Learning about Migration with Mother Goose Time

Last week, we continued our monthly theme Weather by learning about how animals react to different kinds of weather. We studied hibernation and migration.  The kids found these lessons really interesting, especially the activities from our Mother Goose Time curriculum.
We are blessed to receive Mother Goose Time and the Little Goose adaptation for free in exchange for sharing our journey here on our blog. We are really enjoying telling our readers all about the things we are learning, what we like best, and how we use the curriculum with three very different kiddos.

Thursday, we focused on migration with literacy activities like Moving Animals where the kids had fun with the pocket cube (one of their favorite Mother Goose Time manipulatives). They took turns tossing the pocket cube and pretending to migrate like the animal pictured on the cube. Ada Grace loved swimming like a fish and Noah's favorite was flying like a butterfly.

Ada Grace waiting to see which animal she can pretend to be next

Next, each child created their own Butterfly Wand with an activity that gave them the opportunity to practice fine motor skills and fly around the yard like butterflies. The wands were similar to the hand kites my children love, so they were a big hit!

Noah's butterfly wand "migrating" around our yard

Since everyone was really enjoying "flying" around the yard together, I decided to let them Wiggle & Giggle  outside too. We listened to Migrate from the Dancing in Every Weather CD while pretending to migrate like the birds in the song.

Elly sharing her pattern links with her mom & baby sister

Finally, we finished up the day by practicing patterns with the links from an earlier lesson and the pattern guide from the Table Top Math activity. Ada Grace loved copying the suggested patterns but Elly had lots of fun creating her own versions.
I really love the way our Mother Goose Time curriculum plays to each child's strengths and always finds a way to get them all engaged and learning, no matter how different their personalities.

Stay tuned to see what's in our November box from Mother Goose Time next week.

Learning about Hibernation with Mother Goose Time

Last week, we continued our monthly theme Weather by learning about how animals react to different kinds of weather. We studied hibernation and migration.  The kids found these lessons really interesting, especially the activities from our Mother Goose Time curriculum.
We are blessed to receive Mother Goose Time and the Little Goose adaptation for free in exchange for sharing our journey here on our blog. We are really enjoying telling our readers all about the things we are learning, what we like best, and how we use the curriculum with three very different kiddos.

On Wednesday, we studied hibernation with a focus on bears. We started our lesson by reading Bear Has a Story to Tell by Philip C. Stead. Since Nana was visiting, I let her participate in story time. The children loved all her character voices and fun facial expressions.

Next, we went outside to participate in some dramatic play with the daily STEAM Station activity. We didn't have a big enough box to make our animal home, so we used Noah's pop up tent. The children all decided to be bears! They had great fun pretending to be sleeping bears in their "cave" and then "waking up" when I announced the arrival of warm weather.

Then, everyone got a chance to make their very own Bear Den in an outdoor activity that focused on communication skills and pretend play. The children enjoyed choosing items like acorns, twigs, and leaves to complete their "dens."

When we got back inside, everyone gathered together to Wiggle & Giggle with Frere Jacques from the Circle Time CD. The kids had fun pretending to go to sleep and wake one another up.
After a few dances, we all gathered at the table to make "bear tracks" in our Tray Play activity. Noah wanted to discuss different animal tracks, so he retrieved several different animal figures from his room to "stomp" through his play dough leaving tracks.

Finally, we finished the day by playing Race to the Cave together. We played the Table Top Literacy version from the regular teacher guide rather than the adapted Little Goose version. I was worried that they wouldn't enjoy this board game as much as they had enjoyed our earlier activities, but I was wrong! Noah and Ada Grace took turns playing Race to the Cave until we had to clear the table for dinner that night.

Click here to read about how we used Mother Goose Time to study migration the next day.

Historic Brattonsville's Spirits & Stories Event

This past week we started a new unit in our history studies. We are focusing on the way people lived long ago. To kick off our lessons, I introduced Noah to Laura Ingalls Wilder with a special sticker book .  Then we planned a fun field trip where we could all take a step back in time.

With Halloween just around the corner, our local historic site, Brattonsville, planned a special event called "Spirits & Stories" where people of all ages could experience life in colonial America.  We attended as a family and everyone enjoyed learning a lot about life on a colonial plantation together.

Noah's favorite activities were apple bobbing, the old fashioned magic show, and the bonfire set up outside the historic tavern.
The girls had a blast exploring the vegetable garden and watching the blacksmith work. Elly also had great fun picking cotton.

Learning about the different "chores" and jobs on the plantation, the dangers of every day life (lanterns get hot!), and the simple pleasures of a colonial lifestyle was a lot of fun for everyone and a great way to start our lessons on the lives of colonial children.

