Make and Play ...

There is so much to each box of Mother Goose Time! 

So I want to highlight one of our favorite activities we do in this post. 

It's the Make and Play!

 A Make and Play activity consist of three parts:

1. a card showing an example of what the project could look like

2. supplies to make the project however the child would like to

3. an activity for the child to do with the project they made

I love the Make and Play activities! These allow the child to focus on making something and then to use the energy they've been saving up while sitting still to use their creation in action. 

On Monday we made Fishy Cups. 

Kohen seems to always surprise me when we do school. Each day this week I started each lesson by asking Kohen and Khloe if they knew of any animals that carried their babies like .... whatever way we talked about that day. On Monday, I asked them what animals carried their babies in their mouths.  Immediately Kohen shouted out fish! Um, totally admitting here that I had no idea fish carried their babies in their mouths until I opened up the packet for Monday. I love being surprised by all that he knows! 

What is it about markers that children love so much? I mean crayons are fun and all, but markers? It's like the jackpot! They took the tops on and off, on and off. And they colored their cups all different colors, we added the fins and tails. We took a bag of Goldfish, one of our favorite snacks, and counted them out into our Mama Fish's mouth. And then of course, we ate them after we "swam" around the house carrying our babies around.

On Tuesday we made Turtles.

When this girl gets focused, that tongue comes out! And I love it because I catch myself all the time with my tongue just like that when I'm concentrating! Ha, like Mother like Daughter. 

After we made our turtles, we let them dry while we tried carrying objects around on our backs like Mama Turtles carry their babies on their backs. This was hilarious and it was a great opportunity to incorporate our word of the month, GENTLE! 

Once their turtles were dry, we took them to the backyard and made habitats for our baby turtles or hatchlings. 

On Wednesday we made Kangaroo Pouches.

Here is another great Make and Play activity we did this week. Kohen and Khloe sat and colored their baby kangaroos or joeys and colored their pouches. We put them together and they spent the rest of the afternoon hopping around the house like kangaroos! I even caught Khloe trying to feed hers a bottle. Such a sweet Kangaroo Mama! 

This Mama is thankful for another great week with Mother Goose Time!

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

Bringing Back Mother Goose Time ...

Hey Y'all! Remember Mother Goose Time? That adorable preschool curriculum we used a couple years ago? Well, we just started back up this month and we're a little excited about it. 

 

Kohen making his Owl.

Just in case you don' know about it, I'll fill you in. So we get this amazing box every month filled with 20 days of pre-bagged bliss for any preschool aged kid. And it is so organized for us Mamas, so it's bliss for us too. Each month there is a different theme and this month we are talking all about Winter In the Woods. 

There is so much included in each month's curriculum. Art activities, themed music, activities for number and letter recognition, manipulative toys, a planner and a scheduled month for us Mamas. There is also everything needed to learn about days of the week, months of the year and the weather.

Right now, we are homeschooling through 4th, 3rd and 1st grade - y'all know this Mama needs all the help I can get when it comes to making our mornings as easy and smooth as possible. MGT does just that for us. 

Kohen is obsessed with animals. 

All of them. All the kinds. Ocean animals. Woodland animals. Dogs, cats. Even beavers and turtles. So when I saw this month included days that were all about animals that lived in the woods, I got excited. 

The first week was all about different animals we would find if we took a stroll through the woods right now. We learned about deer, bears, hedgehogs and owls. 

There is always an opening question to start that morning off with and I may or may not have died when I asked Kohen what he knew about deer and his response was, "I know I just ate one at Poppie's house!"

 

 One of my favorite things about homeschooling is being able to watch my children use their imaginations, to watch them play, to watch their little minds go to work - so learning about bears this week was my favorite. We took a little walk in our wooded backyard and collected items that a bear would use to create their own den. Kohen and Khloe picked up leaves, pine straw, sticks and bark. Each of them were given a bowl as their den and they covered their bear's home with all of the items they collected. We had so much fun! Each of them had some of the Counting Bears (manipulative toys sent from Mother Goose Time this month) and used those as their bear families.

 So far December in our preschool world has been lots of fun! If you have a preschooler at home, I encourage you to take a look at Mother Goose Time. You'll be impressed at how much goodness can fit into one box ...

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

Our Favorites of December ...

Before you start seeing my brood explode into the Dinosaur Dig with Mother Goose Time this month, I wanted to share some of our most favorite activities from December.

Okay. So no. This has nothing to do with Mother Goose Time. But Good Lord, isn't she the cutest?

December's theme with MGT was Winter Wonderland, if I haven't mentioned that yet. And we had so much fun indulging in all of the fun activities that were specially planned by MGT! We learned about everything wintry and cold, from snowmen to snow leopards. 

