Horns!

We love our Journals, in fact, Sonia looks forward to it each month. The only thing I regret is not saving the ones from the past because her artwork has become a lot better. Now, I'm not saying she's Picasso but I can definitely see her skills improving and the thought she puts into each cover. Here is Sonia playing her favorite instrument. When I asked her what it was she told me it was one that makes music but she forgot the name of it. Well, alright then.

Today, we learned about horns. The last activity was their most favorite as it involved using a straw the way the musicians do to make their horn make sound. Mother Goose Time instructed us to pom poms and have them use their breath to make it go faster and slower. With musicians, they use their breath to make the sound louder or softer. We also practiced screaming and humming quietly so the girls could see the contrast. The pom pom activity became a race to see who could their pom pom to the end of the table first but it was fun and they had a blast.

From this month, we also were able to learn what a musician is and what music notes are. I loved the way MGT, taught the kids that the music note is the language the musicians speak. I had never heard of it described in this way but Sonia really grasped that idea. She even remembered the Hymn book at church and told me that she saw the language in that book and she knew it was music because of the notes. From there, we were able to talk about why we were at Church and why we worship through song. We then, put on some worship music and used our voices to sing loudly and softly. Once again, MGT brings us teachable moments through simple and fun lessons.

When we were done singing, we played the horn matching game. Not only does this help Sonia's memory, it also helps practice patience while we wait our turns and helps to drive home what each instrument is.

Enjoy our pictures!

 

We also use the preschool curriculum in our home school, if you want to read more about those lessons, read archived blogs or check back for future posts.

 

"Like" us on the Chicken Nugget Mom Facebook page to see what we are up to each day.

 

And for the Moms and Dads, I have begun a Christian based blog, Perfectly Imperfect Life Warriors, and I will be kicking off some great Bible studies to inspire and empower us as we walk with Christ together. Next on the agenda is Proverbs 31:2016 - 31 verses in 31 days! Check it out!

 

 



** Mother Goose Time allows me to follow two of my biggest passions. Educating my children and writing! I am honored to work with Mother Goose Time. I do receive the curriculum in exchange for my blog posts but every word in here is honest and a true example of this curriculum in a multi age home practice.

She Marches to the Beat of Her Own Drum

Don't mind Sonia's hair or that crazy shirt. Some days she just refuses all help from me and as long as we aren't going anywhere, I don't fight with her. She's 5 and she has such an amazing personality. Something happens at 5, they shift from the crazy toddler hurricane and begin to settle into themselves. I'm a believer that, as a parent, my job is to let her guide me and allow her to become her own person. My job is not to shape or form her into what I think she should be. Now, this doesn't mean she gets to stay up until 1am watching YouTube or eat candy for breakfast (every day) but it does mean that if she wants to wear a crazy tie dye shirt and not brush her hair for the day, I am all for it! If she finds an interest in painting one week, it's my job to find and guide her through that and support her all the way. This brings me to Mother Goose Time.

It is December and the theme is Sights and Sounds. Today, we created our own drum. Now, normally Sonia will just color her own way and follow the instructions and be ok with that. However, today she asked to see the final product in the Teachers Packet and wanted to do it just like it. We had an extra 2 plates, so I did it as well. I have found that when I work alongside her she will be more interested in peeking over and trying to do exactly what I am doing. If she can't, she will ask for help and I will do hand over hand instructions. Believe me, this took me quite awhile to figure out but once I did, the frustrations ended and we began to enjoy school a lot more.

It can be quite frustrating to verbalize instructions and not have them understood but when you can show them, it shows them that it can be done, that you can help them and it also calms you down because we all know a little arts and crafts is a stress reliever!

This was a great craft and a few days later, we are still playing with it! Take a look at our pics and let me know what you think!

We also use the preschool curriculum in our home school, if you want to read more about those lessons, read archived blogs or check back for future posts.