This week, we plan to focus on...
(be sure to check out the links to learn about how you can involve your children in similar activities)

• Play - games like marbles and Jacob's ladder 
• Chores - helping to make candles and churn butter
• Clothing - learning what children wore and basic sewing skills
• Food - traditional baking with a taste testing of course!

"I Can Read" Books Make Reading Exciting!

Our Mother Goose Time preschool journey hasn't always been what I expected.  We are enjoying participating in the monthly themes and lessons we receive in our school bus box free of charge (in exchange for our reviews here on the blog). However, there have been some surprises along the way!

One wonderful surprise has been the "I Can Read" Books and the effect they're having on my older son.  When I jumped on the Mother Goose Time bandwagon, I expected that it would be an excellent fit for the girls (both age 2) and that Noah (nearly 5) would enjoy joining in from time to time with some of the activities and games.

Noah is learning to read this year. The "I Can Read" books from Mother Goose Time are very simple books that encourage emergent reading. I've always believed that to keep a child interested in learning, they need to meet with success early on in order to be encouraged to keep learning and assured that they can achieve their educational goals. The "I Can Read" books are helping to provide that for Noah.

Last week, in our Autumn themed lesson, we started a new "I Can Read" book with different objectives for the girls and for Noah. The girls spent time listening to me read as they flipped through their books and excitedly identifying the things pictured.

For his part, Noah used the sight word arrows to help him identify and point to different words in the book as he did his best to help me read the story. He was so proud of himself! That evening, when his dad got home, Noah insisted on showing him all the words he had learned in the "I Can Read" book.

We are loving practicing reading comprehension with Mother Goose Time's "I Can Read" books and we're learning that one of the best things about Mother Goose Time curriculum is the way it fits a variety of ages simultaneously.

Shadow Fun with Little Goose

We are all having such fun coming together for the activities Mother Goose Time sends us with their curriculum. Our family does receive our packages free of charge in exchange for blogging about how we use the curriculum. However, the opinions are our own and the memories will last forever!

Last week, we had a lesson about the sun. However, the focus inadvertently became shadows. The community challenge in our Mother Goose Time teacher guide as well as the Little Goose companion Tray Play activity both focused on shadows. From the 4 activities I chose that day, the children all seemed to love the shadow lessons and games the best!

Our Little Goose companion breaks down the traditional activities in the older preschool Mother Goose Time guide for younger children like Elly and Ada Grace. Little Goose is intended for infants and toddlers, so it includes activities like Tray Plays, Cuddle & Snuggle, and Wiggle & Giggle to better meet their unique developmental needs and fit their attention spans and abilities in a way that some of the preschool activities don't.

The Tray Play activity from our Sun lesson was all about shadows! Called Shadow Match, this activity helped the girls practice shapes and problem solving skills while learning about shadows and exploring nature.
Instead of using crayons & trays for this "tray" activity, we took the lesson outside and worked on the sidewalk with chalk and various leaves, acorns, and sticks the children gathered. While they had fun dashing around the yard finding treasures for our activity, I traced the shape outlines and filled them in with chalk.

After the children spent some time matching their items to my "shadows," I let them try their hand at making their own "shadow" outlines.

Then we combined Little Goose's Wiggle & Giggle (moving like the sun to music) with the Community Challenge: Shadow Stomp from the older children's teacher guide. Community Challenges are meant to bring everyone together to work cooperatively and I can definitely say that happened! Noah, my older child, really enjoyed helping the little girls find shadows to stomp. The girls followed him around the yard giggling, stomping, and watching their shadows move to the music.

It was a great day.  I'm so glad we decided to combine our lessons and take them all outside. Everyone really enjoyed themselves and I think it was a successful introduction to learning about the sun and the shadows it creates.

Kindergarten Math: Patterns

How does an writer end up with a math kid? I'm not sure yet, but I've got one. My son loves math!
This year for his math curriculum we chose Math Lessons for a Living Education Level 1 from Master Books.

At first it was too easy for him. We had huge battles over writing numbers and counting sets of pictures., but I was convinced that I had chosen the right curriculum for him. The placement test from Master Books helped me decide to start him at Level 1 (even if it was too easy at first).

These days we are in Chapter 6 and the pace is picking up. Also, as I knew he would, he appreciates the format of the book which is set up like a story book and not just a traditional textbook. This appeals to his love of stories, his need for every activity to have a purpose, and helps break up the work so he doesn't get overwhelmed.

Math Lessons for a Living Education weaves geometry through the book instead of having a separate, unconnected chapter. Our recent introductions to geometry are helping point out some gaps in his understanding of basic math and giving me the chance to address the issues before they truly become "issues."

