Nesting

We finished up our June curriculum on Wednesday (yes, I know June still has a few more days but we are going out of town and I want to start July).  The girls learned about nests while doing some more ABC identification.  I have a cute little bird house and stuffed birds that my nephew handed down to us a while ago so each girl got a baby bird and we placed our alphabet cards in the house.  They took turns drawing a card, identifying the letter and the picture on the back.  We talked about what items were food and which were not.   

They did fantastically well identifying the homes for different people and animals.  I am astounded by their memories.  I think this will be a game we add to our road trip bag and may use it while we are camping to see if we can find any of the homes in the forest.

I adapted the nest building activity a little bit.  I made dough that was supposed to be super silky soft and great for rolling things out.  It wasn't, but it made decent clay and it smelled really good (it's made with hair conditioner and corn starch).  I used a number die, as opposed to one with dots because I wanted to work on their ability to recognize digits.  They rolled the die, identified the number and counted out that many pieces of mulch or lavender to stick in their "nests".  They really enjoyed this and by morning the clay had hardened sufficiently for gentle handling.

One of their favorite activities was "Do as I Do".  We talked about how baby birds learn by watching their mommies and then they took turns giving us instructions.  I was impressed by how well they were able to wait for their turn to be the mommy bird.  After we did this for a while, I brought out the skill review sheet and gave them instructions to fill it out.  They had less attention span for this activity but still pretty well.  

We had snack and watched a YouTube video of Disney's bird show, which was pretty fun.  

Good-bye June, it was great learning about homes.

I am really excited for July's nature detective theme!

Exploring Animal Homes

We had a lot of fun on Monday learning about different places animals live and practicing number and letter identification.

The most popular activity in Miss M's mind was definitely the spider web.  I adapted the written circle time activity to help the kids work on letter identification.  I taped off a web on the floor, wrote letters on various strands and then had them march around it while we played "Itsy Bitsy Spider" from the circle time CD on my phone.  Periodically, I would pause the music (a la Musical Chairs) and they would have to scurry to a letter and tell me what it was before the music resumed.  We played it all the way through with everyone and then Miss M wanted to play 4-5 times throughout the day.  I had to wait until after she was in bed to take pull it up.

Another fun activity was the spider web weaving craft.  We painted one of their hands, stamped it on the plate, then turned the plate around, matched up the palm and stamped again.  There was plenty of paint left for the second set of legs and only getting one hand messy was more easily controlled.  We punched holes around the edge of the plates, wrapped one end of a piece of embroidery floss with tape to make it like a needle (prevents fraying, which can impeded the sewing process) and taped the other end to the back of the plate, then set them aside to dry.

While the handprints dried, we talked about how rabbits live in holes called burrows (I even have an adorable book called "In My Meadow" with a rabbit finger puppet that shows him in his burrow with his family at the end.  I wish I'd thought to pull it out...).  We used the provided dot and number cards to play "Holes".  I scattered numbers throughout the room and the kids took turns drawing a card with varying numbers of dots, then hopped like bunnies to the matching number card.  I was impressed by their ability to count with fairly good 1:1 correspondence with minimal help.  I only did 1-12 because with just three kiddos, going to 20 would have taken longer than their attention spans would permit.  Later that evening Miss M wanted to play this again.  This time I laid the number cards out on the couch and had her pick a dot card, then hop that many times in place before finding the matching number.  She enjoyed showing her daddy how well she can count and jump ("I a good jumper, huh Mom?" was uttered more than once).

We probably should have made the rabbit headbands before we played the Holes game so they could wear them while they hopped but I don't like to have the kids sitting for more than one activity in a row.  I try to alternate between a seated activity (Circle Time, stories, crafts) and active games and it tends to work pretty well.

Our final activity was finishing our webs.  Miss M has been using hers to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" for a few days now.  This will definitely be one that gets saved.

They were ready for snack after that (which happened to be cute rabbit shaped graham crackers provided by one of our friends) so while they munched, I reread the new version of Goldilocks provided by Mother Goose Time (this one encourages cleaning up and taking care of belongings, yay!).  It was a great way to end the class.