 

"Like" us on the Chicken Nugget Mom Facebook page to see what we are up to each day.

 

And for the Moms and Dads, I have begun a Christian based blog, Perfectly Imperfect Life Warriors, and I will be kicking off some great Bible studies to inspire and empower us as we walk with Christ together. Next on the agenda is Proverbs 31:2016 - 31 verses in 31 days! Check it out!

 

 



** Mother Goose Time allows me to follow two of my biggest passions. Educating my children and writing! I am honored to work with Mother Goose Time. I do receive the curriculum in exchange for my blog posts but every word in here is honest and a true example of this curriculum in a multi age home practice.

God Wants Us To Follow Him

First, let me call myself out and take accountability. It is clear that we did the Experience God package in November WITH our Halloween decoration still up and I am just posting this now. If this doesn't exemplify that I am NOT a supermom and just a plain old regular mom who happens to be a Believer in Christ and home schools, I don't know what does. I do apologize for not being as timely as I should be but can promise you that I am human and I'm doing my best. I am still a work in progress, just like you.

Now, let's get to why you are really here. Well, there could be a multitude of reasons. You could be checking out my writing style for employment or book publishing purposes, you could be a person who is here solely to roll their eyes and critique and judge me, you could be here because you are a great friend and want to support me or you can be here because you would like to see how I use Mother Goose Time during our faith centered sessions. Either way, I hope that you will leave here knowing that Jesus does love you and wants you to be happy. Just look at these children's faces in the pictures - loved, happy, intrigued, etc. That is not because of anything I do, it is all because of Christ.

Each month, we get this amazing box with a school bus on it delivered right to our door. It is essentially like Christmas every time! Inside of it we get the curriculum, lesson plans and supplies we will need. It is a different them in each box. During this session, we spoke about how God wants us to follow him.

You have the option to do it daily or once a week. I have been trying to figure out a way that it works for all of us and for this session, we did it a few times a week (hence the wardrobe changes). My children are 3 and 5 so short bursts of information is always better and most of these are hands on fun games and/or crafts so they are excited to do the "God work".

There are many different activities given in the package but I will highlight just two in hopes that you will love what you see and hop on over to Mother Goose Time and order your Christian Program today!

Now, any project that involves tracing hands and/or feet Daniella (3 years old) jumps right into (pun intended). So, when I explained that we were going to be tracing our feet today she was very happy. We did this to symbolize that we will use our feet to run to Jesus. He does not want us to walk to him slowly, He wants us to run fast. Jesus loves us so much that he cannot wait for us to come to Him. I also asked them how they can show they are walking with Jesus. Sonia (5 years old) wrote in her foot that she can love, hug and pray. Daniella decided she will give her picture to Jesus. Here we are, in foot print mayhem.

Now, our favorite (possibly of all time) art project was the moveable art. With detailed instructions and the right amount of supplies for each child, we were able to create a craft that we could move up and down to show us walking towards Jesus. Side note, one other great thing about Mother Goose Time is that, not only, do they provide detailed instructions, lesson plans and a well thought out and designed curriculum, they also provide most of the supplies that you will need to create the activity per child. This means, you know you always have everything you need as long as your house is stocked with the staple items i.e. tape, glue, scissors, etc. and that you won't be left with a cabinet filled with an overstock of craft supplies!

So, before we started our craft we talked about ways we can walk towards Jesus. Kindness, love, compassion, forgiveness. Sonia also mentioned that lying and hitting her sister is not walking towards Jesus and I used that teachable moment to discuss with her that, though, Jesus does not want us to do those things, He will always forgive us so long as we run towards Him and try our very best to learn from our mistakes.

Of course, a craft is never just a craft with a Biblical lesson. MGT incorporates fine and gross motors skills, patience, sharing and so much more.

Let me know what you think of the craft!

