Storytime Central!

What better way to get children to engage in reading then to get them excited about reading. Here we have stories come alive with colorful character cut outs. I would read the story and every time they heard the piece they were holding called out, they would lift it up! Kept them listening to the story and giggling the entire time!



 After I was done reading it, they took the pieces and acted out their own story. Sisters playing together creatively is a dream come true!

 

There is something magical about seeing young kids with books. Today, they had the chance to make their own books and hear another language. We read the English and the Spanish version. It was so cute to hear them say "conejo" for rabbit.

 



Mother Goose Time had my kids wanting me to read stories all day today. With each story I read they acted it out and then pretended to be the characters afterwards. I even had to refer to Sonia as Belle after we read Beauty and the Beast for quite a few hours! 



Crowing for Carrots?

The crow is a beautiful bird but a nuisance to our garden as we learned with this lesson. So what can we do to scare the crows away...well, we can get a scarecrow, make funny faces and tell them to SHOO. Sonia also suggested we just let them stay and share our food. She's sweet.

Sonia was so shocked to learn all of the different foods that crows eat and what better way to drive this home then with a fun game. We play Old Maid a lot so telling her the directions was easy and she got it right away. She wanted to put the cards down by the crows mouth before we put them to the side. You know, just to make sure he eats. Ha!

 

Boo! We scared the crow away with the scarecrow card! Sorry about the sideways picture but I couldn't rotate it and it just goes with my life, perfectly imperfect.

 

Now that we found the scarecrow, its time for our logic and math skills. We counted all of the cards she was able to feed the crow before we found the scare crow. Then we counted all of the others that she didn't get to feed. We talked about which pile had more and less. And then we played again and again!

 

 



 Fine motor skills and lacing! I had this one left over from the carrot lesson and Sonia wanted to do this one too! So here we are lacing and cutting! (and more sideways pictures)

Each day with Mother Goose Time is so different and that is why we love it. Some days are more art then others, some are more motor skills and some are just games! It keeps us going and the kids are always excited to see what activities we will do!

Soups On!

We read a beautiful story that shows the power of sharing, caring, showing empathy and never giving up. Sometimes, when we read these kinds of morally good stories, I can't help but take a few lessons away myself. It just goes to show that, no matter your age, you are never done learning.

 

Mother Goose Time is a constant reminder to my girls and myself that we need to continue to be kind, open hearted and loving. The best part about this well rounded curriculum is that from these "feel good" stories, we also learn other skills. Let's see what this activity had us learning.

 

I laid out all of the pieces and supplies and just sat back and watched. This is how my kids learn the best. I allow them to create what they want, how they want and with whatever supplies they would like. Sonia went right to gluing her veggies onto her pot.

Daniella did some sensory work before she began to put the veggies onto the paper. She touched the glue, played with the paintbrushes and then put on lots of layers of glue onto her veggie before it was ready to be placed. She peeled off a few, put more glue and stuck again too.

When Sonia decided to move on to the letter pasta, we spelled whatever words we could with the letters that we had. She recognized all of the letters and showed off her fine motor skills by picking them up one by one and placing them on her pot.

Daniella loved the feel of the pasta and we worked on the letters by singing ABC's while she explored the pasta.

 This was a nice exercise for us. We all had a blast and we even made some soup together afterwards. They did not eat it but enjoyed making it with me.

Thank you Mother Goose Time for giving us another bonding moment where we were able to build our skills together and character!

 

#motivatingmamas Singing With My Kids

My passions continue to become more alive WITH my kids! Just having some fun with my girls while I sing some songs. I recorded a bit for you!

When I sing, I feel a release of negativity, I feel connected spiritually and I feel ALIVE! So, when I can add in my girls too, I simply feel COMPLETE!

Enjoy!

Share a video of you singing!

Celery Magic!

Before I show you our lesson, I just need to be real for a minute. 

What Mother Goose Time is giving us is beyond priceless. A sense of routine, family and bonding during a terribly uncomfortable and very uncertain time. 

My husband and I have decided to divorce. 

We are obviously trying to do our best to make it as smooth a transition as it can be for the girls but they know what's happening, they feel the change and I can see that. Their lives are changing drastically. 