The Benefit of Theme Based Learning

Just because she's cute.  She enjoyed eating
cupcakes for Littlest's birthday.

I think it's obvious that I am a fan of Mother Goose Time.  A big reason is because of the theme-based monthly units.  It's great for me because as I plan library and "field" trips or extension activities, I can do it all at once and be done for the month rather than planning something new for each week/day.  I also think it makes it easier for the children to absorb new information when it is placed in a context that has become familiar, rather than adding a new theme daily or weekly on top of the academic skills they are trying to learn.  This is especially helpful when working with children who may have language or academic delays.  Teaching the background theme information at the beginning and then using it to house the new skills you are introducing is easier for them than having to constantly learn all new background information and skills on a daily/weekly basis, which can lead to frustration and fatigue.

Additionally, the themes are universal enough that children will encounter them in everyday life, giving them background knowledge they can apply and expand on their own.  This month's theme, ABC House, is a particularly good example since everyone lives somewhere and most children have experience with the various rooms and activities that are done in them.  Miss M saw a book about space in a store recently, remembered our theme from March and talked about how she saw stars and planets on the cover.  Then she started singing "Red, Red Dust" and doing her favorite dance from the DVD.

Themes are also a fun way to practice a variety of skills at one time.  For example, when we made the paper bag houses on Monday, Miss M was able to practice identifying colors when she selected which paper to use, naming shapes (the doors and windows), practicing prepositions (bottom and top), fine motor (coloring and cutting) and language skills as we talked about the house we lived in and all the rooms we use.  We could also relate it back to information previously presented in lessons about houses/places we live.

I highly recommend using themes to teach children, especially young ones whose language skills are developing at a rapid rate.  I like the month-long format employed by Mother Goose Time but would recommend a minimum of two weeks so they have time to learn the background information.  Pinterest has a lot of fabulous ideas that you can put together yourself, or you can save yourself the time and effort and give MGT a try. ;)

Catching Up

We had a great trip last week.  The Dance N Beats CD and DVDs were quite helpful throughout the week.  I brought two lessons to do but other than reading the easy reader book and talking about the Goldilocks story sequencing cards, we didn't end up getting to them with all the other fun stuff we were doing.  I was happy to have them, just in case.

Today is a recovery day at home, getting the rest of the house unpacked and letting the girls have some time where they don't have to get into their carseats, with an emphasis on a lot of playing and moving.  I decided to look through the lesson plans for each day we missed last week and choose one activity to do today.  It ended up being a great time.

ABC Soup:  Miss M and Littlest love their IKEA kitchen from Pa and Avi (my parents).  Rather than try to corral them in the living room for this activity, I joined them in our play area and did it there.  We put the letter cards in a bucket and (sort of) took turns choosing one to name (look at, in Littlest's case) and put in their pots.  When we finished that, we went through them again and looked only at the picture on the front.  I held one up and Miss M would decide if it was something we eat or not and we put them in the appropriate pot.  You could extend that to talk about other categories the pictures might fit into (animals, instruments, plants, etc...).

Paper Bag House:  Littlest colored a picture while Miss M decorated her paper bag and cut out her door and windows.  We talked about why the door needed to be closer to the ground and the windows could be farther up.  She loved getting to cut and is actually getting better at it.  Halfway through, Littlest got bored with crayons and wanted to take the lids on and off of the stamps and markers.  That wasn't my favorite idea for her so I gave her a small container with a lid and a handful of pompoms she could take in and out, which kept her decently happy.

Blowing Bubbles:  Miss M loves to blow bubbles so I thought this would be a fun activity for her.  Littlest kept trying to suck the water up the straw so I decided not to let her try it, much to her chagrin.  She got me back by grabbing one of the containers with her lightning fast hands and dumping it.  Miss M had a blast blowing the colored water onto the paper so it's probably one we will do again but next time I'm doing it outside.

