of a bridge in her my little journal.

We wrapped up the lesson with a bridge snack made of graham crackers and peanut butter, which she devoured.

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