Sick Days with MGT

Miss M developed a bad cough last week and Littlest has since fallen into the ranks of the ill with her.  This week consisted of a lot of cuddling and jammie-wearing and not a lot of traditional "school" as we normally do it.  However, we still needed things to do because apparently you can't keep two toddlers in bed while they are sick (at least mine refuse to stay there).  Thankfully we had our Mother Goose Time curriculum so I didn't have to rely entirely on Daniel Tiger, Diego and Little Baby Bum. I picked a few of the activities and we added them in sporadically throughout the week.

The frog craft was fun for both of them.  I had them sponge the paint on with cotton balls.  When it was dry, they put the eyes on while I curled the tongues.  Miss M refused to use is as a headband and instead had me punch holes in the side and add ribbon for a mask even though I explained that it didn't have eye holes so she wouldn't be able to see.  She worked around the issue by wearing it like a visor as she hopped around looking for bugs to eat.

The stretching spinner game has been a hit all week long.  Their favorite stretch is the one where they rock on their tummies.  They have a hard time balancing on one foot but can do it if I hold their hands.  We go through all of them two times, holding the stretches for 6-10 seconds while we count out loud.  Littlest is trying to mimic us as we count, which is super cute. 

"Reading" the book by
naming the letters in the title.

We read our book of the month, "How Are You Peeling?" by Saxton Freeman and Joost Elffers.  It's actually a Caldecott winning book boy Scholastic.  Littlest wasn't as interested in it but Miss M loved looking at the pictures and deciding how the vegetables were feeling and coming up with scenarios to explain their emotions.  I was really impressed with how well she was able to determine which emotion most of them were illustrating and she could give me examples of times when she has felt that way.  I think it is vital to give children the vocabulary they need to express how they are feeling and why; it greatly helps to reduce frustration and gives them a better outlet than throwing a fit (although we still have plenty of those here).

One of the units this week was kicking but I couldn't get them to actually do any of the written activities.  So, I used the general theme as inspiration to get out our pop-up soccer goal and balls they got for Christmas have a kicking contest, which they loved.  This activity kept them entertained for about 10 minutes without irritating their coughs too badly.  You could use a large box (if you order from Amazon with any regularity, I'll bet you have one around) instead of the goal or just put down a tape line for them to get the ball over.  Littlest is in more of a rolling phase than a kicking phase but she liked to watch her sister.  I am trying to teach her to kick with the side of her foot rather than her toes, especially since we don't wear shoes in the house so they aren't protected, but for now I've been overruled by the threenager.  I guess this is one of those times you let them learn by experience, right?

Her look of glee belies the nasty cough
and fever she's been battling all week.

One evening before Daddy came home, we had some fun jumping over a ribbon.  Littlest tries her best, crouching down and giving the cutest grunt as she heaves herself upwards but she still hasn't quite managed to get both feet off the floor at the same time.  Her sister does her best to model proper form.  They jumped forwards and backwards and used the ribbon for a balance beam and eventually a road for their cars as they naturally transitioned into other interests.


We finally got out our geoboards, which I had been nervous to do since Littlest still likes to put things in her mouth.  Both girls were fascinated with making shapes on it although each needed some help in stretching the tighter bands.  I can see this being a great way to develop fine motor skills.  With Miss M, we concentrated on making a variety of shapes and with Littlest we worked on color recognition as I named the color of the bands she chose to use.

I personally loved the throw and catch craft/game.  I set out a variety of markers, crayons and stickers and let the girls decorate their cups while I tied the pompom to the string.  To insert the craft stick, I used scissors to punch a narrow hole that allowed the stick to poke through but kept it pretty tight so it doesn't fall out easily.  I taped the other end of the yarn to the stick inside the cup and it worked quite well.  I have fun seeing how many times I can catch the pompom.  Both girls were excited to try but quickly grew frustrated since they aren't quite coordinated enough yet to make the game work.  Littlest wandered off to play in her kitchen and Miss M invented a new game using additional pompoms from our craft stash.  She rolled them to me following a color pattern she made up (red, blue, green, red, blue green) and then dictated how I was to roll them back to her (blue, blue, green, green, red, red).  She liked it until Littlest showed interest and then we were done.   I tried to interest them in playing golf with them using paper cups tipped on their sides and large mixing spoons but the moment had passed.

I tried to sneak in a little more school with the ball patterning strip but Miss M refused to do it as written because the strip with the pattern wasn't long enough to fit the second repeat and she could not be persuaded that it was ok to put the cards on the table next to it.  A new game was required so we flipped the cards over so she could pick one and sort them into piles on top of the correct ball on the strip.  At the end we counted them and determined which we had the most and least of.

