What I've Learned So Far

We finished off the end of our third month of homeschool preschool with Mother Goose Time.   As I was rocking Littlest to sleep tonight, I reflected on the lessons I've learned in the last 90 days.

1.   I don't have to get through everything all the time.  I covered this a lot in a previous post.  Miss M continues to have a little resistance to school lately (I still blame the weather), although she does better when she has her friends around.  Yesterday I managed to coax her into circle time with her monkey friends.  She helped them count the numbers on the calendar and put up our weather emblem.  Then it was time for them to take a nap and she was done for the day.  Instead of pushing her into some of the other fun I activities I was personally excited to do with her, I filed those away for another time and we made vegetable soup in the crockpot instead.  We talked about the vegetables and that was it for the day.

2.  It doesn't have to be "pretty" all the time.  This was a tough one because I love Pinterest and Pottery Barn catalogs.  I want our school area to be cute (and Mother Goose Time gives you a lot of cute materials to work with).  Having two small children and a home to care for means I have a multitude of tasks to do in a given day, limiting the amount of time I have for preparation and prettification.  Luckily, Mother Goose Time does most of the work for me but there are still a few things they describe for you to make on your own throughout the week for use during circle time, for concept reviews.  I want everything I make for class to match the theme perfectly and to be great looking.  However, the reality is that I have two small children, one of whom wants nothing more than to rip everything off the walls and try to stick it back up crooked, upside down and every other which way.  I have resigned myself to keeping most of the materials on a shelf in my entertainment center and only putting up the bare necessities just before we start circle time.

I also have rheumatoid arthritis, which has been in quite the angry flare lately, making writing/drawing/coloring/cutting very painful.  Instead of creating my super cute companion materials as described in the teacher guide, I'm doing the basics.  These are supposed to be potato shapes but cutting straight lines is much faster and easier right now so that's what I did.  When Miss M decided ordering the numbers 1-10 wasn't enough for her, I grabbed the closest stack of scratch paper I had, already cut out and labeled with other things on the back, and used those.  They aren't even on the same type of paper.  This is something that would have (and to be honest, still does to some extent) really bother me but I've realized making it cute doesn't mean it functions any better.  Someday I hope to be able to do more but for now I am working on being ok with doing what I can right now.

3.  I can do this.  I just got back from a day and a half homeschool conference.  There was a lot of information.  A LOT.  It was a little overwhelming.  It made me remember how I felt a few months ago when I started researching homeschool preschool on Pinterest and Google.  I had no idea where to start.  Then I found the Mother Goose Time website and got this awesome opportunity.  It is a really good fit for me, giving me an idea of what type of curriculum/program I might be comfortable with as I look into homeschooling Miss M and Littlest in the higher grades.  Most importantly, it has given me the confidence to continue this new adventure.  I can teach my children and they will learn. It is quite liberating and I'm excited to see what happens over the next three months

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Bushels of Fun

So far this week we have learned about carrots, potatoes and beans as we practiced counting, identifying colors and letters and retelling stories.

Miss M and her daddy were my students on Monday as our friends were off celebrating Memorial Day with their families.  Our streak of inattentiveness continued but having her dad there definitely helped.  She liked being able to show him what to do with the calendar and dancing to her favorite garden tracks on the Dance N Beats DVD (I have some fabulous video but have been forbidden to post it anywhere).


I took the carrot cut outs and hid them around the room so we could work a little on prepositions (in, on, under and between were our main focus) and this was quite fun for her, especially when she decided it was her turn to hide them.  Unfortunately she wasn't interested in sewing them together but one tip I had for that was to wrap tape around one end of the yard to make a "needle" and keep it from fraying, then tape the other end to the back of one of the carrots so they can't pull it out when they are sewing.  I'm hoping she'll be more willing later, especially as our rather unpredictable weather has been keeping us inside a lot.

She had a blast reviewing colors with Daddy.  I gave each of them one of the laminated magnifying glasses and they took turns picking a craft stick with a color written on it, then they would both go around the room and look for something that color.