 

Here's the most important part of this program, as with any Christian based program, MGT teaches us lessons that keep us talking most of the day. We carry out our lessons in our daily lives. We have crafts that we can hang on the wall or play with that evoke even more questions or memories of past lessons. It's truly a blessing to have the opportunity to teach my children with such a quality, well thought out, Bible based company.

 

 

 

 

 

We also use the preschool curriculum in our home school, if you want to read more about those lessons, read archived blogs or check back for future posts.

 

"Like" us on the Chicken Nugget Mom Facebook page to see what we are up to each day.

 

And for the Moms and Dads, I have begun a Christian based blog, Perfectly Imperfect Life Warriors, and I will be kicking off some great Bible studies to inspire and empower us as we walk with Christ together. Next on the agenda is Proverbs 31:2016 - 31 verses in 31 days! Check it out!

 

 



** Mother Goose Time allows me to follow two of my biggest passions. Educating my children and writing! I am honored to work with Mother Goose Time. I do receive the curriculum in exchange for my blog posts but every word in here is honest and a true example of this curriculum in a multi age home practice.



  

Holiday Fun with Mother Goose Time

Let's be honest, in the day of Pinterest, we all get a tiny bit of jealousy creeping up in our brains when we see all of these wonderful holiday inspired crafts. Now, I don't know about you, but I know that I do not have the vision to make these ideas a reality nor would I buy the right supplies, no matter how detailed the instructions were. However, with my monthly Mother Goose Time box, I am given everything I need, in just the right amount.

My favorite new edition is the Celebration Kits. In this blog, I will feature Thanksgiving and Christmas. They supply you with enough supplies for 10 children so that you can share with your friends or if you run a day care, you can invite parents and their children for an open house. What a great idea!

I have no idea how or why this is but it seems that the stores around me skipped Thanksgiving. I couldn't find any craft ideas at all and, as I stated before, buying random supplies with no clear cut directions won't help me. Heck, even if I had clear cut directions, I'd still fail...truth.

What do you think of when you think of Thanksgiving craft ideas? Turkeys, pilgrim hats, feather head bands, etc. How about a big 'ol turkey with feathers that you can write what you are grateful for and pin on the turkeys body? Yep, MGT thought of that. However, I didn't take a picture of it, ugh. Sorry!

This was our FAVORITE activity to celebrate Thanksgiving. We love painting and we love painting with anything other than paint brushes. So, here we go painting corn by using the good 'ol popping packing sheets and orange and brown paint.

 

 

Now, for Christmas - let's see - we all think of cotton ball snowmen, sugar cube igloos and maybe a paper plate Santa but how about some Santa's on a stick! After we were done making our Santa sticks we used them in our dramatic play area and created a play. Fun times!

 

 

 

 

When I think about how special the holidays this year were because of the quality time I shared with my girls, my eyes well up in tears. This holiday season was, by far, the hardest year as it was my first as a single mother. The emptiness I felt, the guilt I carried, the sadness I tried to hide were all forgotten as soon as we opened up our box to create with MGT. Though this may be just another curriculum to some, this curriculum was a sent to me by God, for more reasons than one, and it has truly kept me smiling through a very dark time. Thank you MGT!

 

** Mother Goose Time allows me to follow two of my biggest passions. Educating my children and writing! I am honored to work with Mother Goose Time. I do receive the curriculum in exchange for my blog posts but every word in here is honest and a true example of this curriculum in a multi age home practice.



 





Trucks

Mother Goose Time always gives the girls an opportunity to play together and today as no different. We learned about different means of transportation for this theme and here we are diving into trucks. First up, a nice game that helps Sonia teach her little sister Daniella. It helped us learn letters and colors as well as social skills like sharing and waiting turns.

Next, we constructed our truck. They had a lot of fun making the trucks but even more fun filling the back of their trucks and hauling it around!

"Like" us on the Chicken Nugget Mom Facebook page to see what we are up to each day.

