Farm Animals

October started a new theme with Mother Goose Time, down on the farm.  For the first week we learned about farm animals:  chickens, pigs, sheep, horses and cows (although we didn't get to the last one yet).  We picked up lots of related books from our library to go with this fun theme.

Every day during circle time we introduced the animal of the day with a coloring sheet from the online members resources.  I've been cutting them all out after Elli colors them, and at the end of the month she will use them to make a farm mural.

 Elli has also been using the monthly theme poster every morning during circle time to talk about the animals we'll be learning about.  Every monthly box comes with a new theme poster and look and find glasses.  Both my girls always love finding the different things in the picture.

Elli worked on her writing this week.  She completed her name tag and the cover page of her my little journal.

I love that Mother Goose Time makes learning math fun.  Elli counted out pom pom chicken eggs onto chicken counting cards.  She had so much fun rolling the included cube and walking like a different animal to the corresponding shape.  The girls took turns rolling a dice and putting the same amount of cotton balls into bags.  Once there were no more cotton balls left they had to guess which bag had t he most, and then count to see if they were right.  They also worked on identifying numbers with the monthly number cards.

Every daily lesson has a new tinker and scrap idea in the teacher guide.  This week Elli filled an egg carton with "chicken eggs" and built a house to reenact the story of the 3 little pigs.  She and Addie loved lacing cardboard sheep and they also made different tracks in play dough.

Every day comes with the materials needed to create a new craft.  Some days are invitations to create, where the girls get a picture for inspiration and materials to use however they want.  These days focus on the process of art, and not the final product.  The other days are make and play activities, where the girls follow directions to make a craft they can use a a prop or play with. 

And of course there are always lots of games to play.  This week the girls took turns pretending to be sheep jumping over different obstacles, they ran around using the brown color wand to find matching colors, and also went barn yard bowling.  So far we are loving this monthly theme. 

Birds, Fish and Rabbits

We finished up our week of pets by learning about birds, fish and rabbits.  

Every monthly box from Mother Goose Time comes with a new I Can Read book.  These are great beginner readers.  Elli used the sight word pointers to find the words in the book.  Every month focuses on new sight words.  Sometimes she gets frustrated because she can't read like her older sister, but she loves that she can identify sight words in these books.  They're a great confidence booster.  Mother Goose Time also sends a new My Little Journal every month, which is another great tool for increasing literacy and practicing handwriting.  Elli really likes working in these books.  One of the letters of the month is T.  Elli used the included popsicle sticks to practise making the letter T using the monthly letter cards.  

Elli also did some math work by counting feathers, and then by trying to blow them onto the monthly number card.

The crafts are always one of Elli's favorite things.  She loves making the make and play items and using them throughout the day (and sometimes even months later).  The invitations to create have been a big hit with both my girls.  They love using the materials to come up with their own ideas.  They really enjoy the process of making art and it's fun seeing what they come up with.

 We talked about fresh water versus salt water and the kinds of fish that live in each.  Elli decided that the salt water was no good to drink.

We also did the would you rather cards.  I would read a card to Elli, such as would you rather have ears like a dog, rabbit or cat, and then she would pick her answer.  Some of these cards led to funny discussions.  

We played go fish with salt and fresh water cards.  We used them same cards to play a matching game.

Elli also had fun "fishing" for popsicle stick fish.  

There was also lots of dancing to the dance n' beats DVD that we get as an add on every month.