There is so much art in MGT, which is such a hit with my kiddos. I've learned over the past couple years with homeschooling that I am a pretty cut and dry kinda Momma Teacher. I am all about the basics. With Mother Goose Time, all of the artsy ideas are done for me - which has made me the Fun Momma Teacher. During our first week, we made Snowflake Stamps. I wrote up an entire post about this great activity! 

Another massively wonderful quality of MGT is the foundation it lays for me to dig deeper. Sure, making these adorably wonderful Polar Bear Masks was fun. As we made these masks, we talked about the characteristics of these amazing animals and how they really keep warm in the Artic. 

Who knew a small paper cup would be the most perfect snout for a polar bear?

Oh and the penguins. These were so fun! And so cute! I had fun telling the boys how penguins mate for life. And even more fun telling them it was Daddy Penguin's job to lay on the Baby Penguin Egg until it hatches. Ha! 

And our last, but certainly not least favorite was making our ice skates. This activity came with an ice skate cutout, a sheet of foil and red yarn. Having the boys wrap the foil around the "blade" was a wonderful activity for practicing patience. This part of the activity took some time and thought processing about just how they would accomplish this task. Lets just say, I slipped into the kitchen for a quick clean up while Kollin, Kolt and Kruz meticulously made their own ice skates. They were concentrating so hard, I don't even thing they noticed I went to load the dishes from breakfast. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop (please send more activities like this).

Here are 2 of 3 finished projects. 

A big 

thank you

 to MGT for making December such a fun month for us! 

February Co - Op ...

Our little Co - Op is growing ...

 

And I am so excited about it!

 

Although my house sounded like there was a herd of elephants running through it last Thursday, I was totally cool with it. It was nine kids to three adults - Amber, Nicole and I were as ready as ever. Amber came with Starbucks in hand - and I'm sure Nicole had her coffee prior. I know I did ...

 

We've went from three families to four and I am praying we continue to grow! Not quite sure how big it will get, but I do know I love seeing my kiddies interact with others their age. I think it is awesome.

 

We all met up on Valentine's Day.

 

Nicole and I are taking turns with hosting and this month we gathered at Nichols' Prep.

 

We painted canvases, which I think we Mommies were more excited about how these turned out than the kiddos - and we made what was supposed to be heart fingerprint trees, but instead the kiddos took this one over and just did their own thing. They still came out as cute as ever!

 

 

Nicole brought over these awesome math games to play that included counting up to thirty, sorting by color, addition and subtraction.

 

I love when they learn and don't even know it - it's a total Mommy bonus.

 

Eating all the candy hearts afterwards - Kiddie bonus :)

 

 

Here is just an extra to make you smile ...

Cloud Study ...

Alongside our weekly subjects in January, we learned about clouds.

 

 

Here is the cloud chart I made for our classroom, I am rather proud of it! The idea for the chart came from The Inspired Apple. We started our study by learning the different types of clouds and eating tons of marshmellows when we talked about the fluffiness of the cumulus cloud. We started with these four, but dropped the cumulonimbus cloud because it was just too hard for my kiddies (and me) to say and picked up the nimbus cloud.

 

 

We were so blessed our first day with gorgeous weather! 73 degrees in January - total Georgia bonus! We laid in the driveway looking up at the different clouds and talked all about their differences. Who doesn't learn better first hand?

 

 

 

The boys had a great first day with our cloud study!

 

 I found these awesome math worksheets for Kolt here.

 

 

Kruz LOVED having a project he could do with us and so he jumped in on the fun when we made our cloud charts. He calls all of the clouds 'coo-moo-lus' :)

If you ever use this idea, the perfect way to make the cirrus clouds (the light, feathery ones) are to put your glue down on the paper (glue stick) and press the cotton ball up and down on the glue. Makes them perfectly wispy!

 

Our next project with our cloud study I even had fun with. Very simple, just use white crayon on white paper - draw your clouds (really could be used to draw anything), then water color over the entire paper.

This was another fun project Kruz was able to participate in. I love when he enjoys doing school with us!

For some more cloud fun, we headed over to Pope Academy with Nicole, Amber and their awesome kiddies.

 

These days are so much for me - I love to hang out with these ladies and what kid doesn't want whip cream and jello in a jar?

 

We Mommies also throw in some learning time with brainstorming what we've learned so far, a couple art projects and some science.
Seriously, a great day for everyone!

 

 

Don't forget to check out pictures from our field trip to Imagine It! Children's Museum where we learned tons about clouds too.

 

Overall, we had a great month with our on-the-side study of clouds. The boys enjoyed our outside time, which we did a ton of and I even learned a few things.

 

Cheers to screaming out the clouds we see out of our car windows from now on ...