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

A Week In Words - 03/23

Life This Week - 

It is Saturday night and I am in my pajamas and have been for a few hours. Good Lord, I love nights like this. I need nights like this. 

This week has been great! Although, I think any week following a week like the one before this past one, would be great. Know what I'm sayin'? 

For the most part, life was pretty low key. We did have a play date on Wednesday at the park and (swoon) it was wonderful. It was wonderful to see our friend Livi, it was wonderful to get to know a new friend, it was wonderful to sit and chat to another Momma of five about struggles and such. It was, just, wonderful. 

Here is Khloe and her newest friend and possible future husband. You can check out their family blog over at House Of Kent. 

We did StoryTime for the third time in a row this month. And I can see Kohen start to come out of his shell more and more. He's actually dancing to the 'get your wiggles out' song before the story and this week he pulled his own carpet square and sat with his brothers, without me. Huge step for him! 

This week I took Kruz out on a date, just the two of us. This child. Oh this child. 

He opened the door for me, without me saying anything. He picked O'Charley's for dinner and somehow landed both me and my Momma for dinner. And loved every second of it. After dinner, he insisted on "the place with the big brown cones" aka Dairy Queen. So we hit up the drive thru and ended up with this ginormous-dipped in chocolate-filled with M&M blizzard cone.

I should've known it would've been a dripping mess. We pulled over into a grassy spot and enjoyed our ice cream there.

Kruz: So this is what a date looks like?

Me: Well, yea. Sometimes dinner, but always something sweet. And I normally just talk to Kollin and Kolt.

Kruz: Talk?

Me: Yea, talk.

Kruz: Hi.

He ate about 10 bites (none of the actual cone) and was done. Go figure. 

Here are a few more random moments from the week.

Khloe (and Mommy) are loving her BowBands from Lindzee's Bowtique. And who knew how great Kruz would be at folding socks? Kohen plays in the walker more than Khloe does. And sometimes a baby girl just needs her Daddy to fall asleep with. And yes, I let Kollin drive across the church parking lot. 

I survived. 

School This Week - 

Kollin and Kolt finished up another PACES Math Book this week and have started to learn how to carry in addition problems. It has been fun seeing them faced with a challenge, something different. They both took to it easily though! They are both doing really well in Math this year, they must take after their Daddy in this department.

In Mother Goose Time we are continuing to blast through space. 

One thing we learned about this week was galaxies! We talked about what they're made up of, Earth's Milky Way (the study complete with a Milky Way bar of course) and made our own galaxies! Oh glitter, how I loathe thee.

I always make it a point to do Math with Kruz (and Kohen when he is in the mood to sit still) while Kollin and Kolt work in their PACES books. Every month MGT provides Math Cards with each box of curriculum. 

We love these cards! Love them! And I use them as a building block for more. I'll start with the easier ones and just continue to give him different addition and subtraction problems. We work through the advanced cards together. And those aluminum foil balls are our very own moon rocks. Ha! 

MGT also provides Folder Games each month. This month the game gives us practice on shapes. 

Outings - 

Friday was Family Day and we headed out to see Paddington at the Dollar Theater. It was cute. I mean what I saw of the darn thing. By the time I dished out popcorn, passed the drink around 387 times, nursed Khloe, fed her sweet potatoes and took Kohen potty - I might have seen about 10 minutes of it. But it was cute. 

Who am I kidding? I'll end of renting it to watch it because I didn't see a lick of it. 

Conversation of the Week - 

On our date, we stopped by TJ Maxx and Kruz picked out some new undies. Avengers undies. 

Me: Kruz, why did you pick out Avengers underwear? 

Do you even know what Avengers are?

Kruz: What's Avengers? That "A" - that "A" is for AdvoCare!

These are AdvoCare underwear! 

Favorite Snap -

Monday Night With Mother Goose Time: Dinosaur Dig 1

Hi Mommas! Happy Monday Night to you! 

You We made it! 

I have heard so much feedback from so many of you about Mother Goose Time! I am really excited these reviews and posts are spreading the word about just how wonderful MGT really is. 

When a new MGT box comes in, I usually get to peeping just as soon as the boys (and girl) lay down for naps. 