Today, I discovered some holes in his understanding of patterns. Noah thinks patterns are great fun and he enjoys completing patterns like the ones in this printable packet, but he does need extra practice.

However, he struggles with creating his own patterns so I also included a page in the printable packet where he could experiment with creating his own patterns instead of just filling in the blanks. I've included a link to the "creating your own patterns" portion for my readers:

Click here to get cute seasonal images to use in creating your own patterns for extra practice.
A special thanks to My Cute Graphics for providing the free images used in creating the printables shared above.

Portfolios with Mother Goose Time

Our state requires us to keep a portfolio for each child that we teach in the home starting at age five (compulsory age for our state).  
I like to start early. Why? Partly because I am a proud mama who wants to just keep everything their little hands touch. 

I start keeping a portfolio and tracking the work our children do at such an early age because it helps to get in the habit and work out all the kinks before it's "mandatory." 

I started a portfolio of sorts with my son when he was 2.5, long before we discovered Mother Goose Time. What does that first portfolio look like? It's kind of a mess and I missed a lot of great opportunities to save data that could have helped me in the future. 

Mother Goose Time certainly makes things a lot easier in my opinion. We started with their preschool curriculum & a modified companion for toddlers this September. As I've mentioned before, we do receive Mother Goose Time for free in exchange for our opinions here on the blog. 

Mother Goose Time's methods for keeping a child portfolio have simplified my life.  I can definitively say that Ada Grace & Elly's portfolios are much more organized, sensible, and detailed than Noah's first portfolio back in 2014.

What do I save and where do I save it? 

Mother Goose Time has a great "star system" in place that helps me determine what I really need to save. If I follow their system, I won't end up saving every scrap (a real problem for sentimental moms like me), but I'll have enough in 3 months to show work samples and photos from every goal covered in the complete curriculum. 
Since our school year is about 9 months long, that means by the end of the "year," I will have amassed enough data & samples to present a comprehensive picture of where Ada Grace and Elly are at on their learning journey as well as where they excel or struggle.

At the end of a day, I upload any photos to a special file on my computer, store work samples in a folder labeled with the child's name, and make notes in my lesson planner about the activity outcomes. Then, at the end of the month, I transfer the weekly lesson planners, work samples, and photos (printed) to a larger "long-term" folder that we keep for the entire school year. 


So far this month, we have samples from...

• math activities focusing on measurement and listening comprehension
• creative arts focusing on shapes and spatial awareness
• creative arts focusing on fine motor skills and the visual arts

Creative Arts work sample for Ada Grace's portfolio

• literacy activities focusing on print concepts and vocabulary
• literacy activities focusing on emergent writing and concepts of print

Literacy Activity photo sample for Noah's portfolio

• music and movement activities focusing on communication and dance

Good Citizens & Local Landmarks: A Field Trip

We started our history/social studies lessons this year with a focus on good citizenship. My son quickly latched on to the idea of being a good citizen and he eagerly made connections between citizenship and practicing our faith.
First we read a book by Virginia L. Kroll called Good Citizen Sarah. It was a big hit! Noah was convinced that the book was really about his friend Sarah and the fact that the main character also had a friend named Noah was further proof. This line of thought made it very real to him. He began looking for ways to be a good citizen just like the children in the book.
However, I needed him to understand that there's more to being a good citizen than just doing nice things for others in our community. He needed to really understand the word citizen and how it applies to us. So, next we read Being a Good Citizen: A Kids' Guide to Community Involvement by Rachelle Kreisman. In chapter 3, Kreisman suggests children should visit museums and town landmarks as a way to increase their involvement in their local community (part of being a good citizen is being involved).
With this in mind, we set out to visit two local landmarks in our city. First we visited The Freedom Walkway, a memorial to our local heroes of the Civil Rights Movement.

We learned about the Friendship 9 and the sacrifices they made to ensure everyone could be truly free. It was a big eye opener for my almost 5 year old. He had never before considered that there was a time when not everyone was truly free. [It also tied in nicely with our bible lessons for the week about Moses & the exodus from Egypt.] We finished our journey with the Friendship 9 with drinks at the local lunch counter where they staged their protest.

Next, we visited a local historic home open to the public: The White Home.
Since the children were becoming a bit unruly we opted not to set them free inside this lovingly restored home. Instead, we settled for exploring the grounds.

We talked about how the White family is responsible for establishing our local library and how grateful we are to have such a large and well-kept library system to visit and make use of each week. Noah even got to practice his new citizenship skills by fixing a fallen sign telling visitors of the gift shop. The sign was nearly as big as he was, but he was determined to be a good citizen, so I watched and smiled. I'm so glad I get to have a part in not only teaching these lessons but watching as he puts them into practice as well.

