Jumping back into school in January can be the worst. It's like wrangling a bunch of cats and trying to get them into water. Trying to pull them away from their new Christmas belongings and their warm beds that have been occupied a little longer in the mornings can be a real good time. To keep my own sanity, I always like to ease us back in. Usually by the beginning of the second week, we're back in full force.
Kohen is the least hardest kid though to get to the table. That unopened box of Mother Goose Time goodness drove him crazy over Christmas.
Toward the end of the break, I opened up our box and dove in to see what would be in store for this month.
Our theme is Baby Animals.
We'll be tackling the letters Gg, Qq and Yy, the numbers 5 and 15, the hexagon shape and will talk about what it means to be gentle (Lord knows we need that around here with all these boys).
Our weeks will go accordingly:
Week One: Waiting For Baby
Week Two: Carrying Baby
Week Three: Keeping Baby Safe
Week Four: How Babies Change
Each week we start out with asking what We Know about the subject and what We Wonder about the subject. This is the perfect way to introduce anything to kids. By asking these questions, we get the wheels turning in those brains of theirs and get them excited. This gives us the opportunity to celebrate what they already know and to recognize that there is so much more out there to learn!
This week started out with a bang! We talked about all the animals that grow in Mommy's bellies and how they nurse from their Mommys when they're born. Well, y'all know we have Krozby here and he nurses and oh how quickly Kohen was to ask if Mommy was like a pig then. Um, sorta? I guess?
Oink. Oink.
Regardless of me being compared to a pig, it was fun to watch Kohen use his Pig Counters to see how many piggies could nurse from the Momma Pig he made with his PlayDoh. Along with Imaginative Play, we also use these counters for math. These are great for doing addition, subtraction, making patterns and sorting! We also talked about litters and how many baby pigs a Mommy Pig can carry in their tummy at one time. Imagine the look on Kohen's face when I told him they could carry 8-12 at once!
Further into the week we talked about baby animals that grow in eggs!
Our Theme Poster is down low so Kohen and Khloe can explore as often as they'd like to, not just during school hours.
We opened up the conversation by allowing Kohen and Khloe to point out the animals on the Theme Poster that grow in eggs. We talked about what the temperature might be like inside the egg and how long we thought it would take for an egg to hatch.
Mother Goose Time includes something called an "Invitation to Create". I love these! Sometimes kiddos just need some motivation to get their own creative juices flowing and this does just that!
We used crayons and watercolors to design and decorate our eggs. Even the big boys got in on this project! For us, doing a discussion while their hands are busy helps them to retain more. So we did just that. They worked on their eggs and we discussed more about baby animals, the patterns that are shown on the eggs in the photo and the "wax technique" they were using to create their designs.
Good start to a great theme!
Please note: I received these materials and resources from Mother Goose Time free of charge in exchange for me telling all about our experiences using their materials.
You can check out their website here.
Please note: I received these materials and resources from Mother Goose Time free of charge in exchange for me telling all about our experiences using their materials.
You can check out their website here.
www.mothergoosetime.com
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