Flasback Fridays: A week in review

March 9-13, 2015

We have completed our first 2 weeks of Mother Goose Time and I have to be honest. When I decided to home school the kids, I was afraid. Afraid of so many things. Would they like it? Would I like it? Would they take it seriously? Will they really want to do this every day?

I am blown away at their response to this program and what it has done for my own mental well being. It is because of this program that we all look forward to starting our day. Gone are the days that Sonia would cry that she didn't want to go to school! We now have 2 kids that wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast and ask for Circle Time. I have pets as well and if Sonia or Daniella wake up before I have finished my morning routine with them they will do some free play in their classroom. As soon as the Circle Time song comes on, they now sing along while they clean up and get ready to transition. 

I am blessed! 

 

Now, let's talk planets! We will be one lesson short each week because we dedicate Wednesdays to our Experience God day but we plan on doubling up lessons on Mondays to make up for it. We also just received Little Goose and will now have special activities to do with Daniella that is age appropriate - stay tuned for that!

Earth

After we discussed that we live on Earth and so do all of the living things, we had a lot of fun talking about aliens! We made alien voices and spoke in our special alien language! I must say that the girls loved their head bands so much, they even wore them to their play date that afternoon!!

 

 

Mercury

Kids learn through play and through their senses. What better way to teach about Planet Mercury. The girls absolutely loved putting their hands in warm and ice water and talking about how it felt. Sonia really understood the concept that this planet is super cold at night and super hot during the day. When I set out the paint to create the art project, she said, "Look Mama, blue is for the cold and red is for the hot." I said, "How did you know that?" She said, "It looks like the sink in the bathroom, red for hot water, blue for cold." It blew my mind that she was able to connect that concept with no help from me! 

 

Of course, Climbing Craters was a hit! We love dance parties so why not blast some music from our Blast Off to Space CD while we explored what the surface of the moon felt like. With the help of a king sized blanket and 5 different sized pillows, we created a cratery place to dance!

 

St. Patrick's Day

We took half of our day to begin our St. Patrick's Day celebration. We started off by reading a book that tells us what the holiday means and introduces us to those mischievious little leprechauns.  After we were done with our book, we went through the pages so that Daniella can point out all of the pictures she saw. She loved looking at the rainbow and this led us to our next project. I set out a bunch of different art supplies and let them choose. Daniella picked paint and Sonia picked markers. Daniella started to work on her hand painting right away while I taught Sonia about the different color order of the rainbow. She was loving every second of it and really wanted to create her own.

 

After all of this we took a 3 hour break and went to an open play space and they ran around and played with friends!

Mars

ACHOO! Mars is dusty! When I introduced this planet, Sonia knew which one it was right away on the map. Pretty hard to miss this red planet!

 

We read the book, Up In Space, and Daniella loved the pictures and counting. Sonia knew all of the letters and their sounds. 

 

I asked her what flies in the sky and she answered birds, butterflies and bees. I told her that Aliens can drive too and talked about UFO's. We went to the art table and began making our UFO's. Again, I laid out a bunch of supplies and let them manipulate them however they chose. For me, this is a beautiful way to see my kids being exactly who they are in the moment and it also shows me where my kids are academically and creatively. 

 

 

Venus

SISTERS! Venus and Earth are sisters just like Sonia and Daniella! I wanted to see if Sonia could tell me what was the same and different about these two planets based on the map and she said they were the same size and different colors. I wanted to expand on this and challenge her and I asked her what it meant when a planet lived closer to the sun! She said Venus is hotter than Earth. BINGO!

 

Every day in circle time we read our sight words and it was wonderful to see how Sonia is remembering them! She was able to read the book, "Look Up," almost all by herself...she was so proud of herself and did a little "I am reading" dance! You go girl!

 

Daniella pointed to the pictures and told us what she saw! Wahoo!

 

Daniella was a little tired today so she wanted to run off and play with her baby doll so she left our circle time and Sonia and I worked on our Planet Patterns. She loves patterns so this was easy for her and fun - we created patterns for about 15 mintues. 

 

We saved Cosmic Carnival for our Friday Fun day so we played today - this game was in and out for the entire day! We also had a play date at the library with 2 of the girls friends!

Mother Goose Time has really brought me closer to my children and my God. Through this wonderful program, I have been given an opportunity to grow with my children on our spiritual path as well as having a bonding, home school experience that I could not have without this very informative and complete curriculum. For more information on this curriculum, please go to http://www.mothergoosetime.com/ or visit them on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/MotherGooseTime.