Fingers are crossed that better health is on the way since we are headed out on family vacation at the end of next week.  I am also hoping to have a chance to do more the fun activities in our final week of Food and Fitness.

The Language of the Body

We had Mother Goose Time with just the three of us today, thanks to a little cold caught by Littlest over the weekend.  We focused on body language, especially facial expressions since I think those are a little easier for really young children to understand.

After our morning devotional and while they ate breakfast, I let them watch Daniel Tiger.  This episode focused on times you might feel sad and was a great opportunity to point out the body language of the children when they were sad and how it changed when they got happier (it also reinforces that it is okay to be sad sometimes and you don't have to immediately feel better.  I love this show).

Following circle time, I brought out several of the daily posters from the past few days and we looked at the children in them, describing how they felt and how we could tell from the picture.  Miss M enjoyed this activity and started playing the part of teacher, leafing through them and questioning me about the pictures.  It was a good way to keep her engaged while providing vocabulary and explanations she may not possess yet.

Surprised.

I supplemented some of the activities today with games I found on the internet to help teach the girls more emotional vocabulary.  One idea was to draw faces on circles and use them on a flannelboard to create an emotion word version of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".  I found some pre-drawn faces by Googling "facial expression pictures", printed and laminated them.  Miss M liked identifying the emotion on each face and putting it in the familiar pattern (we have all the books in the Eric Carle series so she knows it really well).  For example; "Happy face, happy face, what do you see?  I see a sleepy face looking at me."  We talked about how we could tell what the emotion was by how the mouth and eyes were lifted or scrunched.  She practiced making her version of the emotion when I pointed to it.

The second game was simply another emotion matching game, similar to the one provided in one of last week's day bags but with a few more expressions to help boost her vocabulary (like exhausted, disgusted and bored).  I printed two copies of this free worksheet, laminated them and cut one apart, leaving one whole for an easier matching game.  The girls took turns picking a card and matching it while I explained the emotion and when they may have felt it.

I attempted several times to introduce the ASL activities but the girls weren't interested today.  I'm going to keep the poster out and try again another day.

Checking out the craft and trying
to make the sign.

They both scurried to our craft table in the kitchen when I announced that we were going to make a project.  They both love having their hands traced, even though it tickles.  I love the multiple mementos of their tininess that I get to save to look back on in the future.  They put the glue on the hearts and placed them in the palms of the hand cutouts, then (their favorite part) sprinkled the green sand on the top.  The project is meant to be a hand signing I love you in ASL, with the third and fourth fingers bent down.  My husband and I use this sign all the time with each other and Miss M has tried imitating it when we do but was adamantly opposed to bending down the fingers of her project so for now it is a high five with a sparkly heart.

Have you noticed that she's always wearing her crown?  She loves this
craft from June, even though most of the jewels have fallen off from constant use.  I rue the day it finally gets destroyed.  It is her "most favoritest" accessory (in her own words).

Making Friends

We have started our September unit, Friends and Feelings.  During circle time I had the girls look at each other and list off the attributes that were the same while I pointed out things that were different.  There is a great episode of Daniel Tiger on this very concept if you're looking for a fun media supplement.

The girls enjoyed learning how to say hello in different languages.  I think I will make this a part of our circle time from now on and maybe look up "goodbye" in the corresponding languages so we can use them both.  We played the matching game by first handing a card to each girl and placing the rest face down on the floor.  I turned their name tags over and picked one to decide who got to go first (I will be doing this from now on, it worked really well) and then let that girl turn over one card.  If it matched her card, she got to keep it and pick another card to match on her next turn.  If it didn't match, she turned it over and kept the original card.  It actually went pretty well.  Littlest even had a card to match but her attention span conked out before her second turn, which was fine.

Making the friend puppets was a huge highlight.  They named them after themselves at first, although Miss M later changed hers to Elsa Tiger.  Littlest liked playing with the feathers and glue and scribbling on paper but otherwise wasn't much interested in the puppet itself.  The older girls zoomed around the downstairs, rescuing each other while I cleaned up the art supplies and set up the bus sorting game.  The puppets were then used to help the buses get to their appropriate stations at the store, church, library, museum and park.

Littlest has lots of fun putting things away so after the girls finished sorting the buses appropriately, I let them zoom around some more and focused on labeling the bus colors while Littlest put them in the container.  We then dumped the container and sorted them together.  It took a lot of modeling but she did get the concept after a while.  With Miss M attending a three hour playgroup on Fridays now, I see a great opportunity to use my MGT materials with Littlest (which she will love having unfettered access to with her sister gone).

It was a really successful beginning of a new unit.  I think the focus on labeling emotions and interacting with friends will be great for Miss M as she meets new children in the playgroup and encounters opportunities to express how she is feeling in an appropriate way.