Each theme will come with lots of great ways to begin setting up your classroom area. Each month you will receive a new calendar, a poster for that month's theme and name tags as well. I love having the name tags on the table (as you have seen I am sure in many pictures). Kohen has already learned how to spell his name aloud, just from having his name tag on the table. Kruz has also began writing his last name, just because of seeing his name tag everyday. And there are no more problems with " ... (insert a brother's name here) is in my seat". Makes this Momma's life a little bit easier.

January's theme is Dinosaur Dig! I can remember when I first told Kruz about MGT. I read to him all of the different themes and Dinosaur Dig was the one he was most looking forward to. Now that it is here and we are right in the middle of it, I would say it is living up to all of his expectations. And mine too! So when Kruz saw his new Dino name tag, he was pretty revved up!

The Dinosaur Dig began with learning about Paleontologists, Excavation Sites, Fossils and Bones. Kruz is learning about what a paleontologist is, the tools he/she uses on a dig, what they do on an excavation site, what fossils are and all about dino bones. 

This was one of our projects when we first started Dinosaur Dig: Excavation Dig

Each art project comes with one of these, a project sheet with different ideas on discussion, exploration, a plan, ideas on creating and ways to play when you are done. 

For this particular project, all we needed to have were scissors and glue. Got it and got it!

So each of the boys cut out their own sets of bones. We were given a small pack of sand and once the pieces were cut out, they all went into the sand where the boys had to 'excavate' the bones. If you noticed in the top picture, MGT provided us with brushes - these were used to brush off the sand and 'clean' the bones once they were found. Once each bone was clean and free of sand, the boys glued their bones on their paper, ultimately figuring out how to piece together the dinosaur skeleton. 

And sorry for no more pictures after this. I'm pretty sure I was refereeing it between, " ... Mommy, (insert a brother's name here) got my bone" and oh, I could just see the wheels a-turning in Kruz' brain on throwing that sand in the air. Geesh! The end results were really cute! Especially since Kollin, Kolt and Kruz figured out they could make cool designs with glue and the sand would stick to it. Fun, fun!

And here is another set of pictures without an end result shot! Ha! Seriously though, Kohen was so stinkin' cute in those Jake undies painting his dino bone! I mean, way too cute not to share!

Everyone painted one of these bones and I had the privilege to paint the dinosaur's skull. Yea, I like to paint sometimes too! We had fun piecing them together to make the shape of our own dinosaur! 

P.S. Yes. Yes, that is my four year old in a Bumbo chair in one of those pictures. Yes, he still fits. Yes, he was stuck. 

When Your Life Looks So In Tune With the Zoo ...

Yesterday we brought back our 'Nichols Friday FunDay'. And the kids were pretty excited about it. These days became more and more infrequent as the holidays came through along with finals too. 

So this Friday we were determined to make it happen. 

We packed a lunch and headed to Zoo Atlanta. 

We sort of went backwards and landed at the kangaroos in the beginning instead of the end. And wouldn't you know, the first interaction I come to is a Momma Kangaroo nursing her Joey. Seriously y'all. It was the sweetest. The Momma just stopped all that she was doing to sit there oh so still and nurse her baby. I feel ya Momma, I feel ya. 

Kohen was so much fun to take! This is the first time we have gone when he actually wanted to interact with the animals and was interested and amazed at how ginormous an elephant actually is. 

I'm pretty sure we stopped and watched the gorillas for at least 30 minutes or so. We watched a few of the Gorilla Children (so proper right?) aggravate the snot out of each other and bang their fists on their chests in such a territorial way and knock each other out of the hammock and on and on and on. I don't think they ever sat still. Papa Gorilla got fed up at some point and rushed in (banging his chest of course) to get those kiddos under control. All the while, Momma Gorilla and Baby Gorilla cuddled on the hill. One Gorilla Child was obviously a teenager and went off to pout after getting in trouble and two of them started aggravating each other again just as soon as Daddy Gorilla turned around. 

Seriously. It was like watching my life in a Gorilla World.

Here are a few more from our day ...

P.S. I think I'll hang this sign up in our home while potty training Kohen -