Each "field trip" lasted 30 minutes or less, but the impact is still being felt days later as we prepare for new lessons and learn more about our community and what it means to be a good citizen. If you haven't taken your children to tour some of the small local landmarks in your community, I encourage you to try. You'll be surprised by all they will learn in the process.

Celebrating St. Francis

This week the Catholic church celebrated the life, faith, and works of St. Francis during his feast day on October 4th. He is certainly one of the most widely known saints and a favorite of my children so we took a break from our Bible lessons about Moses and Exodus to focus on one of the great saints of the Church.

Making the saints come alive for my children is something that's very important to me and I try to get creative about it without going too over-the-top. My children already know and love St. Francis, but after Wednesday, I think they'll remember his feast day and the lessons they learned too.

If your kids aren't familiar with St. Francis, Francis Woke Up Early by Josephine Nobisso is a favorite picture book of my children about this special saint. The book is a retelling of the classic St. Francis and the Wolf story told with wonderful pictures from the point of view of a child. You can find it here.

We started our celebration by talking about St. Francis and his mission. Then we all went outside to make bird feeders with pine cones, peanut butter, and stale bread. We discussed how providing food for the birds is one way we can show love for God's creatures by helping to care for them.

Since we have pets, we also spent some time praying for our dogs and giving them a little extra love too. We planned to give them both a good bath, but my husband couldn't be home in time and, as he lovingly pointed out, bathing two 90 pound dogs with two young children was a foolish endeavor at 33 weeks pregnant.

Animal Blessing Prayer to use if you're interested in praying over your pets too:

The animals of God's creation inhabit the skies, the earth, and the sea. They share in the ways of human beings. They have a part in our lives. Francis of Assisi recognized this when he called the animals, wild and tame, his brothers and sisters. Remembering Francis' love for these brothers and sisters of ours, we invoke God's blessing on these animals, and we thank God for letting us share the earth with all the creatures.

Combining Curricula with Snow!

Moms that homeschool multiple children have lots of different ways of making it work. Some moms combine curriculum, some moms do different "levels" at different times of the day.... there are hundreds of ways to get it done without losing your mind.
As an added challenge this year, we havebeen figuring out which method works best for us.  My son, five, my niece who is two, and my daughter (also 2 but a sensitive child with a speech delay) all have lessons to squeeze into each day.

I've mentioned before that we joined the Mother Goose Time community and agreed to blog about our experiences in exchange for their complete preschool curriculum which is awesome! Every month, Mother Goose Time has a new theme. This month all the lessons are weather related.
It doesn't always work out that our Mother Goose Time curriculum matches up with my son's curriculum, but when it does... it's magical! Check out what happened  this week when Mother Goose Time's Snow Lesson met my son's science lesson on how snow and ice crystals are formed.

First, we read about how ice crystals form and learned that snowflakes are one-of-a-kind in Usborne's book, Weather by Catriona Clarke.
Then we started having fun Rolling Snowballs, a math activity from Mother Goose Time.

Little Goose, the infant & toddler companion for Mother Goose Time, suggested that children attempt to roll snowballs from play dough and stack them to form snowmen. The pocket cube (quickly becoming one of our favorite tools!) was used to determine how many "snowballs" each child needed to form.
I adapted the activity for my five year old by having him practice adding and subtracting "snowballs" in order to reach the number he rolled on the cube.
The little girls loved smashing their snowmen after counting "1,2,3!" It was such a fun way to practice number concepts together in a way that benefited all the children despite their varying ages and abilities.

Next, we had fun making our own one-of-a-kind snowflakes together. We used Mother Goose Time's Make & Play activity, Tie-Dye Snowflake to get creative and sneak in some scientific reasoning skills at the same time.
In this activity, the kids had fun sharing the markers (Everyone wanted the same colors!) and the best part: watching the coffee filters soak up the water in their cups. Ada Grace hugged her cup to her chest and stared into it for several minutes. That's a lot of focus for a two year old!

Finally, we made the suggested paper snowflakes from Noah's curriculum using paper & scissors. I remember making the same snowflakes as a child, so it was a lot of fun for me. However, the kids needed lots of help from me to manipulate the scissors safely and achieve the desired patterns. The Mother Goose Time snowflakes were much easier to create and more reflective of their individual skills and personalities.

At the end of the day, the kids chose to fold their snowflakes and put them in envelopes to mail to their great grandparents. They might not make it into the portfolio, but they made lasting memories and brought joy to their loved ones with their sweet handmade gifts. The best part? they won't forget all the things they learned about snow & ice after a day like that!