The Tower of Babel

This months Experience God pack featured the story of the tower of Babel.  The teacher pack comes with the lesson plan book, which is broke down into 4 separate lessons.  It also contains a memory verse poster and story telling sets.

The student packs contain craft materials and take home sheets with coloring pages and fun activities.

The girls made tower shakers.  They cut bricks and then glued them to their tubes, which were filled with rice.  We talked about how the people wanted to build a tower to heaven.

We talked about different languages and where they are spoken.  The girls made a puppet to resemble themselves to go with their world people set.

The girls loved using starch noodles to build their own towers.  All you have to do is wet an end and they stick together.

The people never finished building their tower to heaven because they couldn't speak the same language and understand each other after God saw what they were doing.  The girls made their own collapsible rulers and measured different things around the house.

Around the Neighborhood

On of the things I love about Mother Goose Time is that in addition to literacy, math, etc they also emphasize character traits.  This months trait is respectful.  We talked about what it means, sang a song about it, and then the girls earned their respectful feathers.

Every monthly box comes with a new book and story telling set.  I hid the story telling pieces around the living room.  The girls found them all and then used them to retell the story of Bella and the Umbrella. This is a good way to see how well they comprehend and remember the stories they hear.

Elli practiced her writing skills in her my little journal.  Today she used the included circle stamps to make 3 circles on the page and turn them into apples.  This helps with counting and writing.

Every monthly box also comes with a new patterning set.  This one has an ABCD pattern, which was new for Elli.

The girls used rulers to measure different items, and then decorated the rulers when they were done.

They had fun playing roll an apple.  Whatever shape the cube landed on they would color on their apple tree picture.

We talked about composting and recycling,  

They also used a variety of items headed for the garbage to make their own projects.  This entertained them for a really long time, although both finished projects resembled tinfoil blobs.

They had a great time making pipe sculptures using straws, pipecleaneres and tape.

Mail Carriers and Construction Workers

The girls have been learning about community helpers around the neighborhood this week.  The first 2 days of the week were spent learning about mail carriers and construction workers.  Mother Goose Time always incorporates literacy, math, and creative development in their lessons.

Elli worked on patterning by using the connecting blocks that were included in this months box with the shape design mats.  She pretended she was a construction worker, building different structures.  

For literacy work this week the girls used hammers to pound out syllables.  They also completed the letter V in their my little journals and wrote their own letters.  They liked using the stamps that we've been collecting from each monthly box.

The girls have been enjoying all the make and play props this month.  This week they made hammers and their own mail carrier pouches.

They had a lot of fun pretending to be mail carriers.  They each got a stack of post cards and delivered them to different places that were taped on the wall.

Dance n' Beats

Want to get your kids up and moving?  Try Dance N' Beats by Mother Goose Time.  

 It's a DVD with choreographed songs that are geared for preschool aged children.  My girls both love dancing to the songs.  Now that it's starting to get colder, we're inside a lot more.  This is a great way to get the wiggles out and it helps with gross motor skills as well.

These DVD's get a lot of use in our house.  They are one of the first things Elli looks for when the new monthly box arrives.  They are also great at helping me get things done.  I just turn it on and she's quite content to dance by herself in the living room while I do other things around the house.

If you can read music they also have all the songs written out.  

As well as extra activities to do that correspond with the songs.  The regular Mother Goose Time curriculum keeps us busy enough, so we rarely add these extras in.

Dentists and Bus Drivers

We finished our first week of Mother Goose Time's community helper theme with dentists and bus drivers.  Elli used dental floss to practice making the letter D.

She practiced her writing skills in her my little journal.

We read the book of the month.  Of all the books we've received over the past year and a half this is probably one of my favorites.  It follows an umbrella that a little girl accidentally leaves on the school bus until it gets returned home.

Elli practiced flossing play dough out of blocks.  She also brushed confetti cavities off of a tooth.

Every monthly box from Mother Goose Time always includes lots of fun games.  Elli worked on colors and counting with the dentist visit game.  If you land on a space with sweets you add the same number of cavity bingo pieces to your tooth, an then brush them off on the toothbrush pieces.  We also played a matching memory game.

Elli created her own tooth picture.  She used a toothbrush to paint her tooth white, and then added cavities to it.

Elli's favorite project of the week was this cute school bus with clothespin people.  The bus is the same one that the Mother Goose Time materials are shipped in every month, just on a much smaller scale.  Elli has been using it to drive around little plastic animals.  She even slept with it the night she made it. 

Police Officer

Day 3 with Mother Goose Time's community helpers theme was police officers. 

Elli loves using the look and find glasses and theme poster that come in every monthly box.  Each magnifying glass has a picture to find on one side and action prompts on the back.  After finding the 3 items on the glasses, she got to use the blank glass and pretend to be a detective hunting for certain colors.

Every monthly box also comes with a my little journal.  Elli will use this all month to practise writing letters, numbers, and drawing shapes and colors.  Today she worked on writing her name on the cover.  We talked about how police officers can use fingerprints to identify people.  Elli traced her hand on the cover and added fingerprints to each finger.

I set out paper, glue, scissors, tin foil and stickers for Elli.  She use them to create her own police badge.  She really enjoyed cutting up the tin foil and bending it into shapes.

We talked about what it means to steal then we played a letter burglar game.  Elli picked one of her favorite books for this.  She would pick a burglar card and then look through the book until she found the same letter.  She's starting to recognize certain letters, and games like this are a big help.