September with Little Goose

We are in the middle of week #3 (clothing) with Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum.  The kids are enjoying it more each day! 

The main participants are my daughter and my niece. They're both two years old (newly two at that!) so we use the Little Goose supplement for infants and toddlers with them. Noah, my almost 5 year old, is busy with his own kindergarten curriculum, but he still likes to tag along for "the fun ones" with the little girls.
Just a reminder, in the interests of full disclosure, we receive our curriculum free of charge in exchange for our honest opinions and reviews.
As the queen of eclectic schooling, I'm often surprised by the ease of lesson planning with Mother Goose Time and the satisfaction it brings me to hand over the reins (for the most part) to the folks who send us the big yellow bus box. For the most part, I love it!

Life is pretty crazy right now between my daughter's speech therapy appointments and preparing for the new baby, so we have mostly been focusing on Little Goose activities without attempting many of the more challenging preschool activities (meant for older kiddos) in the regular teacher guides. We average 4 to 5 activities from Little Goose each day and I'm pleased to report that my daughter's vocabulary is exploding!

Here are our favorite parts of Little Goose:

Cuddle & Snuggle - 

According to Mother Goose Time, the purpose of this curriculum feature is to foster emotional well-being, positive relationships, self-esteem, and confidence.  Since we use our curriculum primarily with two little girls, I feel like that makes this part of the day extra important. Girls in our society often struggle with low self-esteem and lack confidence as they grow and face growing pressure to look and act a certain way. I appreciate having these small moments in our day to spend extra time building a strong foundation with our girls while they are young.

Last week, the girls had a lot of fun with every cuddle & snuggle we did! On Monday, they spent time looking at family photos and naming all our loved ones. On Tuesday, we made silly sounds together in keeping with a focus on one of our 5 senses (hearing). I also let them practice with different volumes at this time. There was lots of giggling as we practiced yelling "MOO!" and whispering "cock-a-doodle-doo." Thursday, my 5 year old gladly participated in one of his favorite activities: rubbing lotion! We talked about our sense of touch as we touched one another's hands and felt the squishy lotion between our fingers.

Wiggle & Giggle - 

[No, not all the curriculum features have such cute names!] However, these are our favorite! Mother Goose Time does offer a more in-depth music and dance curriculum feature for older children that I almost included in my first order. My kids love music and I was thrilled to discover "Wiggle & Giggle" is a daily part of the Little Goose supplement. In case you're wondering... music, dancing, and other activities set to music are also included in the traditional Mother Goose Time schedule for older children as well.

So why include this feature? Mother Goose time understands that physical and mental development are intertwined for young children and physical activities help stimulate brain processing and gross motor coordination. Besides, it's a great way to break up the activities that are more "sit down at the table" type deals.

My children have loved almost every song on the Head to Toe CD included in this month's box! They love it so much that lately I have to be sure it's in the car any time we leave the house. My daughter's favorite songs are "Too Hot to Touch" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." Even my son enjoys the song called "Dancing Shoes." All three kids have a great time dancing around the house, playing freeze dance or hot potato with the music, and singing along in the car.

Check back in a few days for a few of our favorites from Week #2 on the five senses and Week #3 about clothing. The kids are loving it and I can't wait to share it with you!