The last activity she agreed to participate in was the Eye Chart and only if Daddy was sitting behind her while she sat on one of our footstools.  Whatever, it worked and she did great until the very last line.  She likes to play doctor with her stuffed animals sometimes so maybe I'll keep it out for her to use or make a couple more so we can review more letters and numbers later on.

Yesterday we planted our bean sprout from a couple weeks ago in our garden.  I check on it today and it seems to be liking our rainy weather.  I'm not even sure what kind of bean it is but it will be fun to watch it grow.

Today we only had one of our friend's with us as we did lots of dancing (both kids really needed a physical outlet due to being indoors so much with our unseasonably damp weather), counted beans, made fingerprint beans on our beanstalks and retold the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" together.  The counting beans activity was actually really fun for them, they liked scooping them into their own bowls.  We used spoons of different sizes and made predictions about how many beans we could scoop with the small, medium and large spoons.  We counted them, made piles and compared which one had less and which one had more.  I would have let them play with them longer but Littlest is dropping her morning nap and was getting a little too hard to keep away from the beans (and the beans from her mouth).

I really love the story kits and am trying to come up with a way of storing them separately so Miss M can use them on her own and we can quickly grab them for story time before bed as well.

Only two more days in this fun unit and then it is June already!

Making It Through

This has been a bit of a rough week. Miss M has not been her normal self for no reason I can come up with yet (other than she's 2 1/2 and maybe mood swings are normal for this age) and Littlest is cutting five teeth all at the same time. Naps have been off, the weather has been gloomy and I can't seem to get enough sleep to feel like I'm ever truly awake. Thank goodness for preschool and some fun activities to distract from our Eeyore moods.

 On Wednesday we had class with friends and learned about rabbits and bees. The kids had fun hopping around the letter R on the floor, which evolved into Ring Around the Rosie (I pointed out the sounds in Ring and Rosie so it was still "on topic" :). We pretended to be bees and they pollinated the flowers on my rug with the pattern blocks. We also practiced counting with the rabbit counters. We used the word problems provided and then worked on dividing them into groups by size and/or color and counting how many members in each of those.

 I loved the poppy art project, I think it turned out really cute. It was also interesting to note that Miss M doesn't really know how to tear on purpose so that's a fine motor skill we need to work on. She was able to do it if I started the tear for her. Thinner paper would probably have been easier for her, too. We finished up outside on the one really nice morning we've had this week.

 The kids buzzed around the yard looking for bees and then we had snack before the rain clouds rolled back in. Miss M had a few meltdowns and needed to take some time away from the group but I think it is important for her to recognize when she is feeling kind of cloudy and that it is okay to be by yourself for a bit.

 This morning we tried to have school with just Littlest, Miss M and Mommy. It didn't go super well but I did find a few activities that got through her tantrumming. Dance N Beats was a great way to distract her from being upset about something I couldn't quite decipher and gave me time to assemble my materials. She melted down again during calendar but Littlest had a great time adding our numbers (and then tearing the calendar and everything else off the wall).

 She calmed down again when I sang the song of the day, "Do You Know a Bumpy Toad", set to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" I write numbers on a slip of paper and she and Littlest took turns choosing a number to use in the last of line of the song "Who eats __ garden peas?" It was a good way to review our numbers and music always seems to help with her mood.


I thought for sure she'd be super into the toad craft but it took her a while (and seeing her sister playing with the craft materials) to get into it. Once she got past the frustration of the googly eyes falling off (because she kept pulling them off so the sticky pads lost their stick), she had a great time painting it with the paint/glue/split pea mixture. I'm pretty sure that's it for today, though, and that's ok.

 I thought I'd say a few words about how I organize my craft materials. Since we only do school two days a week with friends but will often do activities on our own on other days, I end up with lots of left of craft materials to use later. Storage is not something our home has in abundance so I needed to get a little creative. I also didn't want to buy a bunch of new organizing bins (because I can go overboard so it's better not to even go close to the railing). I found a large plastic suitcase style bin that I bought years ago for my speech materials and decided to use it instead of the empty cardboard Amazon box I started with. Since we are still in the baby stage of life, I also have lots (and lots and lots) of glass and plastic baby food containers that are great sizes for leftover glitter, googly eyes and pompoms. The plastic ones are nice for putting paint in (I also use them as snack containers in the diaper bag). I'm an Amazon Mom and get a monthly shipment of wipes that always includes a new container (why, I'm not sure); needless to say we've got about 20 floating around the house. For craft materials, they're great for holding my crayons, markers, scissors, glue, etc...I also use them for storing some of the manipulative we've gotten (like the seashells) and other other toys in the toy area. They all fit nicely in my large plastic bin that I can slide into the pit closet we had created under the stairs just before Miss M was born. And that's how I do that.

