Mojave Desert

This week we moved on to learning about the Mojave desert with Mother Goose Time.  

The kids painted rocks gold, and then used them in the water table to practice panning for gold.  

The kids used corn starch noodles to make cacti and added toothpicks to make them prickly.  

The kids looked at a picture of olive trees for inspiration, and used paper, paint and wooden spools to make their own creations.  

The kids made their own tortoise racing game.  They were able to take turns playing it with friends.

The character trait for this month is honesty.  After we read the monthly forest friend book the kids made their own stories with the owl.

We spent time learning about the differences between turtles and tortoises.  After we learned the differences the kids worked together to separate out the characteristics and decide which animal they were describing.  

The kids went on a hunt for puzzle pieces and the worked together to build the desert puzzle.  Each kids got to put in 2 pieces until the whole puzzle was built.  This is a good way to teach them about cooperating and working together.

Every monthly box comes with would you rather scenarios, such as would you rather sit on a camel or a cactus.  The kids take turns voting on what they would prefer and then we tally them up.

The kids worked on their patience and taking turns when we played a desert matching game.  This also helps test their memory.

We used this months manipulatives to do a little patterning.

 Z is one of the letters of the month, so the kids colored their letter Z books.  Each month focuses on 3 new letters.