 

And for the Moms and Dads, I have begun a Christian based blog, Perfectly Imperfect Life Warriors, and I will be kicking off some great Bible studies to inspire and empower us as we walk with Christ together. Next on the agenda is Proverbs 31:2016 - 31 verses in 31 days! Check it out!

 

 



** Mother Goose Time allows me to follow two of my biggest passions. Educating my children and writing! I am honored to work with Mother Goose Time. I do receive the curriculum in exchange for my blog posts but every word in here is honest and a true example of this curriculum in a multi age home practice.

Tiny Book Worms Was a Huge Success!

For months, I would see Tiny Book Worms post on social media and I would scroll through the pictures of the current months box and think how much Sonia would enjoy it. Something would inevitably happen and I would be distracted and never order. Finally, in November I saw the preview box and I was looking for some Fall supplements for our homeschooling curriculum and it was perfect!

A few weeks later, my package was here. Now, the funny part is, when I was talking to the creator, Amy, I had no idea she only lived 10 minutes from me. This made this product move up on my "love" list even more. A local moms product! You know me, I'm a big supporter of mom and pop, so this was right up my alley.

The product states that the content is for children ages 2-4 but I did the activities with my 5 year old and she had a blast. My 3 year old is not quite the sit at the table and play kind of kid. She is a music and movement, sensory learner. I will say that the activities, in my opinion, were for a bit older than 2's and 3's and I would say that they are more for 4's and 5's. But either way, it was fun, Sonia had a blast and it was a great way to review the concepts we had learned in the past through art.

I read the book to her and she loved it. I really enjoyed that the book was interesting and also educational. After we read it, we went outside and looked at all of the leaves and it sparked up some conversations on trees, roots, etc. Any book that continues education after you close it, is amazing. Great pick!

There were some activities that were in the box that I did not get the chance to take pictures of because we were really enjoying ourselves and, honestly, I forgot. I hope Amy doesn't mind but I took pictures from her Facebook page. One of them was letter learning and she provided clothespins with the letters F A L L on them and leaves with the same letters. We matched the clothespin to the leaves and practiced spelling the words FALL. Sonia is very interested in spelling and she began asking how to spell other words and we spent another 15 or so minutes just spelling random words together.

The November box, also introduced a new concept for Sonia - glyphs. She provided a list of questions and Sonia had to answer the questions by placing the stickers in the appropriate spots. I forgot to snap photos of this activity as well because we were working together on this and we both thought it was a really cool concept. When she is playing teacher with her sister, I hear her instructing Daniella to create a glyph. For example, if you are right handed, place the sticker of the apple under the tree, etc. Each child's picture would be different, depending on their answers but here is a finished project from her page.

Sonia is a diva - the ultimate diva. So, if there is ever a chance for her to create an accessory that she will don for the day, she is all in. She also really enjoys patterns and this next activity combined both. She was one happy kid. She knows that patterns repeat themselves at least 2x and we had created the pattern with the leaves provided. She glued them on, created her headband and became the patterned leaf princess!

Lastly, we set out to graph. I enjoyed that we could do this activity once or many times depending on how you wanted to. You could either stick the stickers on the paper for a one time use or use the sheet protector provided and just place the stickers on the sheet protector without sticking them for multiple uses. We graphed the different color leaves and then I challenged her with adding and subtracting. The leaves were great counters and this activity was a great way to review her graphing skills!

I will say that all in all, I give this product a stellar review. We had a lot of fun with this box and, more importantly, Sonia genuinely enjoyed it. She referred to it as her "special box". Decembers box looks like a ton of fun also!

The product is affordable, fun and wonderfully organized so that you do not need anything other than the box and a child (ha). The instructions are easy to understand and the concepts are enjoyably learned through educational play based activities.

To order your box, please head on over to her Facebook page or email alcavs19@gmail.com.

For more product reviews, "like" me on Facebook.

**This product was given to me at no charge for review. I reviewed this product and gave my honest opinion. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this blog.