  

Animals in the Garden

It's a new week and a new set of lessons with Mother Goose Time!  Today we learned about moles and crows as we practiced counting, learning sight words and reviewing our colors and shapes.

After reviewing our calendar, we read the included take-home book "What Do You Like?" This formulaic little book helped us work on the sight words LIKE, LITTLE and SAID.  It works out perfectly with three kids, I gave each one a copy of one of the words and had them hold it up as we read their word in the book.  After we read through it, they got to draw a picture of a food they like to eat (Miss M drew grapes, which she eats by the bushel).

We worked on our journals, practicing drawing a diamond shape, which was a little difficult for them.  They've all mastered circles but straight lines and angles are still a little difficult.  I think I'll try and find an art project we can do next time that will help with that.  I also made sure to do the sentence completion task with them today, finishing the sentence "The crow is ______."  I try really hard not to let me personal prejudices against food or animals come out so I didn't say anything negative about crows, which have seemed creepy to me (thanks to the fantasy fiction I read as a child, where they are inevitably harbingers of evil) but Miss M's sentence was "The crow is eating M (her name)." Hmmm, I guess she's just a very intuitive child...

I think the most popular activity of the day was our mole ball run.  We talked about how moles live underground and dig tunnels to get from place to place.  I gave each child two "mole tunnels" and they got to choose where they put them on the wall.  The first run was very straightforward, literally.  The second one I suggested adding a bend to (which necessitated some patchwork to make sure the ball stayed in the tunnel) and they had a blast taking turns putting the ball down the tubes.  I think this will be staying on our wall until Littlest completely destroys it (so, about a day and a half).

We reviewed colors using the included folder game.  Miss M had a very hard time sitting still and following directions so I let her run off some steam while her friends played it, although she did come back periodically for her turn.  It was an opportunity to teach her consequences as she ran off and was skipped more than once.  She did not like that.

During snack they played "Feed the Crow", a version of the game "Don't Eat Pete".  They each took turns turning over a card that either had food or a scarecrow on it.  Once the scarecrow is found, the game is over and each player counts how many food cards they collected.  We also went through all the cards and talked about which foods they would like to eat (corn, berries and pie were favorites) and what they would not want to eat (ants and worms were definitely gross to them, thankfully).

If we had had time, I would have gotten out the IKEA tunnel for them to play in.  Given that it has rained daily for a week and doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon, a mole game may be in the making for some indoor fun.  I'll let you know if I come up with something worth sharing.

If you want to see what other Mother Goose Time Bloggers are doing, check out these links!

An InLinkz Link-up

Garden Art

I am really enjoying our gardening theme this month and all the fun activities that have been provided  for us.

We have been able to do a lot of fun art projects this week.  I love art as a means of teaching concepts and engaging children in learning.  When I worked as a speech language pathologist, I found the children were more willing to work when they got to do something fun, such as an art project.  Art is also a great way to teach language and math concepts such as size and color, ordinals (like first, second, last) and reinforce vocabulary.  You can also work on narrative skills as you have a child tell you (or another family member) how they created their masterpiece, what they did first, what materials they used and why they them.  You can use art to retell a story you have read (just search Pinterest for art projects related to children's books) or to reinforce concepts you have taught, like we have been doing with our Mother Goose Time projects.

For Mother's Day, they included a Bonus Day lesson plan that had the materials (minus paint) for an adorable art project that I know I will be keeping for years to come.  We talked about how plants have stems, looked at some of the plants in my yard and then made this cute handprint art.  They counted out flowers for each finger and glued them on.  There is also a cute little poem included so in one project we covered math, literacy and science.

