Calendars & Coloring Pages

Every month we get a new yellow bus box of curriculum from Mother Goose Time and in return for this very cool box of tools and lessons, I share our journey here on the blog. The girls love it and while Noah is often too old for the lessons (they're geared towards preschoolers), he still enjoys participating with the girls. I want to talk about two of the activities that are always included in our curriculum that Ada Grace & Elly particularly enjoy: the monthly calendar and the letter coloring pages.

In the past, I have purchased a large felt wall calendar that was actually quite cumbersome and a wooden calendar with moving pieces to be adjusted each day. The kids didn't really enjoy either one. That's not entirely true. They loved moving the pieces on the wooden calendar so much that it rarely stayed on the wall, but in the end they learned nothing about reading a calendar from it.
Each month Mother Goose Time sends us a themed calendar with number cards for the kids to add each day. They love it! We have to keep a schedule of who added the last number so they don't fight over it. They also have great fun trying to predict the pattern. Above is a picture of our calendar so far this month...
Can you guess what the pattern is?



Another fun item always included in our yellow bus box: letter coloring pages. Each month the kids learn a few letters of the alphabet through a variety of literacy activities. Since Ada Grace loves to color, the coloring pages are always her favorite! Since each page includes things that start with the letter she's learning, she not only memorizes the letter but also learns the sound and words that start with the letter while she's coloring. This week we focused on the letter G which starts "globe" and "grape." Since grapes are purple and purple is Ada Grace's favorite color... the whole page had to be purple.

Finally, I have to apologize for not snapping a picture of the super fun "People on the Map" math game we played. My hands were full and I was busy enjoying the moment with the girls. We spent a ton of time on this game. Nobody wanted to stop playing and it was a great way to practice sorting, patterns, colors, counting, and even some early map reading skills.
We used our pocket cube and later a large foam die to tell us how many "people" (really cool people shaped counters from Mother Goose Time) to put on the map. I called out continents or colors for Noah and the girls (ie. "Put the yellow man somewhere purple," "Put the blue man on Asia").
We also used the map from the game to play "On the Map," a Community Challenge activity where the kids all got a chance to sing, dance, and put counters wherever they liked on our map poster.