Five Little Monkeys:  Miss M loves our board book of the Five Little Monkeys and for Christmas she got a set of monkeys that go along with it.  We used them as we did the booklet.  It took her one time through to figure out how to fold the booklet appropriately and after that, it was all her.  Littlest liked catching the monkeys when I would detach them one at a time, although it was difficult for Miss M to see her precious dolls in her sister's hands.  It was a good opportunity to talk about sharing things that we aren't actually using at the time.  She kept tearfully chanting the snippet from the TV show Daniel Tiger, "You take turn, then I get back".  I was proud of her.

This was by far the favorite activity today.  She probably went through the song with the book at least ten times.  She tried to take it to bed with her at nap time but I had to say no since I know she'd spend the entire time reading it instead of sleeping and I don't need a cranky version of Miss M later on today.

We have our friends coming tomorrow and I'm excited to talk about cleaning up around the house. :)

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Cars, Boats and Castles

We are going out of town this weekend and will be spending a lot of time in the car.  I am always nervous about what kinds of things I can bring to keep the girls happy without letting them spend the whole time on a device of some sort.  I started thinking about the folder games included in many of the Mother Goose Time daily units and decided those would be some easy entertainment

Miss M loves the puzzles and tangrams so I the RV/hotel shape puzzle and the tangram set for this month and laminated them, then hot glued ziplock bags to the bag to hold all the pieces.  We are also taking some of the alphabet review games from our Ocean unit and the color worm review from last month.  They all fit pretty well in a gallon bag, although I can't zip it closed so I'm considering whipping up a quick little bag (I have so much scrap fabric and a bag only takes about an hour, if I iron as I go).  I bought an inexpensive cookie sheet with a rim at the grocery store and it fits perfectly across her car seat so she can play without losing pieces.  It's also handy for keeping crayons from rolling everywhere or using as a magnet board with a really fun set of dress up magnet bears she got at Christmas time from my mom.

Besides getting ready for our trip today, we did a few activities from the Houseboat and Castle units.  Both girls had a grand time floating boats and other things in our water table.  We brought ladles to see if we could get the containers to sink but that quickly led to drinking the water and pouring it on the sidewalk to make puddles for splashing in.

We have this fun tunnel and a circus tent from IKEA that made a great castle.  They loved racing through the tunnel into the tent and back out.  Miss M flew our pet dragon in as soon as we finished making him (that was a fun craft for practicing prepositions as we placed the body parts on the bag).  She also liked making the crown and was disappointed that the jewels needed to dry before she could wear it.

I am planning on taking some of next week's units with us on our trip to give Miss M some fun activities to do with her grandparents while they babysit so we can go on a couple nice, long dates.  I think they are perfect for leaving with a babysitter or other caretaker, along with the Dance N Beats DVDs.  Any prep work can be done before you leave and the lessons are so easy to present that you don't need a lot of experience working with children to do it.  I won't be blogging next week but I'll let you know how I went when we get back.

Home Sweet Home

We started our new unit yesterday with a very relaxed class after a pretty busy weekend for everyone.

The kiddos used their magnifying glasses to identify items on the theme poster and we talked about the initial sounds and letters the items started with as a review of our alphabet sounds.


We painted houses and will practice writing their addresses (or ages, whichever seems to be easiest when we do it) on them when they dry fully (foam paint brushes are really fun to load and then squish out great gobs of paint with...but it takes a few hours/day to dry).

We also practiced letters with our LeapFrog Letter Factory alphabet toy (this was a great opportunity to practice taking turns, as well).

After her friend left, Miss M, Littlest and I checked out the new Dance N Beats DVD and built a castle with blocks.  It was a little less rigorous day than I had originally planned but I am still happy with what we were able to get done.

Speaking of Dance N Beats, another plug for this wonderful program.  This morning we had to drive to a city about 45 minutes north of us and usually Miss M will ask for her iPad to entertain her in the car.  I have all the music from the past three months on my phone and she has spent quite a bit of time watching the dance routines.  I started the Blast Off to Space playlist and she spent the next thirty minutes doing the routines in her car seat while Littlest watched and then napped.  It was awesome!  We will see how long I can get her to go on our drive to Las Vegas this weekend...

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