We talked more about stems and how they help move water through the plant as we did a little science project using celery stalks and colored water.  We then used cut up pieces of celery to stamp paint onto flower coloring pages as an extension of the lesson.

The other fun art project we completed this week was making these super cute sunflower headbands.  We talked about leaves, counted petals on flowers outside, talked again about seeds and how baby plants sprout from them (this was reinforced with a bean sprout experiment that is still in process on my windowsill) and had the kiddos count out sunflower seeds and arrange them however they wanted to on the flower cut out.  When it comes to art, I try really hard to let Miss M do the majority of it herself (at least as far as design--she still needs help with the construction) so she gets the experience and confidence to do things herself without the emphasis on having it look "perfect", hence the clump of seeds with no particular pattern.

Art is so much fun to do with toddlers and preschoolers, I love the conversation it stimulates and having tangible evidence of time we get to spend together.

Teaching through Music

Both of my girls love love love music (in fact, as I write this Miss M is in her crib singing "Hey Diddle Diddle" instead of napping).  I'll never forget taking Miss M to the library to see Santa at 12 months old and watching her rock out to the music from the Zumba class.  Actually, the first time I really felt her move a lot when I was pregnant was when I went to see "Rock of Ages" (she has good taste in music, too).  Littlest has developed a cute little foot tap and head bob whenever she hears a song she likes.  They both adore the Dance N Beats DVDs, as I've shared in previous posts.  Miss M will ask for her dance class several times as week and it's a great way to get her wiggles out when the weather isn't conducive to playing outside.

Music is a great way to teach academic and social concepts as well as rhythm and coordination.  Miss M has great memory and will sing whole songs to us.  We love "Daniel Tiger" in our house and the little song snippets that they use to teach various social skills.  Miss M isn't potty trained yet but she will sing the whole potty song to you, listing the appropriate steps.  We also use the "Use your words" and "When You're Feeling Frustrated" tunes a lot and they really do help her calm down and let us know what she needs so we can avoid or short circuit many tantrums.

The rhythm of music and the rhyme of the words makes it fun and easy for children to learn not only the song but the concepts behind the words.  We've been singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to Miss M since she was littler than Littlest and she has known these body parts for a very long time (and face parts) as a result, giving her an awareness of her body and an understanding of how she is like us (since we all have the same body parts).  Later we used it as an opportunity to compare and contrast her body to our cats, another important language skill.  She also knows several alphabet songs (thanks to Little Baby Bum on YouTube) and will always stop on C, J and M to tell us which member of the family's name starts with that letter.  She can count to 20 because of music as well and is learning about rhyming words, which will be very helpful later when we start working on phonics more directly.

For Circle Time, Mother Goose Time has taken familiar nursery rhyme tunes and re-written words to them that help teach a concept for each unit.  I like that the tunes are familiar because 1. it makes it easy for her to learn something when she's only learning different words and not words and music and 2. it shows her that she can play with words herself.  She made up new words for "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" last week and it was fabulous (at least, I thought so).

So far, Miss M's favorite Mother Goose Time Circle Time songs are "Big, Big, Big Blue Whale" from last month (she likes to do it in the bathtub) and "Roots Bring Food to Plants".  Both of them include actions and I think that is why they appeal a little more to her than other songs.  She is very physical and likes to move (as attested by the fact that I can't get her to sit for more than 10 seconds most of the time during class).  If your child likes to move, I'd recommend teaching him or her finger plays or whole movement songs.  YouTube is a great resource for this (although make sure you preview the songs first, I've had a few close calls...).

This is preschool, not prep school.  I want my girls to develop a love of learning, not just be able to recite lists of facts back to me at an early age so I can impress my friends on Facebook.  I am also exploring the possibility of homeschooling for future grades so it is important that I learn the ways that help my children learn best.  Music has shown to be an early and effective favorite so it is one we will continue to use, with our Mother Goose Time materials and many others available to us on the internet and through the library.

What are some of your favorite musical collections for preschool age children?

Under the Ground

We had a lot of fun with school on Wednesday, even though I was sick.  Daddy was working from home and joined Miss M for class.  We learned about roots and worms and played several fun learning games.

