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.