Pond Insects

This week we continued with Mother Goose Time's at the pond theme by learning about pond insects.  

The girls made dragonflies.  They both love the crafts included every month the most.  Addie is in second grade now, but asks me to save the crafts for when she gets home from school.  Even though the curriculum is geared for preschoolers older kids can also get something from it.  

The girls also made mayfly puppets this week.

They had a lot of fun with the backswimmer invitation to create.  They were given a tray, paper, paint, twist ties and buttons.  

Elli also used provided materials and a water strider photo for inspiration to make her own creature.  

This week for literacy work Elli made her own story using story sequencing cards, helped tell the participation story, searched for words in the I Can Read book, worked on snapping insects while reading the rhyme time poster, and did some work in her my little journal.  A few months ago Elli couldn't find the words in the I Can Read books with the sight word pointers so instead we'd look for letters.  Now she's pointing out letters that she knows to me, and loves using the sight word pointers to find complete words.  Her story telling has also improved a lot.  Before I would make up stories for her, and this month she came up with an elaborate story about pond creatures baking cakes. I love that there are simple ways to customize the curriculum to make it fit your child better.  When Elli was younger we used the little goose add on to make it simpler, and now that she's getting older we'll start using the more math and literacy books soon to challenge her a bit more.

This week we also did the would you rather cards, played strider slider by moving a space every time a food for the water strider was picked, and worked on giving mosquito bites to the letter P.  Next week we finish up by learning about life in the pond:  snail, crayfish, lizard alligator and fish. 

Pond Plants

For week 2 of Mother Goose Time's at the pond theme we learned about pond plants.  

This week for math Elli played Hornwort Hiding Spot.  She had to roll a cube and practice counting to move her fish.  The goal was to get to the hornwort plants before the raccoon caught you.  We also played a game similar to Uno, that involved matching either numbers or colors until you were out of cards.  She really liked this game.  The girls used foam pieces to work on patterning.  Unfortunately the pieces weren't the right size for the boards so this mostly just confused them. They had fun using the foam to make their own shapes though.

There are always lots of activities each month that work on literacy.  Elli played Phonic Pond.  We took turns rolling a cube and moving our frogs to the picture that matched the letter sound.  I read the monthly participation story to Elli while she acted it out.  Afterward she answered the comprehension questions.  She did some work in her my little journal.  We looked at the letter P and tried to find it in books.  This week the storybook of the month was introduced, At the Pond.  We also read some related books from the library.

The invitations to create that come every month are by far the girls favorite thing.  This week they used different mediums such as paint, stamps, tissue paper, shaving cream and glitter and made cattail pictures, lilypad pictures, their own mini pond, and algae.

Every monthly box comes with a puzzle.  This week the girls got to see what it was and worked together to build it.  We also started an ongoing experiment this week.  We have different foods sitting in cups of water.  The girls made predictions as to what they think will happen and we have been checking on them everyday to look for any changes.

We used the monthly celebration pack this week since St. Patrick's day will be here soon.  The girls wrote down items they treasure, colored rainbow pictures, made a leprechaun trap, and played a game where they threw gold onto a board and tried to get the most points. 

What's in the Box-April

We just got our April box from Mother Goose Time, and the theme for the month is birds and eggs.

The teacher tool bag has the planning journal, teacher guide, theme web, monthly CD, shape stamp, continuum of learning, and the monthly manipulatives.  For this month the manipulatives are colored links and rainbow feathers.

The circle time bag has everything you need for the monthly display board:  calendar and pieces, circle time songs, shape cloud, gosling friend, number fish, color wand, theme poster, and letter cards.  It also contains cookie cutters for each letter we'll be focusing on.

Week one is in the nest:  nest, egg, hatchling, bird food and learn to fly.

Week two is bird parts:  head and beak, body, wing, feet and claws, and tail.

Week three is tree birds:  blue bird, woodpecker, eagle, hummingbird, and chickadee. 

For the final week we will focus on exotic birds:  ostrich, penguin, blue crane, peacock, and birdwatcher.

The celebration pack this month is for Easter.  It includes a complete lesson plan for the holiday with songs, snacks, crafts, and games.

Also in this months box was a list of the new themes for the 2017-18 school year.  I'm especially excited for it's a small world and growing gardens.