Madeleine has decided that using binoculars makes everything more scientific so I gave her a pair of free ones we got from listening to some sales pitch a few years ago.  They're light and fun for her to use, which she does any time we have to look at or for something in school.  She calls them her "noclars" and if we try to start class without them she gasps, holds up her hand and says "Wait, wait, need my noclars!" and goes running with that cute little 2-year old wiggle to fetch them.


We actually did the Soak It Up activity on Tuesday and that was really neat!  We looked at the roots of a weed I pulled up, sang the song of the day about how roots bring food to plants (she enjoyed doing the actions to that) and did this little experiment with two cups of colored water.  I didn't have the red food coloring called for so we used blue instead (which Miss M insisted on liberally applying to the water by herself) and ended up with this lovely green by the end of the day.



I used the worm cards to make a game to teach color words.  I wrote the word on a piece of index card (using the appropriate color marker so right now she's mostly matching color to color but at least she's seeing the way the word is spelled) and spread the worms on the rug.  Daddy wanted to participate so he held up a word and told her the sound it started with and she searched for the matching worm.  She seemed to have a lot of fun with this game so we will be doing it again.


I modified the Digging for Y game a little.  We started by playing "What's Missing?".  I showed her 3-6 objects, she covered her eyes and I removed one of the objects.  She was able to tell me which one was missing every time.  To make it a little more difficult, I starting hiding the object in a blanket and she had to guess what it was by feeling it.  This was a great way to practice descriptive words like hard, soft, squishy and bumpy.  She loved the game.  We took turns being the hider and the guesser. It went on for a much longer time than I had allotted to it but since we are at home and not on a strict schedule, I have the room to be flexible.  I really love that I can let her spend as much time on a learning experience as she wants without feeling pressured to get to the next task.

The worm painting was lots of fun.  Since she was the only kiddo today, she used two of the worms provided in the kit.  She insisted that her worm needed eyes, a mouth and a nose (that's the blue dot between it's eyes).  It's been raining so much lately, now that I'm feeling a bit better, I think we will go on a worm hunt later so she can see them in person.





For the matching game, we went through the pictures and talked about the animals and plants that live under the ground, then I hid one set around the room and she used her trusty binoculars to find them and match them to the second set.  I'm not sure how she would do playing a true memory game with them at her age but for now, this was fun and she learned the names of some new critters.  Later in the evening we read one of her favorite books about a rabbit who takes a nap in his burrow and she could really see how his house was under the ground.  I love being able to link new concepts with familiar experiences!

I cannot say enough how much I love these materials.  They are so great for teaching a variety of concepts as well as giving us fun activities to do throughout our day.

Playing with Dirt

We started our gardening unit today, learning about soil and seeds.  The girls loved playing with the included pattern blocks, making little "garden" rows of shapes and then stacking them to make castles (because who doesn't want a castle with a fairy tale garden?).  It was a little hard to transition to the next activity because they had so much fun with the blocks so they will probably be pulled out for Miss M on a regular basis outside of school.

They practiced writing in dirt.  I've seen this done with salt before but this was a first for me.  I had a bag of potting soil so I put some in our beloved IKEA plates.  Since they have nice high sides, it worked well to contain overspill and they each had their own to write in (we sometimes have a hard time sharing still...). It was also a very nice morning so we moved outdoors for this activity and they seemed to like the change of scenery.  They used plastic spoons (also from IKEA, love that place) to write their first initials, then patted it smooth and started again.  I wrote their names on the provided name tags with dry erase crayon so they would have a model to look at.  When they were done with that, I simply dumped the soil into my as yet unfilled pots on the patio.  They spent a little time tracing their names with a different color of crayon and then we moved on to actually planting our seeds.

Miss M and I planted peas a few weeks ago and a watermelon last week that is just poking its leaves about the soil and Miss H planted peas and strawberries at her house so they've both had some exposure to seeds and gardening.  We looked at the little plants and talked about where they were planted and what they needed to grow, then they filled their little pots with soil, sprinkled on some grass seed and enjoyed watering them (hopefully not too much...I guess we will find out).  It should be fun for them to watch the seeds sprout over the next couple of weeks.