With our Mother Goose Time, together we are able to laugh more, learn more and keep something we all look forward to as a constant in our lives. 

This is a God given gift. Perfect timing as always!

Now, onto our lessons. We learned about stems and we talked about how water travels through the stem to the flowers. Sonia and Daniella both thoroughly enjoyed this experiment and were thrilled to join in with each step! 

When they saw it actually worked, Sonia thought it was magic! So cute!

If you want to learn more about this curriculum click HERE!

www.mothergoosetime.com

Poop, Paint and Prayers...Oh My!

Playing with Poop, Paint and Prayers

Oh, don't get crazy! Of course, I don't mean real poop...WORM POOP

 

Another Mother Goose Time amazing week.

 

Yes, preschoolers learn about gardening all of the time and how flowers grow, etc. My children's old nursery school, even went as far as to have them learn about chlorophyll. Now, do the kids actually understand the concept of chlorophyll? No. They were just being parrots and repeating what the teacher was saying and knew what question prompted the answer, chlorophyll. However, it was still amazing that she was getting an introduction to a new word and she was pretty proud of herself when she said such a big wprd. So, I was happy.

 

But here comes Mother Goose Time who takes the garden theme to a much more age appropriate level and digs (pun intended) so much deeper then just having them mimic words. Not just painting pots, planting a seed and making flowers out of construction paper. We did do those activities but then we went further.

 

We are going to explore the entire garden from soil to seed to flower to animals that live in the garden! We are going to learn how these animals help the flowers. Essentially, we are learning the circle of life in a super kid friendly amazing way!

 

We ended this weeks lesson with learning about wiggly worms!

 

Did you know that worm poop helps the soil grow by giving it nutrients that help the flowers? Let's practice some motor skills and roll out some wiggly worms. Then, lets use our Math skills and have the worm poop 10 times. For our little, we took this time to also talk about colors, shapes and how the play dough feels. And of course, this ties in respect as I spoke to them about respecting the worms when we see them, sharing as they shared the play dough and kindness as we talked about how worms and flowers work together without even knowing it and that is so kind.

 

 



 



After we had our fun with play dough we went on to one of the girls favorite activities...painting. Except this time was different. The paint was set up in their trays with the colors they asked for. The paper was set out that they were going to paint on. But what was missing? THE PAINTBRUSH!

We used the little rubber worms that was provided this month and before we began, I gave them an opportunity to tell me what they felt. Sonia told me it was very long and stretched it out to show me how it gets even longer. Daniella giggled and said it was so soft.

And off they go!

 

Daniella decided the worm took too long and just started hand painting...Sonia followed afterwards too! 

 

Prayer Time

This was a beautiful lesson for both Sonia and I. Daniella decided at this point, she was done with school and took her 2.5 year old self to the other room to play with blocks.

 

I read the cards and all of the prompts to Sonia about how God has given us the Word on how to live our life in a happy, fulfilling manner. He tells us what we can do to be our best self. It is our choice whether we listen to him or not. Pretend it is like a seed, He hands us a seed that says love your sister. You can throw it out the window into the rocks and never see it again or you can plant it and watch it grow.

 

As I handed her the seed, I told her this was the seed of being kind to your sister. I asked what she would like to do with it and reassured her that I would allow her and not be upset with her with whatever choice she made. I was fully prepared to open the window and let her throw it outside if she chose. She did not. She chose to plant it. Each morning, when we water it, we will take a moment to remember what we planted and say a prayer asking God to help us throughout the day to be kind to our sister.

Daniella came back after she heard the fun we were having and wanted to join us. We made our birds. The birds were to reinforce the Bible teachings of when the birds came down and ate all the gardeners seeds. We discussed how we would feel if a bird ate all of our seeds.

I also used this opportunity to sit back and assess where the girls were on an educational level. I did not tell them what to do at all. I laid the material out and said make a bird anyway you would like. I even paid attention to how they utilized the material and problem solved. The girls are right on target.

The yellow legs were used by Sonia as "cutie marks" like the my little ponies have"

 

 

Great week thanks to this great program. We took the gardening theme on a field trip and went to the Old Westbury Garden. Check out that blog post too.

 

Also, to see how what other  Mother Goose Time bloggers are up to you: Click Here!