Both girls really enjoyed the Jack and the Beanstalk story.  I used my flannel board and just put double sided sticky tape on the back of the laminated story pieces.  They took turns adding and removing  pieces as directed.  This was another fun activity that will probably make it into our daily play area.

I had planned on making snack with apples, peppers and peas so they could see the seeds inside but I gave my husband the last apple for his lunch this morning and the peppers were not as perky as I remembered them being so we settled for peeling open sugar snap peas and talking about how they were actually eating seeds.

While I prepared the snack, they drew pictures of themselves in their gardens, glued on pictures I cut out of magazines to add flowers and trees and then had some fun framing themselves before finishing off their masterpieces.

If the weather holds up, I hope to take Miss M and Littlest to the tulip festival a few towns north of here tomorrow.  I love being able to find ways to bring what we are learning in school to other areas of our life.  This is so important in helping to cement information and make it truly relevant.

End of an Ocean Adventure

We finished off our ocean theme yesterday and today with a lot of really fun activities.

We reviewed the letters O, W, X, S, T and F while practicing story skills using the story set.  We made up a story about Diver Dan and the animals he sees while he explores the ocean.  I wrote the letters on little cards and the kids took turns choosing one and then finding an animal that started with that sound to put on the story board for Diver Dan to find.  After each addition, I would say "Diver Dan saw a ____, a ____ and a ____." while pointing to each one.  It was fun and it kept their attention pretty well.

Miss M loved making the mask and flippers although we had some trouble keeping the flippers on their feet without them tearing.  I think I will be tearing off the back, punching holes on the side and using yarn to tie them in place.  They had fun "swimming" in the living room while we set up for our next activity.

We made a shipwreck hideaway out of the always useful diaper boxes, pillows and a blanket.  They had too much fun darting in and out as fast as real fish that Littlest just couldn't stay down for her nap and insisted on joining them.  After talking about how sometimes boats sink in the ocean and fish use them for their homes we played the folder game "Shipwreck Hideaway".  They loved their little fish playing pieces and had a hard time keeping them on the board but we were able to get some good color recognition and counting practice in.

Today we reviewed the numbers 1-10 with a fun fishing game.  I taped a long piece of yarn to the big fishing pole piece that was included and wadded up another piece of tape at the bottom.  The girls took turns "catching" a fish and naming the number.  When we had caught them all, I started naming the numbers in order and whoever had it got to throw their fish back (in a nice, orderly line, of course).  They seemed to enjoy it.

We also practiced the concept big, medium and little with the fish cutouts.  They each caught a fish that matched their size in the group (I was big, Miss M was small and our friend was medium) and then tried to find things around the room that were the same size.  That turned out to be a little hard (although they could both find things that were bigger or smaller) so we used Duplo blocks to measure the fish and counted how many were needed for each one (sorry for the blurry picture, I was using an iPad and trying to wrangle kids at the same time).

The bilingual books were fun to put together.  They colored them, then I had them identify the page numbers, read the text to them and pointed out the initial letter for each animal so they could figure out which one to put on the page.  They have so much pride in having made a book, it's the most adorable thing to see.

We finished off our journals today and I realized I've been selling these kiddos short.  Each journal entry includes a dictation element which I assumed they were too young to understand so we hadn't been doing them.  However, Miss M decided she was "so hungry" that they had to have snack early and I decided to see what would happen.  What happened was they did a lot better than I thought they would!  Yes, they needed some examples of what they could say to fill in the sentence but after a little while they both came up with their own ideas that made sense in the context.  This is a picture of Miss M's journal entry.

Another fun craft and a game rounded out our ocean experience.  Both girls preferred to stamp the inside of their submarine portholes rather than decorate the outside so that's what they did.  I had some glittery fish stickers they added as well.  Instead of gluing down the shells, we stapled them loose in between the plates where they can be used as a counting game (how many shells do you see? how many shells do you see if I shake it?).

I was really excited about the submarine addition game but the girls were more than a little distracted by the introduction of both of their baby siblings and we didn't finish it (I also didn't get a picture as I was trying to keep Littlest from eating the game pieces).  I think I'm going to have to keep it out to work with Miss M even as we start our journey into the garden (the May theme) on Monday.